Smash Notes

Y Combinator

The Challenges of a Repeat Founder

Tikhon Bernstam cofounded Scribd (YC S06) and Parse (YC S11). Read the transcript here .

Transcript

Notes

  1. Who Is Scribd and Parse Cofounder Tikhon Bernstam?

    at 0:00 · Transcript

    Craig Cannon introduced Tikhon Bernstam on the Y Combinator podcast as a founder who did YC twice: summer 2006 with Scribd, and summer 2011 with Parse. Bernstam found YC on Reddit during a theoretical-physics doctorate, when a top post might have ten points and the site had no comments. Paul Graham's essays were the first path he had seen to a company after the dot-com crash. He applied as a long shot, interviewed in Palo Alto, and got in while the program was still in Cambridge, so he dropped out. He had studied computer science and economics as an undergraduate. He and cofounder Jared worked on Scribd for about a year and a half before it had real traction.

  2. How Did Tikhon Get Into Y Combinator

    at 0:49 · Transcript

    Tikhon was in graduate school in theoretical physics, when he read Paul Graham's essay on How to Start a Startup. Inspired by what he saw, Tikhon applied, not at all sure that he would get in, but once accepted, Tikhon dropped out of grad school and moved to Cambridge, where YC was based at the time. The rest is history!

  3. How Did the Idea of Scribd Emerge

    at 2:36 · Transcript

    YouTube was a hot startup at the time, and everyone wanted to be the "YouTube of X," much like in the 2010s everyone wants to be "Uber for Y."

    Seeing that viewing documents in the browser was a huge pain, Tikhon and co started Scribd, a "YouTube for documents."

  4. How Did Scribd Benefit From Y Combinator Early on

    at 4:34 · Transcript

    Not knowing much about what they were doing early on, Tikhon and team found feedback from the Y Combinator team to be incredibly useful. They would look at the Scribd's progress and be able to immediately steer the guys in the right direction, saving them invaluable time in wasted effort.

  5. How Much Money Did Scribd Raise After Y Combinator

    at 6:55 · Transcript

    Funding environment was very different back in the early days of Y Combinator than it is now, and after the demo day, Scribd team survived on savings, and the generosity of their parents.

  6. How Did the Parse Team Come Up With the Idea

    at 10:15 · Transcript

    The founders did not want to waste time building products, so instead they spun out 12 different landing pages and launched them all, measuring which one gathered the most interest. Parse won.

  7. Why Does Tikhon Bernstam Look for Really Large Markets?

    at 32:27 · Transcript

    Tikhon Bernstam told the Y Combinator podcast that across about 60 angel investments, including Cruise, which sold to GM, plus Gusto, LendUp, Checkr, Optimizely, and Reddit, the first screen is the size of the market. Without a large one, a strong product and a relentless team still struggle. He avoids founders who would fly to a conference that does not help the company. He likes solo founders, and named Drew Houston, who started Dropbox alone. Borrowing from Marc Andreessen, he said a strong team in a great market gets pulled into the right product. Docker came out of dotCloud that way, and Twitch was the gaming piece Justin.tv kept after dropping the rest.

  8. Why Does Tikhon Bernstam Invest in Solo Founders

    at 33:50 · Transcript

    A lot of successful founders had started as solo founders, and Tikhon says that startups are already hard, and if you are willing to persevere on your own, that only shows an additional strength of character.

  9. What Is the Optimal Investment Strategy

    at 38:40 · Transcript

    Invest in a big market, even if it's already crowded. A great product in a big market will outperform a novel product in a small market.

  10. What Is a Major Challenge for a Repeat Startup Founder

    at 43:52 · Transcript

    Repeat founders feel the pressure of having to work on a big idea. Unfortunately most big discoveries seem to come from people working on small things first.

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