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"Mathilde Collin is the CEO and co-founder of Frontapp.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAbout six weeks ago, I was sitting in front of my computer waiting for one email. Not just any email. The\u00A0email.\r\n\r\nWe had just flown from Paris to Mountain View for our 10-minute interview at the Y Combinator and it was now over. All we had left to do was wait.\r\n\r\nFinally, a couple of hours after the interview, the news finally arrived. We were accepted. The email was so short, but it instantly changed all that we were about to do with our company in the following months.\r\n\r\nSince that day, it pretty much has been rush hour every hour of the day and we\u2019ve kept ourselves busy. We\u2019ve been asked a lot how it\u2019s going and what actually happens inside of YC once you\u2019re there.\r\n\r\nThe famous Mountain View incubator definitely has a reputation of being quite mysterious and we want to share our insider\u2019s view after our first month.\r\nWhat actually happens once you\u2019re in?\r\n\r\n\r\nKids, pack your bags, we\u2019re moving the California!\r\n\r\nFor us, being accepted to YC was a huge excitement. But it also meant that we had to move our small team of five from Paris to the Valley.\r\n\r\nSilicon Valley is definitely one of the best places to launch a startup, especially when you\u2019re working in tech like we are, and we knew it.\r\n\r\nWe packed our bags and moved into the same house (we found something just a tad bigger than a garage but that\u2019s basically the spirit). The partners at YC don\u2019t believe in coworking spaces and consider them too distracting. That\u2019s why they don\u2019t provide offices for startups to settle in.\r\n\r\nYou can still come and work on their premises whenever you want,\u00A0if you happen to lose internet connection at your garage-sized home.\r\n\u201CWe think hackers are most productive when they can spend most of their time hacking. Our goal is to create an environment where you can focus exclusively on getting an initial version built.\u201D - Y Combinator\r\nWe got two mentors to help us out along the way: Justin Kan, the founder of Justin.tv, and Garry Tan, the co-founder of Posterous. We basically turn to them every time we had doubts, questions, or just want to talk. They also help us work our way through the busy weeks and the intense weekly schedule that goes like this:\r\n\r\n\tOne weekly dinner with the entire batch, where a guest host from the startup world comes to talk with us. We\u2019ve already seen guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel!\r\n\r\n\r\n\tOne group session every other week, with six other companies to share what we\u2019ve accomplished and what we\u2019re struggling with\u00A0amongst people that are living exactly the same thing.\r\n\r\n\r\n\tUnlimited office hours with partners and other great people like Andrew Chen, Ben Chestnut or Hiten Shah who give a bit of their free time to help us out.\r\n\r\nIn the end though, we don\u2019t even spend that much time inside the actual Y Combinator. We\u2019re more often behind our computers at home. But these weekly get-togethers are here to remind us that we\u2019re all in this together, at least until the Demo Day\u00A0in mid-August, and that we have one goal and one goal only: make. things. happen.\r\n\r\nThanks to that, we\u2019ve stopped complicating\u00A0everything and we\u2019ve stopped postponing the things that needed to be done.\r\nWhat has changed since we\u2019re here?\r\n\r\n\r\nFor us as individuals\r\n\r\nY Combinator is really inspiring. You meet all these people that now manage really successful businesses but that were sitting exactly where you are now just a few years ago. They probably screwed up a few things, they didn\u2019t do everything right but they are now the founders of Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox. It\u00A0makes you want to get up and work in the morning.\r\n\r\nFor our team\r\n\r\nY Combinator is definitely team building times a hundred. Living and working together 24/7 helps us to be focus on the things that matter and give it all we got. And when it\u2019s all over, we\u2019ll still share this experience together.\r\n\r\nHey, if we survived living in the same house for three months, we can probably survive any future crisis!\r\n\r\nFor our company\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s pretty darn stimulating. It feels like we\u2019ve made more progress in just one month of being here that ever before. Weekly progress is mandatory (at least a 10 percent growth). Saying that is pretty much saying everything.\r\n\r\nOn top of that though, you\u2019re also really pushed to establish your street cred amongst your users and potential customers, investors, alumni\u2026\r\nWhat we\u2019ve learned so far\r\nIt\u2019s pretty hard to sum it up because there\u2019s been so much but here are the tips I\u2019m definitely taking back with me.\r\n\r\n1. Make something people want.\r\n\r\nIt's\u00A0on t-shirts at YC\u00A0because that\u2019s how hard they believe in it. Don\u2019t think in features but in benefits and how your product will actually make your customer become more awesome.\r\n\u201C If you can do this, and you are sufficiently relentless, you can probably create more value and have more impact than you could in a regular job.\u201D - Sam Altman\r\n2. Don\u2019t compare yourself to what successful entrepreneurs have become\r\n\r\nEveryone started as small as we did. Even the most successful founders had feelings of doubts, fear or even of throwing everything out the window. They weren\u2019t born successful entrepreneurs, they worked their butt off to get where they are today. And we can too.\r\n\r\n3. Create features. Talk to users. That\u2019s it.\r\n\r\nDistractions are endless when you start a business. Grabbing a coffee with another startup founder to \u201Cshare experiences,\u201D meeting someone just to connect, seeing some investors\u2026 But what is most important at the end of the day are your users and what you can do for them.\r\n\r\nAs Paul Graham puts it, \u201Ca startup founder should be writing code and talking to users. That\u2019s it.\u201D\r\n\r\n4. Charge users as quickly as possible, as much as possible\r\n\r\nPricing is something that gives value to your product and users will have a lot more (and valuable) feedback if they pay. It\u2019s scary to ask for money for something that you\u2019re not 100\u00A0percent\u00A0sure will work, but you need to take the leap of faith at some point.\r\n\r\nAlso, don\u2019t be afraid to change your pricing\u00A0until you get it right.\r\n\r\n5. Get your metrics right\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s been said a lot but it\u2019s because it\u2019s important to the way you\u2019ll run your business. Facing your metrics everyday can be scary or depressing when you don\u2019t have a lot of users yet but it\u2019s the only way to know if you\u2019re growing or not and how you\u2019re doing it. And choosing the right ones is key:\r\n\r\n \u201CMerely measuring something has an uncanny tendency to improve it\u201D - Joe Kraus, founder of Excite.\r\n\r\n6. It\u2019s okay if everyone doesn\u2019t love you\r\n\r\nLike Paul Buchheit says, \u201Cit\u2019s better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy.\u201D Simply because it\u2019s much easier to grow userwise than satisfactionwise.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s definitely something that you need to realize very early when you\u2019re still able to iterate quickly on your product.\r\nWhat about the two\u00A0months we have left?\r\nY Combinator is both a sprint and a marathon. If I had to pick just one word to describe it, it would probably be intense. It\u2019s your startup and only that, 24/7 for the three\u00A0months that the batch last.\r\n\r\nYou think about it when you wake up, think about it at breakfast, lunch and dinner, you think about it when you go grocery shopping and you think about it when you go to bed. Hey, sometimes you even dream about it.\r\n\r\nBut just like in a marathon, there are plenty of people around you supporting you on your road to success. The other founders in the batch, the alums, the speakers, the partners, the investors, the Valley itself make up an atmosphere that drives you constantly to exceed what you thought you were capable of .\r\n\r\nWe\u2019ve only been here for a month and we still have plenty of miles to go. But you\u2019ll find us on the finish line, no doubt about that. We\u2019ll let you know how it went.\r\n\r\nDon't miss:\u00A025 unconventional business books you won\u2019t see on most bookshelves (but should)"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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