YC President Stresses Early User Obsession
Y Combinator President Garry Tan reiterated that founder obsession with early users remains a core tenet of the accelerator's 20-year playbook. Citing Airbnb's Brian Chesky, Tan emphasized that the most successful founders are those who relentlessly talk to users to pull feedback from the future into the present. A YC alum separately noted that partners relentlessly drill founders to simplify their company's function into a single, clear sentence.
- YC Partner Gustaf Alströmer recommends founders find their first users on platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, forums, and Slack or Discord communities, in addition to in-person events. He stresses that while it's easier to interview people you know, they may be less honest in their feedback to avoid offending you. - For cold outreach, the goal is to find early adopters who are already desperately looking for your solution, not to sell them on the spot. An effective cold email should be brief (6-8 sentences), introduce who you are and what you do, state the outcome you can deliver, and then provide a clear call to action, like a calendar link. - Before you have a product, you can validate demand by creating a simple landing page that describes your core benefit and includes an email sign-up form. This allows you to build a pre-launch audience and a list of potential users to contact for deeper conversations. - When conducting user interviews, YC Partner Eric Migicovsky advises asking questions about the user's life and past behaviors, not hypothetical questions about your idea. He suggests five key questions, including, "What is the hardest part about [doing this thing]?" and "What, if anything, have you done to solve this problem?". If potential customers aren't already trying to solve the problem, it may not be a burning enough need. - To identify your best first customers, create a framework to numerically score them based on how much a problem costs them, how much revenue they would gain by solving it, and how frequently they encounter the problem. - YC Partner Michael Seibel advises founders to initially source customers from their personal network who are willing to work with an early-stage MVP and are ready to pay to solve their problem. He suggests using 4-5 qualifying questions to understand how intensely they experience the problem before pursuing them. - To create a consistent pipeline of conversations, some founders offer a hands-on onboarding experience, such as a personal Zoom call, which provides a direct line for in-depth feedback. Another tactic is to ask every new user for one referral to another person who might be a good fit. - YC General Partner Ankit Gupta recommends charging early adopters from the beginning, even if the goal isn't revenue. Paying customers are more likely to provide sharp, honest feedback compared to free users.
