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David Hsu

10 statements across 1 episodes · 0 bullish · 4 bearish · 1 people on the record · first statement Dec 17, 2020 by David Hsu · said 1 times in 1 episodes since 2020 · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: David Hsu's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (1)

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2020 1 mention in 1 episode

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Everything said about David Hsu, oldest first

Dec 17, 2020
What-if
Hsu says Retool would have died without John Collison's YC feedback
“Without him, we might still be working on it. So, well, we'd probably be out of business at this point, but we probably would have worked on it for another year or two.”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 9:30 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 negative
Disclosure
Hsu's pre-Retool payments startup lost money on every transaction
“But then it turns out it's actually a terrible business in the sense that every time someone sends money, we were losing money. And so the faster we grew, the more money we actually lost”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 4:57 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 negative
Insight
Hsu argues founder conviction beats testing landing pages for startup ideas
“Yeah, so I think conviction is very important, and so I think when choosing ideas, I think conviction probably is sort of highest order you have to care about, basically, is do you actually get convicted about the idea? I have a bunch of friends now, and I'm s…”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 6:41 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 negative
Opinion
Hsu claims 95% of Y Combinator advice is in Paul Graham essays
“Almost everything YC tells you is available online. If you just go read every PG essay, you know, you could probably become a YC partner, basically, if you read every essay, and just maybe that's being a little bit uncharitable, but, you know, I think you coul…”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 10:13 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 negative
Opinion
Hsu argues Y Combinator adds no value after product-market fit
“Once you have product pocket fit, you don't really need to be talking to anybody who's just kind of heads down, just executing, just writing code, talking to customers, you know, for as many hours a day as you can, really. And so once that does happen, You kno…”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 10:56 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020
Disclosure
Retool burned only $100K of its $1.4M seed before raising Series A
“At that point, we were four people. I think we would raise maybe 1.4, something like that in the seed. And so I think when we were raising our A, I think we'd burn maybe a hundred K of the 1.4, something like that.”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 19:35 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020
Disclosure
Hsu spent 70% of early engineering time building internal tools
“Probably 60 to 70% of our time, actually, was spent developing internal tools for regulatory purposes, for fraud purposes, and stuff like that.”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 5:41 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 neutral
Disclosure
Hsu believed Retool lacked product-market fit until reaching $3M-$4M ARR
“I think up until maybe three... Three, maybe four million dollars in ARR. I don't think even up to three or four million dollars in ARR, I was fairly convinced we did not have product market fit.”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 24:56 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hsu claims DoorDash is the only major startup built from landing-page testing
“The only case where I know this might potentially have worked was I think it was paloaltodelivery.com or something, which then became DoorDash. I think it's the only sort of recorded case of this ever actually working, but if you look at all the other sort of …”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 7:06 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
Dec 17, 2020
Disclosure
Hsu pivoted to Retool with $150K bankroll and 70 days of runway
“We had to raise what the one 20 K from YC. And then we had some money from previous tech internships or something that was like maybe 30 K or something. And so we have one 50 K in total. And I think we're burning something like one or two K a day, which meant …”
David Hsu Dec 17, 2020 ▶ 5:11 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th
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