Y Combinator Startup Podcast
00:15:15 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed
[00:15:15] S0: It's interesting. I... I've heard you talk about this almost like demo driven development where everything that you're working on, you're almost working backwards from a demo that you want at the end of it. And that's kind of the proof that the thing is ready to go. It lets you test it out. Yeah. And then you get to the end of it, you're like, let's just publish the demo. [00:15:31] S1: The most important thing in my company that I try to always... And every company I've ever run is, you know that feeling when you're working with someone often on the team or a cofounder? And you're like, yo. Check this out. That... You have to be so aware of that, because that is the thing that you could probably talk about online. Mhmm. That check this out is exactly like... That raw check this out is exactly how you should be kinda presenting yourself on the Internet. In this case, you know, sometimes I go a little bit more fancy if I want to, but sometimes I'm also just a guy in a simple video in in the YC office. And then sometimes, maybe once a quarter, we'll do a polished launch where it's like, this is, like, something I'm really proud of. I wanna make sure it's talked about properly. But, generally, we're launching, like, demos every single day almost.
00:15:31 · Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein
[00:15:31] S1: The most important thing in my company that I try to always... And every company I've ever run is, you know that feeling when you're working with someone often on the team or a cofounder? And you're like, yo. Check this out. That... You have to be so aware of that, because that is the thing that you could probably talk about online. Mhmm. That check this out is exactly like... That raw check this out is exactly how you should be kinda presenting yourself on the Internet. In this case, you know, sometimes I go a little bit more fancy if I want to, but sometimes I'm also just a guy in a simple video in in the YC office. And then sometimes, maybe once a quarter, we'll do a polished launch where it's like, this is, like, something I'm really proud of. I wanna make sure it's talked about properly. But, generally, we're launching, like, demos every single day almost. [00:16:12] S0: It's interesting. Now that everybody can put out videos and and do launches every single day Yeah. How do you stand out in that world? It seems like people that are spending lots of money and trying to do fancy produced videos, that's an effort to try to get more attention and stand out and and seem, you know, polished and and further along than you are. But you take the opposite approach. And so in a world where there's just so much content and so many videos that are out there every single day, how do you think about how you try to stand out and how others can too?
00:16:12 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed
[00:16:12] S0: It's interesting. Now that everybody can put out videos and and do launches every single day Yeah. How do you stand out in that world? It seems like people that are spending lots of money and trying to do fancy produced videos, that's an effort to try to get more attention and stand out and and seem, you know, polished and and further along than you are. But you take the opposite approach. And so in a world where there's just so much content and so many videos that are out there every single day, how do you think about how you try to stand out and how others can too? [00:16:43] S1: I never think about it like that. I always just think about, like, I'm... I I wanna talk about something. I think it's interesting, and there's gotta be one of the person out there that's... That thinks it's interesting. Mhmm. And when I click post, in my brain, I'm always I'm always like, if this gets zero attention, zero views, I'm still happy I posted it. You know? Because I'm glad I got something out there. I think that should be the mentality everybody has working on their company, launching in 2026. Like, you can't be thinking about it. By the time I hit post, I've already forgotten it. I'm looking at it maybe a week later Yeah. To see how it did. [00:17:14] S0: How do you do that? I feel like most people when they post something, they're, you know, incessantly just refreshing and trying to see are people liking it, who liked it. But you launch and you walk away. Yeah. How did you get to that point?
00:17:14 · Aaron Epstein, Farza Majeed, Farza Majeed
[00:17:14] S0: How do you do that? I feel like most people when they post something, they're, you know, incessantly just refreshing and trying to see are people liking it, who liked it. But you launch and you walk away. Yeah. How did you get to that point? [00:17:25] S1: I mean, you just put so much garbage out there. I put so much garbage out in the world at this point. Not, like, bad stuff, but just, stuff that I wasn't like this. I didn't think that I didn't think was good. [00:17:33] S0: Yeah. [00:17:33] S1: And people forget the next day. I can make something right now and post it, and people are gonna forget the next day. That's just how attention in twenty twenty six kinda works. Mhmm. You know? And so this is, like, a perfect example. This is 2021. Mhmm. It's a year after YC. [00:17:47] S0: Yeah. [00:17:48] S1: I'm like a... I'm a solo founder. I've been a solo founder of Zip School and a solo founder of Buildspace, solo founder now. It's not like I'm that... Yes. I know how to put a camera in front of me and edit it, but I'm not a fantastic editor. And so this is back when I was working on Zip School, which is an online elementary school. And I wanted to show off the new classes that we were launching for our users. And this is the launch video. Hey there, Zip Schoolers. Farza from Zip School here [00:18:08] S2: again to show off four new classes that we just added yesterday to Zip School that we are very excited about. The first one is called Mars perseverance, rover landing, aimed at kids ages seven to 12. And this class covers the Mars landing that actually
00:18:08 · Farza Majeed, Farza Majeed, Aaron Epstein, S3
[00:18:08] S2: again to show off four new classes that we just added yesterday to Zip School that we are very excited about. The first one is called Mars perseverance, rover landing, aimed at kids ages seven to 12. And this class covers the Mars landing that actually [00:18:21] S1: Honestly, it's an... I'm already checked out watching this video. And What would [00:18:24] S0: you do differently? What are the mistakes that you're making in this video? [00:18:27] S3: I think
00:18:28 · Farza Majeed
[00:18:28] S1: that's the important part. It's not about It's about the fact that I posted it, and then it got 23 likes, which, by the way, is more than zero. Yep. It got more than zero views. It got more than zero comments. It got one comment from a guy. You got a bookmark? I got a bookmark. So, like, I launched. This to me is a launch. And I know that sounds dumb to maybe some, but to me, this is exactly what launching means. We did something new at the company. We talk about it to the... Into the world, and it doesn't matter if we got 23 views. If there's a chance that we get more than one view, we should talk about it. Mhmm. And so this is a super small thing. This is like an everyday thing in my company where we we have... Because we had new classes dropping every day almost. And so I just make it... I'd be like, yeah. Let's talk about it. Maybe one day I'll talk about it, and one of the classes will be really interesting and get picked up and go super viral, which never happened. But the fact is, I made the videos. And over time, I got so much better at just knowing, how should I talk about products? Because think about it. I'm good at making videos in general and writing stories, but talking about products is hard. How do you come off without sounding silly? How do you come off without sounding full of yourself? And it's hard. This is funny. This is a launch. This was the first day I worked at my company, 12/01/2020, and I shipped a landing page. Aaron, there is no copy. There's just a link, and there is some weird video I made in Canva, and I posted it. And that's a launch. To me, I lost a landing page. Right? In my eyes. And by way, in this sense, had, like, maybe 80 followers or something. So no one was watching what I was doing, and this just continued. What is this?