Wade Foster Recounts Zapier's Early YC Advice to Launch and Grow
Wade Foster recalls Zapier's 2012 Y Combinator office hours, where Garry Tan urged them to launch immediately and Paul Graham challenged them to grow revenue 10 percent week over week. He argues growth rate is the key signal for startups.
Original post · 1 min read
It was May 2012, and we hadn't yet launched @Zapier.
Two YC office hours changed everything. The first was with @GarryTan.
He had one question: "Have you launched?"
We said no. We had users. People had paid us. But in our minds, the product wasn't good enough.
Garry didn't care. He said launch now. We did and realized we were dumb to wait.
Our second office hours was with @PaulG. Same question: "Have you launched?"
This time we got to say yes. So he gave us an assignment: "Grow revenue 10% week over week. 10% is great. 20% is fantastic."
So we set off to grow 10% a week. And we did.
Last week PG posted this thread, and it brought all this back.
10% a week is 142x a year. Even at scale, growth rate is the signal.
Focus on growth rate and you'll find the future.
Two YC office hours changed everything. The first was with @GarryTan.
He had one question: "Have you launched?"
We said no. We had users. People had paid us. But in our minds, the product wasn't good enough.
Garry didn't care. He said launch now. We did and realized we were dumb to wait.
Our second office hours was with @PaulG. Same question: "Have you launched?"
This time we got to say yes. So he gave us an assignment: "Grow revenue 10% week over week. 10% is great. 20% is fantastic."
So we set off to grow 10% a week. And we did.
Last week PG posted this thread, and it brought all this back.
10% a week is 142x a year. Even at scale, growth rate is the signal.
Focus on growth rate and you'll find the future.
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