Notes
Zepto
They started delivery for Mumbai aunties through a WhatsApp group. The thing is, make a basic MVP, don't wait to make a perfect tool because you will deviate. Start with deploying a clunky one then listen to customers and be free to pivot your idea.
Why 10 minute delivery? First, go to a world without physics and make the customer experience the best. Then bottom down to what's possible and try to get as close to the utopic vision.
Being naive is good in business. You can break first principles and have fresh perspectives.
Have a clear no barrier between customer and founders. Talk to the power users.
Razorpay
Had a phone number to directly call the founders. Took all calls and called customers for feedback. They were the first payment gateway and the first UPI gateway. Don't hesitate to bet on cutting edge tech, be radical. Be fast.
Emergent
Think global from day 1 because it's the same effort to deploy for India and for the world. Pick a not good and fancy but very hard problem to solve. Build trustful bonds with customers. Think very big from day one.
Groww
Indian users care about price transparency and seamless experience. Reduce question marks about your startup, the less the better. Obsess over UI/UX. Be the power user of your product, use at least 2 hours of your product. If customers say they don't care about a feature launch that is extremely bad. But "I hate it" or "I love it" is what you are looking for.
On the question of how all 4 cofounders got along, note everything throughout the startup journey. Two things you should write down: 1. Value system, what we stand for, what we are, what are we solving. Write this with pen and don't change. 2. Strategies, this is written in pencil.
Final 2 advice for everyone: don't listen to old fellas. If your startup doesn't feel like work, just enjoy building.
YC Partners
Live in tech, cutting edge is the way to win the AI boom. Stay away from traditional people. Traditional advice like be a doctor is not practical because AI will change everything, stay away from their advice.
On founders becoming younger and younger, Jon Xu said nowadays it's not how fast you build something but how fast you learn that determines it. As you have seen in the entrance, "live in the future and build what's missing." Younger fellas tinker into the future and make it. And for now that means push the use of AI and find what current LLMs can't do, find bottlenecks and then fix those gaps or expand AI. What we need is tinkering, product clarity and vision, and a skilled person for building quality.
Also not quite a good advice but a proven one, as you can see all successful companies are not the first in their fields. They are a copycat but then find something that is working and beat them with a better product. Whoever is successful in a field is not the first, the one who gets successful maybe the 41st one.
Startup vision clarity is important. In YC, as you have heard the stories, they all pivoted from the idea they applied with. We are not investing in the idea but in you the founder.
From Ankit Gupta about building products in one line: intentional, insights from customers, and encapsulate everything into a product. A project is something people make that is not assigned to them but enjoy working on it.
As said earlier, they take people not ideas, and what they do is find them using the same fundamental truths about founders obsessed with tinkering and customers. Those truths never change from the age of Edison. Also read the Paul Graham essays "Relentlessly Resourceful" and "Do Things That Don't Scale."
Advantages of coming here: hiring from 6 companies in this audience, connections, credits to help start building.