Every founder faces moments where they’re not sure what to do next — such as how to go to market with AI products, when to pivot, and who to hire.
In this episode of Office Hours, YC partners Pete, Brad, Nico, and Gustaf answer real questions from founders and share stories about how great teams build conviction, learn faster, and make better decisions as they grow.
Chapters:
0:00 – Intro
0:36 – Building an AI company in a legacy industry
7:00 – Time to grow vs long term defensibility
14:31 – Spending for temporary edge vs waiting for model leap
16:10 – When should you consider pivoting if you’ve got traction?
26:07 – The power of technically challenging problems
30:42 – When to start hiring?
35:18 – When is it a good idea to open source an enterprise SaaS product?
38:16 – Outro
Here's a question … when should I get a 2nd founder?
I launched 10 days ago. and am now navigating user acquisition. it's easy to underestimate the difficulty
Couple months ago I talked to a guy who bought a dental billing agency after raising 1.5 million. They injected AI and automated a lot of the insurance work. They are still growing
Nice episode as always! Really like Koomen’s comment about figuring out who to sell to and how to get their attention. My question for next episode is: what’s the best practice for getting the first 10 customers?
really makes you think about choices
Why is there no dubbing in Turkish?
Totally relate to the idea of learning faster by going smaller. That’s why I’ve been using Rumora to help me focus on what really matters in my marketing.
i've made some bad decisions, gotta learn from this
this hits different, love the real talk
I'm starting a SaaS startup, currently feeling somehow stuck with finding a starting point; I don't have the money to hire a full stack dev (as i work a generic job), but at the same time without a backend wouldn't my pre-seeding take a hit?
I know i'm on the right track as I already have an accountant, i myself take care of everything (and learning) as well as front end (which has massive progress made, just dragging on back end).
What should I do in this situation? I'm convinced i'm on a good path but since i'm new to this it feels a bit misty almost.
YouTube save me.