Over the past several years building Savvy, many founders, often from the Y Combinator community, would reach out seeking advice. While I always made time for these calls, I often left feeling that I short changed my peers. There were still too many problems facing our nascent startup, how could I possibly have strong perspectives about another company’s challenges? Now that Savvy has been acquired and I’ve exited the day-to-day, I’ve taken some time to reflect on our journey and what I wish I had known along the way [0].
“When I caught up with Suril, he shared his startup story with me, and I found it incredibly insightful. I asked if I could share it with my newsletter audience, and I’m excited to do so.”
— Lenny Rachitsky
Ironically, we started “Savvy” the wrong way. There’s a plethora of writing on how to identify and evaluate good startup ideas — we followed none of these.
Good news: YC selected us for an in-person interview. We were thrilled! Not-so-great news: a week before the interview, we concluded from our customer research that our idea didn’t have legs. Surely, we were doomed.
