YC Future Founder Conference and its impact on me
The Y Combinator’s Future Founders Conference is an event for women who aspire to become a startup founder and want to learn from inspiring, successful entrepreneurial women. I attended their very first virtual event in Nov 2020.
I was struggling with this idea of starting up all by myself — a woman in India, in a man’s world. My partner told me about the YC FFC and I immediately signed up! I’ve learned the hard way that one MUST NOT waste time attending too many conferences and I was afraid this might be one of those. But, I’m so grateful I attended this conference and I can confidently say that I can’t think of a better use of my precious time. It was truly was an inspiring day (in my case, an inspiring night!).
I heard from 15+ incredible women — ranging from founders and investors who have paved the way for the next generation of founders — and wow, their words were powerful. Their advice and talks were both tactical and inspirational. I’ll be talking only about the advice that helped, inspired, motivated, and resonated with me personally at this point in my journey with Spiti.
Jessica Livingston opened the very first talk with a very important topic I had been mulling over for quite some time — a co-founder. BAM! Did I have one? NO. Do I need one? It would be teriffic to have one because they all say starting and running a company is incredibly hard, having another person running the race with you makes a world of difference.
In the next few days, I spoke to a few people and set out to find a co-founder, knowing fully well that this process could take months and eventually I may or may not succeed. One common piece of advice I received was to put the word out. Let people know I’m looking for a co-founder. I wrote down exactly who I’m looking for and who would be an ideal co-founder. At the risk of sounding cliché and perhaps a little strong, I want to say that I’m looking for a co-founder who is as passionate and excited about the problem I’m solving with Spiti and will be in it for the long run. I also signed-up on the YC co-founder matching platform as soon as it launched. I’ve since been trying my luck there as well.
Have I found one yet? NO. Am I still looking for one? YES!
As per Jessica, founders are to have at least one of 3 critical abilities — domain expertise, programming, and ability to sell. I have 2, I’m looking for one with the third. If you are someone who has been meaning to dedicate the next 10 years of your life to building a start-up, I’d love to talk to you!
Make something people want
Luckily, along my career, I had learned the importance of this the hard way. With Spiti, I set out to solve a problem I had. I found two other founders, successfully running start-ups, with the same problem. I found my validation there. With time, I’ve been speaking to more people and I learned that I’m solving a real problem — something that people had been ignoring for a long time since there aren’t good products that solve the problem well enough.
Focus
What you chose to do is as important as what you chose not to do. This sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s easier said than done. I have spent hours pondering over what should go into the MVP, what can be saved for later, and what should be dropped. Hours of research, talking to potential customers, discussing with founders who acknowledged the problem helped me sift through all the ideas.
“..it is going to be harder for you as a woman, it’s not going to be so much harder that it will make the difference between success and failure.”
Since this is not something we as women are new to, I thought this should not deter me this time either.
Tracy Young’s story was very moving and it hit hard. Parts of her early story were so close to home that it immediately led me to think — if she can despite her circumstance, I can too. Her highs and lows were inspiring and parts of her story scared me and other parts really motivated me — the latter overpowered the former. In her story about how she and her team built PlanGrid, the most important takeaway was — life happens. Tragedy is inevitable, so is stress. Shit happens all the time. We have to stay strong and persevere, persevere for a decade in the least. Did that scare me? Hell yeah. Did I want to run away? No, not in the least. If anything, it motivated me all the more to build, ship, and succeed.
Cadrian Cowansage and Erika Hairston spoke about something that I have never done actively — community building. While I have unintentionally built small communities back in grad school, I never reflected on the power of community building. And that brings me to a place where I have to learn the nuances of community building from scratch. Remember I spoke about the ‘not so important’ things I need to push aside for later? Community building is one of them.
Anu Hariharan’s talk was one of the most powerful talks I’ve listened to. Her zeal, energy, empowerment, optimism, and focus are unparalleled. She spoke about a lot of things and there are a few that have helped me shape Spiti.
Skills vs mindset
Two equally important qualities a founder should have.
Mindset is resilience, determination, optimism, and resourcefulness. Keep trying, even when you face rejections and failures. Be optimistic about the future cause no one else around you will. Most people won’t believe in you or your idea in the early days; don’t let this deter you. Resourcefulness in forging your own path in the company and for the company.
Skills — learn to code. I did exactly that after she stressed how important it is. Sure, I’m an engineer by qualification, however, I worked as a developer for less than 2 years earlier on in my career. After she powerfully drove her point home, I picked up where I left off. I picked up on the languages and technologies needed to build the prototype for Spiti. Turns out it’s not that hard to pick up from where I left off since I already had the basics etched in my memory. And yes, it makes a world of a difference when you’ve set out to build a software product.
Work at a start-up
That’s where you will learn the most. I worked at two. I can confidently say that those 4 years changed my life around. The learnings, experiences, relationships I’ve forged in those 4 years are invaluable and priceless. I didn’t realize it then, but those years primed me for today.
Sales
Your ability to sell to your customers, investors, and potential co-founders. I supposed it’s a good thing I did this for years.
Create content
It not only helps with reach but also helps with your own clarity of thought. Among all the other things I’m doing to build and ship Spiti, I decided that this one is of utmost importance too.
The session on legal advice and PR was immensely helpful. For someone outside the US, this session hosted by a few lawyers at YC detailed out the legal nitty-gritty of why and when to incorporate your company, how to go about raising funds, equity between founders and early employees, and other important aspects that we as founders perhaps had no clue about.
Christina Cacioppo’s vibrant and optimistic talk on how she took two years off, learned to code, built, and shipped products re-established that I did the right thing by getting back to coding after all these years. Her delivery was so simple and detailed, yet so powerful and inspirational that I’d be shocked if anyone is still afraid to learn to code after listening to her.
The conference was so inspirational that we immediately set out to create communities on Slack, Facebook, and LinkedIn. These communities are made of women founders/aspiring women founders who are always willing to help, give advice, provide feedback, give pep talks, and have your backs.
Three months after the FFC I wanted to share my experience, learnings, and the impact it has had on me. I want to express my gratitude to these inspiring women for sharing their stories. It has truly helped me along my way while building Spiti.
If you ever get a chance to be a part of another YC’s FFC, do not pass on it. It’s a powerhouse of knowledge, advice, and stories.
