Excited to launch @zenfetch (YC W23) with @GabeVillasana . Zenfetch transforms your web browsing into a personal chatGPT and search engine. How it works ⬇️ (1/5).

Oh I realize I made a typo here meant to say feel some pmf.

Starting to feel some is actually worse than pivot hell in many ways.

Facebook promoting angry reacts in the feed was an awful moral decision but in a culture of PMs optimizing metrics i see why it happened. Anger and arguments are so captivating that they must have insane impacts on engagement time.

Seems like a lot of people are upset that a YC company copied @linear then open-sourced it. Hot take but I don't think it matters. Linear is the gold standard for project management UX - you can copy their design but you can't copy their direction. You'll always be one step.

“The pain that you hold is yours. There is not a single pain quite like it. Nobody else on God’s green earth can feel this pain, or have the indescribable feeling of pride you will have when you overcome it. This pain is not your curse; this pain is your privilege.” - Arnold.

RT @gregerativeai: My prayers have been answered. Just discovered a YC startup building exactly that. .@GabeVilla….

3️⃣ Making money is good. Honestly just didn't have a third reason here but wanted to follow the rule of three 🙃 Let me know what a good third reason would be!.

2️⃣ People try harder when they've paid for something. As Bobby puts it, users need to have "skin in the game" to get to the aha moment. If a product is free, you might try it but you're not committed to figuring out a way to make it work. Once you pay for something you're much.

1️⃣ Only users with a painful problem will pay for the product. When Zenfetch was free, we got all sorts of conflicting feedback from people who were never serious about the product or the problem we were solving. As soon as we transitioned to paid, these users disappeared and.

You should make it harder for people to try your product. When @GabeVillasana and I were figuring out how to monetize Zenfetch, we debated: freemium or straight to paid? I was heavily pro freemium until I read @bobbypinero's piece on how freemium impacted @heyequals. Here were.

Whenever archaeologists don't know what something is. "yes of course this must be a religious object".

RT @GabeVillasana: How we learned from experts part 1: Product Design. Early on in the chatGPT / AI hype cycle, many prominent venture capi….

RT @GabeVillasana: At the start of @ycombinator, we only knew one thing well: how to write code. Shortly thereafter, we asked our group par….

The takeaway from these learnings? Set yourself up to survive as long as possible and good things will happen.

3⃣ Startups are a game of attrition. As @daltonc put it: "just don't die". Companies who survived early struggles, multiple pivots, and hurdles are now finding their groove and early signs of PMF. By surviving long enough, you increase your "luck surface area".

2⃣ Investor narratives change quickly. Post demo day, the narrative was that most AI startups were "wrappers". Now it's shifted to "UX and industry focus create a moat". While this narrative is playing out, another is rising: "agents and workflows will create differentiation".

1⃣ The biggest reason companies fail at this stage is co-founder breakups. Long-term, Product Market Fit is crucial, but in the past year, I haven't seen a single YC W23 company die from lack of PMF. The only failure mode was co-founder breakups.

We actually don't use any AI. It's just @GabeVillasana and I responding to all of your questions. P.S. we love @chatwootapp