Fox entered YC as a solo founder 30 days past the deadline
Dylan Fox · This solo founder bet on AI 7 years ago. Now he has 5,000 customers & $115M raised. | Dylan, Foun... · PMF Show · Apr 8, 2024 · at 9:30
Dylan Fox, founder and CEO of AssemblyAI, recounts how he applied to Y Combinator after leaving his engineering role at Cisco.
0:00 / 0:24exact quote · 24.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And so I submitted an application to YC for their summer batch. This is like summer of 20 17. And it was 30 days past the deadline. So I was like single founder past the deadline. There's no way I'm going to get in. You know, I was planning to just work on it, recruit a co-founder apply to YC later. Once there was more traction and we have like more built and I had a team, but long story short, ended up getting into YC”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Dylan Fox
Fox: AssemblyAI would have moved faster by prioritizing accuracy over early GTM
“In the early days, I think we could have actually gone a lot faster if we had said, okay, let's do nothing but pick accuracy metrics that we feel like we want to surpass. And once we surpass those metrics, then let's go and Take this thing to market.”
Fox: Beyond a certain point, more resources hinder product development
“I believed at the time and still believe that to create the best product is not just a function of resources. You know, you don't just like put a budget and people in a bottle and shake, and then out comes this like amazing product. You can definitely increase…”
Fox: Founders should privately draft answers to every anticipated investor objection
“Every time I fundraise, and this is actually maybe a good tip for like startup founders that are fundraising, I actually write up like a big document with all of the objections I anticipate to get. And I write out like lengthy answers to all of them. And I don…”
Fox: RLHF and dialogue crossed the capability threshold that triggered LLM adoption
“It was the RLHF and the dialogue component of ChatGBT that triggered the takeoff. And that was the capability threshold. Like it was at that time that this capability threshold passed where now it is a prior, like LLMs are a priority for every organization.”
Fox: First MVP customers can derail startups with disproportionate influence
“You might have a customer that will want to use your early kind of MVP, but if that customer pulls you in the wrong direction, they're going to have a ton of influence because they're your first customer. And then you have to build for them.”
Fox: Level 5 autonomous vehicles have guaranteed PMF, bounded only by unit economics
“Similar to self-driving cars, like, you know, that level five self-driving cars will have product market fit, even though they don't exist yet. Now, of course, if they cost a million dollars per vehicle, the addressable market's probably much smaller versus if…”