AMA [W23] - My journey from $0 to $5k MRR in 6 months, and why I decided to pivot
- Thread starter veyhenlo
- Start date
-
- Tags
- startup y combinator
@haydenbehm Y Combinator doesn’t even care if you have a product when you apply. Tons of ppl apply with just an idea and no revenue. Though getting investors and customers is ultimately critical but it’s common for people to pivot after they join YC.
@haydenbehm We didn't get into YC with $5K MRR, we got in with $0 MRR. This is not uncommon, some people reach demo day with no revenue, some people get into YC with an idea 
@iamdayton That's right, exclusively focused on double.bot now.
Previous product MRR dropped a bit when we pivoted because we cancelled some of our bigger $500/mo+ contracts once we knew we could not deliver the same quality of service/updates.
We also switched the product to a full self-serve model with subscriptions starting as low as $40/mo so MRR has not been growing as rapidly but users keep showing up daily
EDIT: If you are serious about it, drop me a line at gonzalo[at]double.bot
Previous product MRR dropped a bit when we pivoted because we cancelled some of our bigger $500/mo+ contracts once we knew we could not deliver the same quality of service/updates.
We also switched the product to a full self-serve model with subscriptions starting as low as $40/mo so MRR has not been growing as rapidly but users keep showing up daily
EDIT: If you are serious about it, drop me a line at gonzalo[at]double.bot
ilovejesusandbeads
New member
@ilovejesusandbeads Yes sir! New product is growing much rapidly in every metric.
For example, usedouble.com 1 month in had ~$100 MRR, and double.bot 1 month in had ~$2400 MRR.
The user base is also growing much rapidly, and feedback is overwhelmingly positive.
For example, usedouble.com 1 month in had ~$100 MRR, and double.bot 1 month in had ~$2400 MRR.
The user base is also growing much rapidly, and feedback is overwhelmingly positive.
@kimmac23 YC is great but we actually haven't launched the new product publicly with YC yet
You can see from my launch post what the strategy was, will post about it in more detail next week but what has been working great for us is shipping new LLM capabilities to our users as soon as they become available (for example, this week we shipped Llama 3 minutes after the official announcement). That attracts people who really care about having access to the best tools, that's our target audience.
You can see from my launch post what the strategy was, will post about it in more detail next week but what has been working great for us is shipping new LLM capabilities to our users as soon as they become available (for example, this week we shipped Llama 3 minutes after the official announcement). That attracts people who really care about having access to the best tools, that's our target audience.
sunshine1973
New member
@sunshine1973 Ty! We won't integrate with AI agents, we'll build our own.
kreative333
New member
@kreative333 Appreciate the kind words! What are you working on?
kreative333
New member
@veyhenlo a platform for free education (as in how YouTube is free, but creators still make money). latest elevator I have is "Coursera for a traveling tutor's in-person courses": rockstart.ai
it's hard being a nobody, but I'm advancing slowly, but surely. I'm my first user (will teach a gamedev course this June). I have big dreams, my motivations being equally social and financial. so far have contacted 50 people/accelerators, ~10 replied with rejections or 'come back later' (which is good actually), got 2 interviews (in-progress). I'm just doing what I'm supposed to: build and reach out.
it is indeed pretty hard getting so many rejections, but you kind of get used to it
have some side projects as well, but the moonshot is this one. I'd love working on the next Google for LLMs (ranking algo for distributed LLM providers) or web4 (brainnet) or 100s of other high-tech low-social ideas I have.. but I always had this "adult-in-the-room" feeling where while everyone is distracted with the shiniest tech, few are actually doing the what matters most in the grand scheme of things, as it's often unsexy/boring -- and in this case it's education, which also "it's competitive" and "market too big", but is there something more important in this world than fixing education? literally 99% of all of our issues stem from poor nurture and uneven access to opportunity world-wide
what gave me a huge confidence boost is Peter Thiel's 0-to-1, according to which I'm pretty much on the right track
it's hard being a nobody, but I'm advancing slowly, but surely. I'm my first user (will teach a gamedev course this June). I have big dreams, my motivations being equally social and financial. so far have contacted 50 people/accelerators, ~10 replied with rejections or 'come back later' (which is good actually), got 2 interviews (in-progress). I'm just doing what I'm supposed to: build and reach out.
it is indeed pretty hard getting so many rejections, but you kind of get used to it
have some side projects as well, but the moonshot is this one. I'd love working on the next Google for LLMs (ranking algo for distributed LLM providers) or web4 (brainnet) or 100s of other high-tech low-social ideas I have.. but I always had this "adult-in-the-room" feeling where while everyone is distracted with the shiniest tech, few are actually doing the what matters most in the grand scheme of things, as it's often unsexy/boring -- and in this case it's education, which also "it's competitive" and "market too big", but is there something more important in this world than fixing education? literally 99% of all of our issues stem from poor nurture and uneven access to opportunity world-wide
what gave me a huge confidence boost is Peter Thiel's 0-to-1, according to which I'm pretty much on the right track