Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:04:34 · Garry Tan, Paul Copplestone
[00:04:34] S1: Is developer even still sort of the the core user that you're going after? Or how, you know, how do you think about it now in 2026? [00:04:43] S0: Yeah. I think that the world where we're moving and at least what we're seeing this year is, like, kind of builders. Builders are coming online and it's, like, a crazy amount of people coming online. The crazy thing about this year is usually when you're, like, our top of funnel, our sign ups are accelerating. And usually when this happens, you see a lot of the other numbers start to decline, activation, conversion. But actually, this year, all of them are kinda going up into the right, which is a bit insane just because the models are getting so good at building. And we're starting to see people who traditionally wouldn't have a software engineering background able to come in and build things. [00:05:25] S1: That's the distinction is, like, builder as in they might not be actually software engineers. Mhmm. They might just be someone who needs to build a thing, and they're just, you know, popping open Claude Code, and then it turns out files only get you so far. Mhmm.
00:05:25 · Garry Tan, Paul Copplestone
[00:05:25] S1: That's the distinction is, like, builder as in they might not be actually software engineers. Mhmm. They might just be someone who needs to build a thing, and they're just, you know, popping open Claude Code, and then it turns out files only get you so far. Mhmm. [00:05:40] S0: Yeah. And in some ways, like, this category of people have all these pent up ideas that they could never convince a software engineer to, like, help them build, and now they don't have to convince anyone. They've got all these ideas that they're churning out. Software engineers still make up a huge portion, but the rate of the growth of the builder segment is is pretty pretty big. Also, like, I don't know where the ceiling is on this one. Like, I I remember our early investors were saying, ah, PLG, product like growth, is gonna tap out at this revenue, and you'll have to start moving into this segment of the market. And there just appears to be no ceiling so far, and I I can't see where it stops. [00:06:23] S1: I mean, that was basically true, like, two years ago or one year ago, but definitely not true this year.
00:06:23 · Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, Paul Copplestone
[00:06:23] S1: I mean, that was basically true, like, two years ago or one year ago, but definitely not true this year. [00:06:28] S2: Yeah. I was just talking to someone actually this last weekend if it's the builder category. It's like a fintech founder just exited his company for like over $1,000,000,000. And he's always been sort of product adjacent, like studying math at like as an undergrad and sort of like kind of could pull together some Ruby scripts but like always needed an engineer to like build the software. And now side projects, he's just building his own stuff and he has all the knowledge from how to build a fintech company. So he can actually build pretty sophisticated just like for his own personal finances like balance sheets and tracking software and knows how to like integrate in with banks. He's writing all the integrations from scratch. It's just like the kind of software that would never have been built even two years ago. [00:07:08] S0: These are the perfect type of builder as well because like developers like me, I have very, like, developer focused ideas and things that I wanna build. But then you've got all these domain experts, and they know exactly the niches of, oh, this is an unsolved problem in my niche, and so they're actually able now to, like, dig right into those niches without having to convince someone else to join them. I think you guys were talking about this, weren't you, in NYC, like, the profile shifting even from from who you're bringing into the cohort?
00:07:08 · Paul Copplestone, Garry Tan
[00:07:08] S0: These are the perfect type of builder as well because like developers like me, I have very, like, developer focused ideas and things that I wanna build. But then you've got all these domain experts, and they know exactly the niches of, oh, this is an unsolved problem in my niche, and so they're actually able now to, like, dig right into those niches without having to convince someone else to join them. I think you guys were talking about this, weren't you, in NYC, like, the profile shifting even from from who you're bringing into the cohort? [00:07:39] S1: I think that if you look at the sort of era of, what, 2022, 2025, there's sort of this real shift thinking like, well, AI is coming, and suddenly having software engineering as a, you know, core... You know, you'd need a technical cofounder no matter what. That was, like, a a mega idea that, you know, really came to the fore at YC during that time period. It was always sort of true, but, like, sort of doubled down on that. And then really in the last year, we sort of said, actually, yeah, builders. Like, we're starting to see people who are able to, like... I mean, the much harder thing to do is to know what to build. You know, being able to build is something that anyone can sort of have on tap now, and that's actually a really cool thing. Like, can you imagine all the things that never would have built exactly for what you said? It's like, oh, we know that people would buy this, we know that there's a problem here, But at the margins, those people couldn't convince an engineer to work on it.
00:07:39 · Garry Tan, S3
[00:07:39] S1: I think that if you look at the sort of era of, what, 2022, 2025, there's sort of this real shift thinking like, well, AI is coming, and suddenly having software engineering as a, you know, core... You know, you'd need a technical cofounder no matter what. That was, like, a a mega idea that, you know, really came to the fore at YC during that time period. It was always sort of true, but, like, sort of doubled down on that. And then really in the last year, we sort of said, actually, yeah, builders. Like, we're starting to see people who are able to, like... I mean, the much harder thing to do is to know what to build. You know, being able to build is something that anyone can sort of have on tap now, and that's actually a really cool thing. Like, can you imagine all the things that never would have built exactly for what you said? It's like, oh, we know that people would buy this, we know that there's a problem here, But at the margins, those people couldn't convince an engineer to work on it. [00:08:39] S3: Do you have some examples, Paul, of, like, apps that people have built on Supabase, maybe just for themselves, are the kinds of things that would have never been built before?
00:08:39 · S3, Paul Copplestone
[00:08:39] S3: Do you have some examples, Paul, of, like, apps that people have built on Supabase, maybe just for themselves, are the kinds of things that would have never been built before? [00:08:49] S0: Oh, well, one kind of cool example was at our conference. We had the conference here, and afterwards, this guy from Brazil came up to me, and he's built an entire taxi app from his phone. And it's, kind of like a a little mini Uber for his local market. And I just thought... He's a taxi driver himself. I don't actually know why he built it, but the fact that he could build it. And he came up extremely grateful and that he could do this. And also, like, with the type of energy... He's... He was, like, 50 years old or something like that, but he had the energy of a, like, teenager building suddenly, which I think is kinda cool because now it's kind of getting to that stage where I I think it's a little bit... There's so much uncertainty around, like, what is the future of work going to look like? But in this category of builders, there's that excitement of the future, and that's really what I love about Supabase. It's like something that people can come in and those who are uncertain now are discovering this skill set and these opportunities where previously they were just blue collar workers, these type of profile. [00:09:59] S3: Harj, you've been building some of your own personal software recently. Yeah. Can you talk about what you've been cooking up?