Samy Laumonier

Dear network, practicing what we preach... we're looking for your inputs! 📣 How do you work on pricing? Answer this quick survey and help us making our Pricing Clinics even better! Your help with this would be just... priceless!!

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Why does YC keep talking about "launch early, launch often"? By default.. people don't know that you exist. It's your job to be the squeaky wheel, and let people know "HEY I EXIST", "HEY I CAN SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM" You may have seen my many posts talking about Skyvern hitting star count numbers Those didn't happen out of the blue. We kept launching, and launching, and launching. Trying to spread the word about us. Trying to learn about which use-cases we're best suited for. Trying to solve anyone's problem! Not all of the launches were effective.. but if you're curious about all the launches we've done, get ready. 1. (Pre-idea) November: I cold emailed ~100 different founders that had talked about web-automation in random online forums -> Led to our first customers + 3 pilots (and tons of lessons) 2. (First launch) January: Launched with a barely functional API and a landing page to the YC Community -> Led to our second customer and a very important disqualification criteria: we don't automate tasks on LinkedIn 3. (Second launch) February: Did our first public launch via Launch YC with a slightly more featured API + landing page -> Led to a lot of prospects we couldn't serve (healthtech companies) -> Gave us conviction that we should open source 4. (Third launch) March: Open sourced + did a ShowHN (anyone can do a ShowHN) -> This is when we first felt market pull. Our product was still just an API (no UI) with a demo that disqualified anyone who didn't want to work with startups. This went viral -- we got to 3K Github stars + we got a handful of new customers 5. (Fourth launch) June: We shipped a MVP of Skyvern Cloud (with a UI) and launched on Product hunt -> We got a handful of inbound leads but ended up #10 on the day and didn't generate much interest 6. (Fifth launch) October: Launched Skyvern Cloud on Hackernews -> went viral again and went from 6K -> 9K github stars in 4 days. Made it to #1 on Github trending daily + weekly. You'll notice that as our product got more mature, we started launching less frequently. This is because the gaps in our product became more and more clear as we talked to more users. This meant that we had market fit, but not product market fit. We still needed to iterate on the product This was obvious before the launches though.. so why launch early? Well.. more often than not, our customers ended up caring about features we thought were unimportant (ie cancelling tasks), or some features (instant live-streaming) ended up being way more important than others (debugging workflows). How would we know precisely what to build without this feedback?

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🚀 Proud to Share Our Experience with RevenueCat! 🚀 I’m always happy to share how RevenueCat has transformed the way we manage subscriptions. Working with them has been a game-changer 🏆 for us. Here are a few things we love: - Easy Integration: We were up and running in no time, and it integrates perfectly with our existing systems, their documentation is fantastic. 🚀 And even if you have trouble integrating, their team is a few clicks away to help you do so. - Insightful Analytics: The real-time data and insights have been incredibly valuable in helping us make better decisions. 📊📈 - Reliable Infrastructure: We feel confident knowing that our data is secure and compliant. 🔒🛡️ - Integrations: from webhooks to direct integration to other platforms like Firebase and OneSignal, it provides with not just payments backend and receipt validation but it extends to communications, marketing, data, and user experience. 🌐📱💻 RevenueCat has allowed us to focus more on what we do best – building a great product for our users. 👍 If you're looking to streamline your app’s subscription management, I can’t recommend RevenueCat enough. 💯 #RevenueCat #AppDevelopment #SubscriptionManagement #Monetization #SaaS #TechInnovation 🚀📈📊💰📱

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Thrilled to share my chat with Marc Baselga and Ben Erez on the Supra Insider podcast! We explored the fascinating world of pricing and how software product teams are rethinking their strategies: ↳ Why decoupling pricing from product features is unlocking agility for teams ↳ The rise of usage-based and outcome-based pricing models we're seeing at Orb —and the challenges they bring ↳ How customer trust plays a pivotal role in successful pricing changes Plus, actionable insights on: 1/ Creating a culture of experimentation around pricing and packaging 2/ Leveraging cross-functional collaboration to drive smarter pricing decisions 3/ Aligning pricing strategies with customer value to maximize impact If you’re a product, engineering, or finance leader curious about transforming pricing into a strategic advantage, this episode is for you! Check out the full episode: https://lnkd.in/g6STqyby

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It's starting to happen. We are seeing a wave of customers ditching collaboration features they built in-house or using competitors and are migrating to Velt (YC). When we were in YC, we heard from Nicolas Dessaigne (our group partner) that they experienced the same when Algolia started finding product market fit. We've spent three years obsessing over every engineering and design detail and iterated weekly. This has made Velt the most robust, mature & complete collaboration SDK in the market. Instead of providing just APIs, we provide pre-built fullstack components for features like: * comments and discussions * notifications * loom-style recording * slack-style huddle * presence, cursors * live editing and more. You can integrate these into your product and customize everything about it to fit your brand. With Velt you can boost engagement and growth. Keep your users collaborating within the context of your app, instead of Slack or Zoom. Watch your engagement soar. 🚀

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I'm thrilled to announce that we’ve raised $3.5M Seed led by Gradient Ventures, with the participation of Y Combinator, Ardent Venture Partners, Orange Collective, key executives from Snowflake, Group 1001, Superlinked, Frigade, and Kevin Moore. Today, more than 400 exabytes of data are generated daily. Over 15 million data professionals are leveraging this data to guide their organizations toward their true north. Coming from Snowflake, LinkedIn, and Meta, my co-founder and I have tight bonds with data teams, and seeing them calculate the right product features to build just based on data is nothing but astonishing. However, for the last two decades, unstructured data has largely been left out of this equation. It's incredibly challenging to translate into something machines can use for quantitative analysis. We, humans, process 74GB of data through our eyes and ears every day. We are naturally great unstructured data processors, but unfortunately, we don't scale. But just recently, we've seen how multimodal LLM can understand the pain points from a 45-minute-long user journey video and sense the sadness from a phone call just by the tone. It is a perfect, unstructured data processor that can scale. It is a truly Cambrian moment for the data community because now it's possible to do quantitative analysis on unstructured data! This transformation may take many years because today's data tooling is so deadlocked into structured data. We will not wait for the incumbents. We will build this future, and that's why we're building Roe AI, now. This mission to Mars is going to be thrilling and bumpy, but I’m grateful not to be on this journey alone. Thanks to my co-founder Jason Wang, my family, mentors, friends and fellows at YC, Snowflake, LinkedIn, and UC Berkeley, and, of course, Roe AI’s early customers. You are our solar power 🖖 Live long and prosper! Fundraising blog: https://lnkd.in/eKArsR8s Find time to chat with me: https://lnkd.in/eXyURM6z We're hiring a Founding Senior SWE (L5+) full-time / contractor, a fall or winter intern. Apply here https://lnkd.in/e7kFTEXU Adrien Treuille Pieter Verhoeven Jay Prassl Gu Xie Karthik Murugesan Natchie Subramaniam Thiagarajah Nikolas Moore Tyler Bosmeny Pete Koomen Vivek Raghunathan Sridhar Ramaswamy shrikant shanbhag Yusuf Ozuysal Vladimir Katardjiev Abhishek Nagaraj Adam Blake Rohan Rajiv Emre Kazdagli Alp Artar Christian Mathiesen Namrata Ganatra Jim Fan Darian Shirazi Kyle Duffy Zachary Bratun-Glennon Phil Bronner Dave Yen Benjamin Rogojan Ryan Wexler

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The pocket guide in the article for building products, is way too viral in my network this afternoon, worth reading !!

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We got +100 NPS for our recent SaaStock Founder Membership (SFM) retreat. Based on feedback and on reflection, here are a few reasons why: 1. Magic 🪄: We sourced a magical location in the Agafay Desert, Les Terrasses D'Agafay. It created the base for the first wow moment. Also as we were in the middle of the desert, it kept the group together (as no one could leave). 2. Grounding ⛺️: Glamping instead of 5* resorts. Kind of an unexpected one but a good learning. The previous retreats had been in 5* resorts which we could go to any time on holiday with family/friends. Glamping I think resulted in us feeling a bit more grounded which helped with the openness and transparency of the group. 3. Fire 🔥: We had a campfire which every evening created a central space for us to congregate and we ran roundtable discussions for the whole group with a level of transparency not seen before. 4: Ice 🧊: We broke the Ice the night before the retreat started with a dinner in Marrakech. Allowed everyone to connect and familiarise if they were new to the group. 5. Space 🛸: The agenda allowed for lots of space for people to just talk and relax 6: Power of 40 🔋: Not that one, but we cap the size at 40 people. Just the right amount for everyone to connect and bond. With this, i think we found the recipe for the perfect Founder retreat. Already planning next years and wish the NPS scale could go above +100 #saastockfoundermembership #retreat #events #saas #founders #community

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This post has been incredibly hard to make public with taboos around therapy and asking for help, but here goes 😬: Over the years we have spent a fair amount of money on "lessons learned" aka mistakes. Any startup that says they haven't is, well, lying. One thing that we started at REVKIT a couple months ago was working with startup coach Eric Marcoullier. I can tell you with zero hesitation, that this is some of the best money we have ever spent. Period. Bringing in an outside POV wasn't something we took lightly. We spoke to Eric no less than 5 hours combined before we were confident what he was going to bring to the table was going to be the best thing for REVKIT. For less than the cost of most businesses' monthly coffee budget, we are getting decades of experience weighing in weekly on everyday topics at REVKIT. These are NOT therapy sessions (although that's an option he offers, too 😏), these are real, actionable "suggestions" to short-term and long-term goals we have at REVKIT. Week 1 literally changed the way we run operations internally and things have only progressed from there. Sometimes they are things that we already know and need someone to react with complete candor (gloves off, baby! 🥊), but many other times it is a completely new way of thinking about problems from someone who has a wealth of different experience than us to back it up. This isn't a paid (or unpaid as it were) advertisement for Eric's services, but he is the only experience we have with a coach. The point I'm trying to make is that working with "a" coach has been measurably and unmeasurably beneficial for my business and I imagine it could do the same for yours. 😮‍💨

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$30M in turnover in 3 years! But the board asks you to leave your startup. This happened to Christophe Garnier when he was running Totsy; currently, he's the CEO & Co-Founder at Upflex. Totsy had an $80M offer from Groupon to sell the company. But they got into a disagreement. And Christophe was asked to leave. Approximately 30% of founding CEOs are replaced, particularly after significant funding rounds or during times of growth when strategic shifts are necessary. About 30% of startup founders are replaced due to Performance Reasons. Then Change in Strategy. Scaling Challenges. Conflict. Investor Pressure. This can happen to anyone. Christophe openly shares his lessons learned. Tune in to learn more about his challenging experience and get advice on choosing the right investors for your startup! - 🎙️Watch (or listen to) Startup Recruitment Failures on your favourite channel. The link is in a comment. 👋🏻 Hey, I’m Indre, Founder of jobRely. I’m here to help founders grow their teams smarter and faster using AI-powered recruitment services.

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Launching a #startup ? 🚀 🌕 Congrats! But brace yourself for a reality check, What you think about your business, product, your customers, your investors— is wrong. Your first job isn't to build; it's to learn. Fast. Rip apart your assumptions with daily customer interviews, rapid lo-fi prototyping, and constant network expansion. Validate everything, trust nothing. Delay heavy development. Why? Because building on faulty assumptions only multiplies errors. Focus on quick deliverables—no more than a week.If you aren't adapting as fast as you're learning, you're just burning money. --- How are you cutting through the noise and challenging assumptions in your startup?

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Dimely just launched on YC! Dimely automates manual billing workflows, saving billing teams hundreds of hours a month. Dimely integrates with your existing tech stack, meaning we don't require a rip and replace, and you'll immediately see results from Day 1. If you are experiencing pain with your billing process today, let's chat! We would love to be your forever pain killer for billing. Book time with us or DM us! Check the comments 👇 for a link to our calendar

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YC Demo Day Survival Guide: What VCs Say vs. What They Actually Mean 👇 What VCs say: "Not aligned with our strategy" > What they mean: "We have no idea what our strategy is, but it's definitely not this, mate." What VCs say: "That's a fascinating idea." > What they mean: "I think Juicero was a better startup idea than this." What VCs say: "We need to see more traction." > What they mean: "Your graphs are as flat as Kansas. I don't see any graphs with the line going up. Line must go up. Line must go up." What VCs say: "Please keep us in the loop." > What they mean: "Forget that you have my email. In fact, forget that email exists. If you message me again, I will call the Sopranos." What VCs say: "It's not you, it’s us" > What they mean: "It’s absolutely, unquestionably, definitively you. But if I tell you, you'll write an exposé, I’ll go viral on LinkedIn, and my partner will send me to a spa in Novosibirsk, Siberia for 6 months." What VCs say: "We’re really excited about your vision" > What they mean: "Your vision is wonderful. It’s your current business model that reminds me of a horror movie. Frankly, I may need therapy after seeing your revenue and churn." Any others? What am I missing?

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🚀 I am super excited to share a new and exciting chapter in our company's journey! 🚀 We started back at the beginning of 2022 with a clear mission: * Message brokers are critical for what the future holds for data * Kafka is the most popular message broker * It needs to be cheaper, easier, and faster One approach (Memphis) is to rebuild it and offer an alternative that solves the above, but that one asks you to migrate—a huge hassle. We rethought, re-engaged, and worked hard to refine and discover a better approach that makes Kafka cheaper, easier, and faster without changing a single component, including your existing Kafka and its vendor. We found it, and we call it **Superstream**. Superstream is compatible with Kafka from any vendor, and we've already saved our customers and partners millions of dollars ($$$). BIG vision ahead, and more about that in the coming weeks. Our domain is .ai for a reason :)

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Is Slack the preferred community platform? We just launched the second integration of Conquest: Slack Most of our beta users have their community on Slack. So we decided to prioritized this integration to meet the needs of as many people as possible. And today, all our users will be able to: 🔄 Connect their Slack community to Conquest 📊 View important metrics: number of contacts, active/inactive contacts, engagement rate, activities and engagement per channel 👫 Visualize all their contacts and the activities linked to each 🏆 Access a leaderboard and see at a glance their most active contacts 💪 Create their first workflows to automate their community actions You have a Slack community and want to measure its engagement? #community #communitybuilders #communitymanagement

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If you want to join an early-stage, high-growth startup - I've handpicked a list of 20 YC startups that are currently hiring for you: 1) Retell AI - Supercharge Your Contact Center Operations with AI Phone Agents 2) Gumloop - A no-code platform for automating workflows with AI 3) Momentic - The modern standard for software testing 4) Reworkd (YC S23) - The simplest way to extract web data at scale 5) Stably AI - Automatically tests your website / web app without any engineering effort 6) Atlas - Modern customer support platform replacement for Intercom and Zendesk 7) Take App - Shopify for WhatsApp commerce 8) InspectMind AI - AI for construction 9) Meticulate (YC W24) - The powerful new way to find your ideal customer profile, track custom buying signals, and build high-quality pipeline 10) Openmart (YC W24) - GTM platform for reaching local businesses 11) Sweetspot (YC S23) - AI for Government Contracting. 12) Zep AI (YC W24) - The Memory Foundation For Your AI Stack 13) Duckie (YC W24) - AI Assistant for Customer Support Teams 14) DryMerge - Automate work with plain English 15) Bree - Chime for Canada, starting with cash advances 16) Central (YC S24) - Eliminating business bullshit: payroll, benefits, compliance, etc 17) Keye (YC F24) - The Smartest Private Equity Investor 18) Coval (YC S24) - Simulation & Evaluation for AI Agents 19) Recall.ai - The universal API for meeting video, audio and metadata Lastly, Simplify - Your personal AI career agent. (Hint: You should also use Simplify to apply to all these jobs)

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Think Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, for your B2B persona. I'm very proud to share a Salto production 😉 - Config & Cruise - where Alex Ortiz will be driving and talking with interesting figures in the Atlassian ecosystem (with a focus on Jira). Kudos to Baptiste Pouilloux who took this project A-Z! Bravo! BTW, if you want him to write a blog post describing the process, tell him in the comments. Check out the first episode with Fun Man Andy, where he and Alex discussed AI, Configuration Management, and Marketplace Apps (see link in the comments).

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Build a product that people love: use your product, stay empathetic, and buckle your seatbelt because video, content, and tech are moving at warp speed. The best companies are constantly balancing to stay relevant, in tune with their customer and up with the latest trends. Sylvie Lubow and I discuss with Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios of Castmagic on Talking Too Loud. We’re big fans of Castmagic at Wistia so this one was especially fun: https://lnkd.in/emHrJj6u

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When Corentin and I launched PARZ, we had one burning question: How can we deliver 2x faster than other agencies with better quality? The answer: don’t start from scratch. Many agencies start from scratch when they have a new project.  They say: ”Every project is unique, so every stack has to be unique”. Fake. Each project has a common base. That's why, we’ve worked for 1 year on a boilerplate that allows us to initialize the entire foundation in 1 day: - Authentication (Login. 2FA. Forgot Password. and Register) - Create, Destroy, Delete, and Edit a User - Cache Connector - Headers Security - SQL Connector - Infrastructure - Mail Provider - Translations - File Storage - Dark mode - Cookies - Routing - Forms Result: We develop the main features quickly.  From day 0, we bring value to our entrepreneurs. And you, what do you think about having a boilerplate? 🎤 — We develop tech startups for entrepreneurs worldwide in 15 weeks. Book a discovery call by clicking the link above.

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