Calvin Chen
@CalvinnChenn
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a hill i’m willing to die on:. anyone saying they are more productive working from home every day is lying and wants to slack off.
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hot take: people who code in public social settings (bar and/or party) are just looking for approval and to “look cool”. the real grinders just stay in the office and work.
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for founders who say they grind but don’t work weekends. you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me
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the average founder:. move to sf. vcs invite you to events mon - fri. go to all of them and network. cowork at shack15 and make more friends. sat and sun more events obviously. never build, never talk to users. — don’t be average.
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wake up every morning to this. how can you not get fired up
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how to get an internship at a startup as a student:. 1. find startup (seed-series A).2. email founders your GitHub and past projects.3. tell them you will figure things out on your own and won't slow team down.4. ask for small non-important tasks to prove your worth for free.
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being young, technical and ambitious is such a gift. if this is you, being around the right people is critical or else your ambition is fleeting.
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Harvard + Stanford MBA's are disproportionally delusional about their value to startups. outside of startups, their pedigree (usually MBB or IB) gives them value, but in startups, value is judged by results and MBA's usually have little track record of individual results.
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Introducing Fetchr, an AI assistant for those who don't enjoy shopping but want the right items, starting with clothes. Fetchr learns about your tastes to tell you exactly what to buy and handles the purchase for you. Sign up here:
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If she’s not as loyal as these OpenAI employees, I don’t want it.
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We sat down with one of the greatest minds in startups @paulg earlier this year to help us brainstorm ideas during our pivot. Life changing experience.
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I learned through YC that speed is one of the most important things when building a startup. But we didn’t have an idea to move fast on. Here’s my experience pivoting and finding an idea.
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a year ago today is when we got into @ycombinator. we were two kids in college with a terrible idea and yet they believed in us. some thoughts on the year and life:. 1/ ~9 months pivoting/exploring.2/ cofounder left.3/ finding new cofounder.4/ finding an idea we believed in.
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non-technical is an identity, not a lack of the ability to code. learning the basics to code is relatively easy, you're just lazy.
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i want to write in a simpler and clearer way, how do you get better at writing?. cc: @paulg.
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@paulg Many of my friends from China who are highly educated actually are educated internationally (UK/US boarding schools and top universities such as Harvard, Stanford, etc). Most of these people actually move back to China post-grad despite even having US passports.
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this is why mba’s get a bad rep, even from stanford. this email told me:. you’re not technical and don’t want to be. you lack the curiosity to learn these things yourself (pretty basic questions imo). instead of having opinions on problems you expect me to tell you what to solve
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who are the new companies with the highest talent density right now?. some that come to mind are Ramp, Perplexity, OpenAI, what are some others?.
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Officially announcing that Kopia is backed by @ycombinator and will be at Demo Day in April!. Kopia is building AI virtual try-on for clothing brands. We help customers visualize themselves in items with one click and help brands increase conversion and reduce return.👇
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met a couple of young founders, top schools and top internships in finance, brought on a FAANG SWE as CTO. they were told by an "advisor" to hire a dev shop for ~$300k to build an app that would take "a year or so to build". my answer was to get a new advisor and fire the CTO.
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there was once a time when my parents were worried that i wasn’t gonna graduate high school. it’s not until recently that my parents believed in me. they’ve seen me dedicate my life to building something great. this felt good.
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it’s my birthday on a Friday night. we’re the last ones here grinding, and i’m loving every second of it.
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Here’s a little more about me and what I’m working on 👋. I love meeting new people so if you want to chat about anything, DM’s are open!
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solo founders are underrated. i used to think i needed a cofounder until i realized that i can just do everything myself. some solo founders i respect that helped me realize this @0interestrates @pk_iv @AviSchiffmann.
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got the chance to meet @vkhosla yesterday and hear some of his takes on. 1/ exciting ideas.2/ key advice for founders.3/ state of AI value creation in enterprise. here are some of my notes!
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day 64 on Fetchr: $17K MRR and growing too fast to keep up. still a long way to go on product but feels good to know people want this
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a lot of younger people have been reaching out asking me about “advice” on what they should do. don’t live a deferred life plan .@sama put it best. don’t live halfassing something whatever that thing is. you should do it with 150% effort and determination.
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an honest reflection of a year and a half of failing around from a college dropout YC founder. many fear being transparent about the hardships founders face in the beginning, I embrace it as growth — here’s to more pain and suffering in the pursuit of greatness
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took us one month of work to build a model that generates the first one. took us another month for our second model. improving at a rapid rate, imagine where we'll be in a year.
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Introducing Kopia, the platform where you can try clothes on virtually. With just one face photo, you can now try on clothing from a variety of brands using AI. Check out Taylor Swift trying on a dress from Reformation. Site: Twitter: @trykopia
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hosting occasional poker/board game nights for those under 25 in SF. just for fun low buy in. we mostly have YC founders, early VCs at Tier 1 funds, and people who are working at companies like Deepmind, OpenAI, etc. dm me about yourself and I’ll add you if interested.
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we're hiring interns to help us with ops. ideally:.- in school.- have good fashion sense/style.- love helping your friends buy things or pick outfits.- preferably female. you will be working closely with me and customers. role is paid, part-time, and remote, starting ASAP.
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I’m deeply insecure that i’m not good enough — this fuels me to work harder, think bigger and constantly look to learn.
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solo founders are either cracked or ngmi, no in-between. it’s also pretty clear which one you are.
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A reminder that although @ycombinator deadline was yesterday, you can always apply late!. We applied almost two months after the deadline with no expectations and somehow got accepted. YC has already changed my life in ~3 months, happy to read any late apps or chat via DM.
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asked Naval what his thoughts were on focusing on product vs distribution
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we’re running an experiment for people in SF — our AI will choose what clothes you buy. you tell us about you and your budget, and what you’re looking for, and our AI will pick what’s best and send it to you. you like it, you buy it — you don’t, i pick it up from you for free
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i gave up a lot to pursue this path. i gave up friendships, relationships, a great job, and sometimes i question if i made the right choice. but ultimately i believe in myself, and i know what i want out of life.
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when we got a @ycombinator interview, we cold emailed some alums to help us mock interview and that helped us tremendously. if anyone wants a mock interview or any advice on the pitch, happy to help.
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day 31 on fetchr and we’re growing too fast. hiring a founding engineer (backend & ML/AI) have to be in sf, 135k + 3% equity. experience doesn’t matter. looking for these qualities. apply below and tell me a time that you were proud of what you built.
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vc reaches out. i say im busy and not raising. they send me a cal invite for tomorrow. ?????
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i’m moving to a hacker house in hayes 👀. looking for engineers or founders, rent is 2-2.5K. the group of people involved in the house are incredibly cracked (backed by Sam Altman & tier 1 vcs, ex-cursor engineer, exited founder).
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a glimpse of a day in the life of a yc startup. don’t forget to like and subscribe.
they said I needed work life balance so I moved the office into my apartment
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the benefit about being in sf is sf-pmf. people love to talk about products here so word of mouth spreads quickly. if you have sf pmf, next is usually twitter pmf and if you can then cross the chasm to the “average” person, you win. in sf most have been using cursor for months.
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I am non-technical and spent last couple of months learning how to code . if you are non technical and want to be a founder, here’s why it’s not too late and why you should learn how to code too. 1/ no better time, ai tools make it 10x easier to learn.2/ you get to actually.
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in nyc and taking ubers instead of waymo. my driver is yelling on the phone while driving crazy — AI is going to replace you and as a consumer i’m ecstatic about it.
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if you are interested in working out of here with an awesome team — we’re expanding our founding team. DM me!.
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there’s two kinds of company cultures that seem to work:. 1) hyped company, tier 1 VC’s, primed to be a rocket ship = work hard to meet expectations. 2) under hyped, not as well known, lean team, underdog mentality, chip on shoulder = work hard to prove everyone wrong.
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If you’re non technical, you’re life as a early stage founder is 100x harder. Yes, I am non technical.
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my guess is being a founder/builder is not high signal for undergrad admissions. many of the top high school founders not getting into MIT/Stanford means school just fundamentally isn’t built for that kind of education. i do regret never applying to Stanford/Harvard cause my.
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welcome our new CMO (chief morale officer) to the team, Dudu!
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give me an engineer that:. didn't work in big tech.has a history of building projects with friends.worked at a startup actually shipping product. odds are that this is the 10x engineer you need to go from 0-1 more than the big tech engineer.
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people in sf should dress better so we’re building an AI personal shopper/stylist. it understands your style, fit preference and size, and will find items/outfits for you automatically within your budget. 33/50 spots already filled in beta, dm me if interested!.
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This can’t be real… can it??. This would be the most boring TV show of all time. It would just be people sitting around a computer all day, taking meetings and coding. How did this get green lighted??
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literally got to sf last night and already convinced I made the right decision. spent the night at a friends place who was one of the top companies in my YC batch, in just one night he helped me get more clarity on our roadmap and what we need to do.
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i sold my company after graduating high school and my parents were disappointed about my grades and that i didn’t get into Harvard.
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genuine question. would you be in sf if it weren’t for work?
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hot take: roles that I’m not hiring for until PMF and most founders shouldn’t hire for either. 1) PM.2) customer support.3) strategy/bizops.4) marketing/growth.5) sales.
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as someone who almost had to repeat senior of high school cause i missed so much class and also had a 2.5 gpa freshman year of college. my advice is to be an average student, not a terrible one. my lack of respect for education was not beneficial at all.
Good students often make bad entrepreneurs.
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People in SF don't know how to shop or dress — . Here's how I used Fetchr's AI personal shopper to help me find new clothes in less than 3 min:. We're onboarding another 100 users this week from the waitlist, dm me for access.
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i don’t want to shop but i want new clothes. fetchr — can you just go find it and buy it for me?. sign up for waitlist :). cc: @_nightsweekends @_buildspace
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you can work on b2b saas to help make someone who hates their job marginally easier. or you can work on a consumer product that, if right about the world, will change how people interact with technology for the rest of time. choice is yours. if the later is you, dm me.
A quote that has stuck with me from a breakfast 18 years ago:. There are few opportunities in your career to work on something transformative, and many to work on something iterative. The first feels like a mission, the second feels like a job. Work on missions.
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one unexpected takeaway from .@ycombinator was learning to communicate in a clear and concise way. incredibly helpful for all aspects of life.
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mock interviewing people for YC and then watching them get in is a unreal feeling. but i always tell them, now the hard part starts, best of luck to F24!.
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we’re hiring a full stack engineering intern. if you’re in school and want to build a startup this is a great opportunity to get a glimpse of what it’s like in the early stages. dm me or email me with a blurb about yourself and the most impressive thing you’ve done/built.
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vcs shitting on founders on twitter never gets old. if you’re willing to publicly shame a founder, i never want to work with you.
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Two months ago we launched @tryKopia, a shopping platform where people could try clothes on virtually. We got thousands of users, many of whom became regular users, and tons of customer feedback (both good and bad). We knew that we had a lot of work to do to improve our model
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Introducing Market — a shopping platform that helps you browse and curate the looks you want. instead of spending hours manually browsing across different websites, Market finds the perfect products from across brands, personalized to you.
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no better way to celebrate my birthday than working with my favorite people. the best present would be for you to sign up for fetchr :)
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i think it’s hilarious how the same people who would make fun of “gpt wrappers”, now post stuff like “the application layer is going to accrue the most value” 🤡.
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Spent 6 months pivoting around and reflecting on what to build. Finally said fuck what is a “good idea” and just build what should exist. Just launched our mvp after a week and generated our first few sales. Excited to start this journey, it’s gonna be a difficult one. 🚀.
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@itsKinjalNandy truly based aren’t at a coworking space. they’re in a room with their team working 6 days / 14 hours a day.
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life update. packed my stuff and moving to sf to continue building @trykopia. there’s just nowhere else that has the most ambitious people building crazy ideas. if you’re near Hayes Valley would love to meet and chat!.
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almost two years ago i left school and moved to sf to join .@ycombinator with no idea. i really knew nothing about building a vc-backed startup and really didn’t know anyone in startups. my partners .@gustaf and .@dflieb really took a bet on two college kids with nothing and for.
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branding/status games mean nothing. the only thing that matter is building something that provides value to people.
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the biggest psyop is that dual monitors equals more production. one screen is the most productive, always.
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massive red flag and pet peeve: when someone reaches out to chat and they are hard to schedule. slow to respond.doesn’t work around my schedule.doesn’t take weekend calls 🚩🚩. if you reach out i’ll usually reply and say call me late 10pm - 1am or weekends.
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Too many talented college students going into big tech with the hopes of learning about building a product/company. You should be going to a fast paced startup, earlier the better.
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most people heavily underestimate what a healthy diet, exercise and 8+ hours of sleep can do for their life.
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this isn't to say an someone who gets an MBA can't operate, but more that they have yet to prove they can and their "experience" is often not relevant. a 20 year old who has built something and got users has more experience than a 28 year old banker/consultant.
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