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Most founders think hiring is about interviewing. But it's actually about selling. For Startup School, Juicebox co-founder & CEO david paffenholz joins YC's Harj Taggar to share how early-stage founders can find, pitch, and close top engineering and sales talent— from crafting better outreach to winning great hires from...

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Y Combinator

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241,058 просмотров • 9 месяцев назад •via X (Twitter)

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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “The great founders are frugal” When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001 — two years after the company had raised a $25 million Series A — he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. He believes this frugality is common attribute of the best founders: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” Eric continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Video source: Startup Grind (2016)

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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “The great founders are frugal” When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001 — two years after the company had raised a $25 million Series A — he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. He believes this frugality is common attribute of the best founders: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” Eric continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Video source: Startup Grind (2016)
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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: “The great founders are frugal” When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001 — two years after the company had raised a $25 million Series A — he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. He believes this frugality is common attribute of the best founders: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” Eric continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Video source: Startup Grind (2016)

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Eric Schmidt: The great founders are frugal When Eric joined Google as CEO in 2001—two years after securing a $25 million Series A—he shared an office with four engineers. He even had to lend one of the founders his car when theirs broke down. In the clip below he explains why this mentality is important: “I can always tell when we’re dealing with a proper founder by how they are spending their money… Whenever I go to startups that have beautiful offices and really nice chairs, I cringe.” He continues: “The great founders are frugal. They understand that the money needs to be used precisely for certain areas. Many of the most successful founders begin with no salary at all… If you’re not prepared to live that, you don’t really understand what being a founder is like.” Source: Startup Grind
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Y Combinator

74,037 просмотров • 1 месяц назад

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Erica Wenger

12,689 просмотров • 1 месяц назад

"To be a founder is a state of being. It's an attitude. It's courage, it's instinct, it's a capacity to push through, despite all sorts of evidence suggesting you're wasting your time. To be a CEO is a craft. It's learning to read financial statements, building a GTM motion, running productive meetings, finding and hiring the best people, planning, etc. The more founders who can accept that those are two separate things, both equally important to build an ascendant startup, the better all of us will be." Jonathan Lowenhar (jonathan lowenhar) is the co-founder of Enjoy The Work, an executive coaching firm that helps founders become great CEOs. Over the past decade, Enjoy The Work has supported over 160 founders on their journey to becoming better leaders. In our conversation, Jonathan shares: 🔸 The difference between being a founder and a CEO 🔸 Most common failure modes for startup CEOs 🔸 The "magic box" paradigm for selling your company 🔸 How to find and hire the best people 🔸 How to build a repeatable GTM machine 🔸 Why founders need to trust their intuition 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple: Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting the podcast: 🏆 pendo.io — The only all-in-one product experience platform for any type of application: 🏆 OneSchema — Import CSV data 10x faster: 🏆 Vanta — Automate compliance. Simplify security:
1:33

"To be a founder is a state of being. It's an attitude. It's courage, it's instinct, it's a capacity to push through, despite all sorts of evidence suggesting you're wasting your time. To be a CEO is a craft. It's learning to read financial statements, building a GTM motion, running productive meetings, finding and hiring the best people, planning, etc. The more founders who can accept that those are two separate things, both equally important to build an ascendant startup, the better all of us will be." Jonathan Lowenhar (jonathan lowenhar) is the co-founder of Enjoy The Work, an executive coaching firm that helps founders become great CEOs. Over the past decade, Enjoy The Work has supported over 160 founders on their journey to becoming better leaders. In our conversation, Jonathan shares: 🔸 The difference between being a founder and a CEO 🔸 Most common failure modes for startup CEOs 🔸 The "magic box" paradigm for selling your company 🔸 How to find and hire the best people 🔸 How to build a repeatable GTM machine 🔸 Why founders need to trust their intuition 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple: Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting the podcast: 🏆 pendo.io — The only all-in-one product experience platform for any type of application: 🏆 OneSchema — Import CSV data 10x faster: 🏆 Vanta — Automate compliance. Simplify security:

Lenny Rachitsky

11,962 просмотров • 1 год назад

At 23, with no legal background, Max Junestrand co-founded Legora to transform how lawyers work. Today, Legora’s AI workspace is used by tens of thousands of lawyers across Europe—valued at $675M just 13 months after launch. From due diligence grids that turn days of work into minutes, to Word integrations that renegotiate contracts, Max sat down with Gustaf Alströmer to share how Legora won over skeptical firms, scaled from 10 to 100 people, and built a new category in legal AI. 00:45 – Legora's Origin Story 01:00 – Building an AI Workspace for Lawyers 02:20 – The GPT Unlock 04:10 – The “Aha Moment” with Law Firms 06:15 – Raising $80M and Scaling Fast 06:30 – How Legora Works 09:40 – How It Transforms Legal Work 11:40 – Selling To AI Skeptics 14:40 – Creative Use Cases: From Court Battles to NDAs 17:30 – Starting Without Industry Expertise 18:40 – Interviewing 100 Lawyers 20:30 – Competing with Legacy Legal Tech Giants 23:50 – Tech Stack and Model Strategy 25:00 – Who Actually Buys AI inside a Law Firm? 27:00 – Cracking Sales in Conservative Industries 28:00 – Max’s Background: From eSports to Startups 30:50 – Hypergrowth: 10 → 100 People in 13 Months 34:00 – Why Hiring Ex-Founders Works 36:45 – The Future Job of a Lawyer 38:35 – What PMF Felt Like 39:45 – Why They Stayed in Stockholm (Not SF) 41:00 – Becoming the Category Leader in Legal AI 42:00 – Advice for Founders Building Vertical AI Companies 43:20 – What It’s Like to Work at Legora
45:25

At 23, with no legal background, Max Junestrand co-founded Legora to transform how lawyers work. Today, Legora’s AI workspace is used by tens of thousands of lawyers across Europe—valued at $675M just 13 months after launch. From due diligence grids that turn days of work into minutes, to Word integrations that renegotiate contracts, Max sat down with Gustaf Alströmer to share how Legora won over skeptical firms, scaled from 10 to 100 people, and built a new category in legal AI. 00:45 – Legora's Origin Story 01:00 – Building an AI Workspace for Lawyers 02:20 – The GPT Unlock 04:10 – The “Aha Moment” with Law Firms 06:15 – Raising $80M and Scaling Fast 06:30 – How Legora Works 09:40 – How It Transforms Legal Work 11:40 – Selling To AI Skeptics 14:40 – Creative Use Cases: From Court Battles to NDAs 17:30 – Starting Without Industry Expertise 18:40 – Interviewing 100 Lawyers 20:30 – Competing with Legacy Legal Tech Giants 23:50 – Tech Stack and Model Strategy 25:00 – Who Actually Buys AI inside a Law Firm? 27:00 – Cracking Sales in Conservative Industries 28:00 – Max’s Background: From eSports to Startups 30:50 – Hypergrowth: 10 → 100 People in 13 Months 34:00 – Why Hiring Ex-Founders Works 36:45 – The Future Job of a Lawyer 38:35 – What PMF Felt Like 39:45 – Why They Stayed in Stockholm (Not SF) 41:00 – Becoming the Category Leader in Legal AI 42:00 – Advice for Founders Building Vertical AI Companies 43:20 – What It’s Like to Work at Legora

Y Combinator

185,285 просмотров • 1 год назад