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Who Is Scribd and Parse Cofounder Tikhon Bernstam?

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.

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The Challenges of a Repeat Founder ·

Y Combinator

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  1. How Did Tikhon Get Into Y CombinatorTikhon was in graduate school in theoretical physics, when he read Paul Graham's essay on How to Start a Startup.
  2. How Did the Idea of Scribd EmergeYouTube 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."
  3. How Did Scribd Benefit From Y Combinator Early onNot knowing much about what they were doing early on, Tikhon and team found feedback from the Y Combinator team to be incredibly useful.
  4. How Much Money Did Scribd Raise After Y CombinatorFunding 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…
  5. How Did the Parse Team Come Up With the IdeaThe 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…
  6. Why Does Tikhon Bernstam Look for Really Large Markets?Tikhon Bernstam told the Y Combinator podcast that across about 60 angel investments, including Cruise, which sold to GM, plus Gusto, LendUp, Checkr…
  7. Why Does Tikhon Bernstam Invest in Solo FoundersA 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…
  8. What Is the Optimal Investment StrategyInvest 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.
  9. What Is a Major Challenge for a Repeat Startup FounderRepeat 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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