Success is never as straightforward as it seems.
A thread on the early days of founders that look successful today, but have felt just as lost as the rest of us.
🧵...
Gusto's CTO, @edawerd on his project mygrub.net:
"2 weeks after launch, and no real traffic. What should I do?
...I applied to YCombinator with this, but was rejected. Maybe for good reason =("
Years later, he founded Gusto, worth $3.8B.
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22959
Coinbase CEO, @brian_armstrong iterated (and failed) his way through...
- BuyersVote.com
- Ribbot.com
- Blockchain.com
"Took me more than 2 years to get 200 paying customers for my Web App"
He's now is worth $20B+.
news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=b…
Segment's CEO @reinpk could also be found around Show HN, incl. launches of:
- A tool measuring classroom confusion
- The Clip
- TheReelBox
- Markdown + LaTeX math in the browser
And then... Analytics Academy (AKA Segment), acquired by Twilio for $3.2B.
news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=p…
Early on, GitLab CEO @sytses shared their product on HN.
Like the infamous Dropbox launch, he was met with:
"Not able to compete with Github or BitBucket"
"It's ridiculous to charge so much"
"Or you could just use BitBucket"
GitLab is now worth $Bs.
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278
Airbnb was no different. It took time to convince ppl of the vision.
In fact, @bchesky's first post on HN was:
"Ask YC: Anyone still need housing for YC interviews this weekend?"
Guess how many comments? Zero.
We all know how Airbnb is doing today. 😉
news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=b…
If you're curious, here's how I found these:
1. Started with top YC startups
2. Hunted down their HN launches (first instance of the URL)
3. Browsed the founder's posting history
Their story was almost always more non-linear than you'd expect.
Who else has a similar story?
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