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Steph Smith

Apr 19, 2021 • 7 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X

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.

🧵...

@edawerd

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

@brian_armstrong

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…

@reinpk

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…

@sytses

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

@bchesky

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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God this is wholesome.

"A JAGUAR!"

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@jbrowder1

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Interesting to see pushback even in the comments.

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@amasad

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Is it still worth learning to code?
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Would recommend for anyone even remotely curious about code:

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Could it fundamentally change the relationship current and future developers have with code?

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