Mohamed Habib

How did a YC founder scale from $0 to $4M+ ARR in 6 months? What I learned surprised me: Getting to $200k ARR is possible through just hacking something together. But to break past the $1M ARR mark and keep scaling? To sign enterprise contracts with name brand companies? That's a different milestone. The fact that a technical founding did this and handled it all through founder-led sales is even more astounding. Surely, there must be some kind of secret sauce, some kind of unexplained context, I wondered. How did 2 technical founders who graduated college recently build something so robust, so performant and scalable, that they had enterprise companies lining up left and right? But no -- the founder let me know they did this through great engineering and sheer force of will. No proprietary edge. No silver spoon. No past domain experience. And in that moment, that simple answer made sense. We've also been speaking with amazing product engineers, many of them former founders, for whom things are just easy. Sometimes they cite great engineering mentorship as the key to their success. But more often than not, they simply "get it." And my team and I have over time honed our ability to naturally spot what makes a certain candidate special. It's a unique combination of high horsepower, high grit, incredibly sharp slope growth, and an ability to parachute into any problem and just figure things out. What seems like a quarter-long epic to some folks is a one-week project to others. New domains are never daunting. Never learned GPU inference optimization? No problem. I'll figure it out. This is the kind of talent that all startups need -- but understandably is truly rare to secure. This is the truly great, truly unique product engineer. And startups are rapidly learning how this kind of talent changes their own growth trajectory.

42

10 Comments

The most successful founders… are all different. There’s no one formula for success because there’s no agreed upon definition of “success.” Success might look like: -> having time to be with your family -> being able to employ 10 people -> successfully exiting at 1M -> having a sustainable income -> building something that you’re passionate about. Don’t listen when people say you have to follow a formula (or worse, their formula) to be successful. Define success for yourself and then choose a path that gets you there.

15

5 Comments

SaaS Daily Funding News $90m+ invested into the software industry. Details 👇 Not Diamond - Pre Seed - $2.3m - allows developers to automatically route AI questions to the most appropriate models. Clutch Security - Seed Round - $8.5m - provide security teams with comprehensive, clear, and actionable tools for Non-Human Identity security. SafeGuard Privacy - Seed Round - $3.6m - develops a bundled solution to revolutionize corporate privacy compliance management errors. Synapse Analytics - Seed Round - $2m - an AI company with a suite of products that help businesses adopt AI into their core operations. Ema - Series A - $36m - develops AI technology to empower enterprise employees by delegating repetitive tasks. WorkJam - Grant - $14.45m - a modular suite of productivity tools for shift-based, hourly, and non-desk frontline employees. Tezi AI - Seed Round - $9m - Autonomous AI recruiting Nected - Seed Round - $1.5m - Minimal code, absent code Workflow Automation Engine, and Rule Engine. intelmatix - Series A - $20m - a deep-tech AI company with capabilities that address sector challenges by providing tailored solutions and unique products. #saas #software #startups #venturecapital #technology #startup

11

Back with the weekly global vertical SaaS funding round-up💸 Check out my key takeaways, and trends from early-stage startups around the world building vertical software 👇 𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚-𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 Companies like LUPA Technology and Synthpop - Healthcare AI are leveraging AI to revolutionize sectors such as law, construction, and healthcare. LUPA Technology's AI-driven analytics help capture valuable insights, while Synthpop's platform enhances healthcare workflows through agile software development. 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐲 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 CUREosity GmbH's VR therapy system, CUREO, showcases the trend of integrating advanced technologies into healthcare. The company's focus on expanding VR therapy market leadership indicates a shift towards more innovative and efficient therapeutic solutions. 𝐁𝐢𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐈 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 EvolutionaryScale has developed a large language model for creating novel proteins, providing scientists access via AWS to advance drug discovery and create new proteins. Their AI also has potential applications in environmental sustainability, such as breaking down plastics. 𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡 Companies like Aether Fuels and ENEIDA.IO are at the forefront of the sustainability movement. Aether's technology creates sustainable fuels for aviation and shipping, while Eneida supports electric vehicles and renewable energy implementation, highlighting increased investment in climate tech to reduce carbon footprints. 𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 Feather and Bling exemplify startups addressing specific market needs with tailored solutions. Feather simplifies the insurance process for expats across Europe, and Bling.de improves financial literacy for families through a comprehensive app. Both companies underscore the importance of niche markets while scaling globally Congratulations everyone 👏

18

New Lead requiremet alert: Europe based client looking to develop mobile app using Reactnative 💲 Have a lead requirement from Europe based client who wants to develop mobile app for campaign and promotion management platform that they have. 🙂 The development needs to be done using Reactnative Budget: Approx USD 5,000 For more details about this lead requirement you can put your comments below with your details. #businessdevelopment #outsourcing #meanstack #findapro #businessdevelopmentmanager #mobileappdevelopment #iosdevelopment #androiddevelopment #meanstack #webapplication #mernstack #php #flutter #ui #ux #design

64

61 Comments

One of the key questions I see early founders(non-tech) struggling with… How do I get the money to hire the engineers required to bring the minimum lovable product to life? Also without the product how do I raise money? It’s a chicken and egg problem! A lot of founders work full time jobs initially and use their savings to fund product development, hiring a dev shop or IT consulting company. By the time they realise how big of a waste of time and money it is their belief in starting up evaporates. I’d suggest before even thinking about writing a line of code, just validate your idea with no code solutions, getting people to join a simple waitlist on a landing page or the best, getting them to fund your product by giving you an advance payment! Now on the matter of hiring a technical team, DONT! Spend 70% your time looking for a Technical Co-founder who can build out your shared vision. Don’t worry about salaries, the right co-founder will be willing to forego salary for until you can raise funds or make money. It’s hard to find such people? It’s rare isn’t it? But it’s needed! One of the best places to look for people who are motivated for the startup life and already have savings to last a few years without salary is y combinator startup school! Though you’ve to remember if you’re starting out with no product, funding or revenue you must be okay to give equal or near equal equity to your co founders! Also would highly recommend working with them for a few months before registering your company and doing any paperwork. There are many more such nuances that you need to look for in your co-founder and we will talk about it in another post :) Hope this helped!

47

4 Comments

Paul Graham said: “Do things that don’t scale”. Reddit got acquired for $10M by perfectly executing this 👇 Paul Graham (founder of Y Combinator) published the famous 'do things that don't scale' blog post where he said: 🗣️ “The most common unscalable thing founders have to do at the start is to recruit users manually.” Reddit founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian Sr. were in the first YC batch, and they might be the best example of this ⬇️ The two entrepreneurs came up with the idea to build ‘the front page of the internet’ in June of 2005 and began working on Reddit within the YC accelerator. This reddit 'front page' was where the most popular news would be sorted based on ‘upvotes’ by users ⬆️ ⬇️ Early on, however, there was one problem. Nobody was posting articles 😬 𝗦𝗼 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝗰𝗶𝗿𝗰𝘂𝗺𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀? The team manually posted dozens of new articles every day, each one with a fake username. The team hoped this would make reddit seem like a bustling community. And it seemed to work! 🌇 This went on for months, until... One day, Huffman got held up and was late to posting his articles. When he frantically checked the site later in the day, he feared it would be a ghost town 😰 Instead - he found it was FULL of user submitted posts. None of them were fake. Turns out, users just needed some time (and education) to graduate from consumer to creator on reddit. The flywheel had to be manually started, and now it was off on its own! TLDR; 𝗧𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 - 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲. 𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝗵**𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱, 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲. ************** Follow me for more product growth help 📈 ✅

45

14 Comments