Thoughts on what it means to be a founder, and 21 tips from those who have done it, wrap up the “31 Founders at Applied Intuition” blog post series.
Being a founder is not just about starting a business. It is about embarking on a journey where vision meets reality, challenges are embraced, and resilience is tested. The path is not for everyone, but the insights shared by seasoned founders in our discussions highlight that while the roadmap to success is never easy, the lessons learned along the way are valuable.
Suffice it to say, having started a company before joining Applied Intuition is neither guarantee nor prerequisite for getting plum assignments. When the company seeks someone to lead a new initiative, an ex-founder gets consideration to take the point, but not to the exclusion of other candidates. “We've also had good success with people that just are ambitious, and want to start their own company,” said Peter Ludwig, Chief Technology Officer at Applied Intuition and one of the company’s co-founders. “Some of our products were started by people who very much wanted to start a company. And they started the product here.”
After that? “And maybe they left Applied Intuition and then they did start a company. Which is totally positive.”
Mastering Luck
In his time as Chief Operating Officer of accelerator Y Combinator, Qasar Younis encountered many founders who were competent. To Younis, now Chief Executive Officer at Applied Intuition and one of the company’s co-founders, that competence is necessary. But not sufficient.
“They did everything that you should do in a company, and then they’re still not successful,” he said. “They made the right decisions, they picked the right idea based on their background and what was going on in the market, and they’re still not successful. You also realize there's some randomness in the system.”
He thinks the founders whom Applied Intuition attracts see that as well, and it is why they are attracted.
“Why former founders join the company is they were trying to figure out, ‘How do you master luck?’ That phrase comes from a Napoleon line: ‘What the average person calls luck is a characteristic of genius.’ It's a thing that's hard to describe. How do you actually create these conditions in which you can be successful?
“And I think founders who join Applied Intuition, they’re looking at that.”
Left: Hosting Scania autonomy leadership for onsite at early Applied Intuition office in Sunnyvale. Alan ElSheshai (far left edge of photo) spent two months in Sweden leading the Scania POC & integration. Right: Fahrzin Hemmati lives the Applied Intuition core value of “Move fast, move safe” by not bothering to unbox the chair before sitting on it.
Failure and Success: Lessons in Disguise
The ex-founders have accumulated a treasure trove of lessons learned. To close out this series, below are 21 tips gleaned from our time with them. Some are humorous, all are helpful.
Iterative product development.
"Build the smallest amount of thing possible, and then see who uses that, and then use that to inform what to build next."—Greg Granito
Starting a company is hard to do right out of school.
“Usually, you don't know a market well enough to have any advantage over it. And then the only advantage you really have is your low cost of living and burn rate. You can live off Ramen pretty easily in a dorm room.”—Alan ElSheshai
Absorb and adapt.
“We really had to learn the industry quickly."—Ryan Brigden
Speed is more important than correctness.
"85 percent is great. Honestly sometimes 40 percent is okay."—Greg Granito
Assess market viability realistically.
"I learned that there might be a gap in the market, but there might not be a market in the gap."—Yaser Khalighi
Understand your value proposition.
"Who is the customer and what value are you providing to them?"—Greg Granito
Learn on the job.
"One of the things that the founder chair forces you to do is you become experienced fairly quickly. That doesn't mean that you're going to do a good job at it, but at the very least you're going to give it a shot."—Adriano Quiroga
Understand who the customer is and what value you provide them.
"You either have to provide a decent amount of value to an exceptionally large number of people, or you have to provide a lot of value to a few people. Stuff in the middle tends to fall into the ‘kind of hard.’"—Greg Granito
Patience pays off.
"You can get pretty impatient when you hit these lows. I think you understand that there's a long way to go. So many different pathways that you can find, and you can create, and you should spend your energy on that. Rather than moping about, ‘Oh, my God, what the hell just happened?’"—Gaurav Bhatia
Customer communication.
"I should have been talking to my customers much earlier."—Fahrzin Hemmati
Value of forward pitching.
"You have to have a certain confidence in being able to build something on short notice. Such that when you promise it to somebody, even though you don't have it, you'll be able to deliver if they bite."—Roland Philippsen
Be ready to correct your course.
"I don't think it happens often that you sit in a room, you come up with such a great idea or where you say, ‘Yeah, this is great.’ And you execute and it works that way. It never works that way. Never. You start in the general vicinity of where you think you want to go and then you adjust a little bit and you adjust a little bit and you adjust a little bit."—Adriano Quiroga
Choose co-founders wisely.
"The co-founder dynamic is extremely important. You have to try to find at least one co-founder where you can have strength and weakness kind of balance each other out. And you can have very healthy conversations around that."—Roland Philippsen
Be directly involved in hiring.
“[Candidates] are going to 100 percent index extremely hard on you. On the person that's actually hiring, the person that they’re going to be working with, their manager, the founder."—Adriano Quiroga
Network for success.
"I wish I had spent more time cultivating a network of people."—Alan ElSheshai
Know what your tech debt is.
“Sometimes you have to pay the piper."—Joe Moster
How startups work.
"I originally thought that the way startups work is you have a good idea, you build a good idea, and then you find a way to sell the good idea. And I was really surprised that that's not how it works in practice."—Greg Granito
Risk-taking confidence.
"Taking on risk doesn't faze me anymore. I understand risk."—Gaurav Bhatia
Disadvantage of working remotely.
“An in-office presence is important. Learning about other people—if you're in a startup, or any company, that's all remote, I think it's much harder to do that. You learn a lot less about the people."—Alan ElSheshai
Not everybody needs to be an engineer.
“It's a decision about how you want to structure your career. There are other disciplines outside of engineering [where] you can provide a lot of value—sales, business development, corporate strategy.”—Amir Shah
Experience helps avoid repeating mistakes.
"I know exactly what NOT to do. And that is very powerful. Because I know I don't have to take those steps anymore."—Gaurav Bhatia
Thoughts on what it means to be a founder, and 21 tips from those who have done it, wrap up the “31 Founders at Applied Intuition” blog post series.
Being a founder is not just about starting a business. It is about embarking on a journey where vision meets reality, challenges are embraced, and resilience is tested. The path is not for everyone, but the insights shared by seasoned founders in our discussions highlight that while the roadmap to success is never easy, the lessons learned along the way are valuable.
Suffice it to say, having started a company before joining Applied Intuition is neither guarantee nor prerequisite for getting plum assignments. When the company seeks someone to lead a new initiative, an ex-founder gets consideration to take the point, but not to the exclusion of other candidates. “We've also had good success with people that just are ambitious, and want to start their own company,” said Peter Ludwig, Chief Technology Officer at Applied Intuition and one of the company’s co-founders. “Some of our products were started by people who very much wanted to start a company. And they started the product here.”
After that? “And maybe they left Applied Intuition and then they did start a company. Which is totally positive.”
Mastering Luck
In his time as Chief Operating Officer of accelerator Y Combinator, Qasar Younis encountered many founders who were competent. To Younis, now Chief Executive Officer at Applied Intuition and one of the company’s co-founders, that competence is necessary. But not sufficient.
“They did everything that you should do in a company, and then they’re still not successful,” he said. “They made the right decisions, they picked the right idea based on their background and what was going on in the market, and they’re still not successful. You also realize there's some randomness in the system.”
He thinks the founders whom Applied Intuition attracts see that as well, and it is why they are attracted.
“Why former founders join the company is they were trying to figure out, ‘How do you master luck?’ That phrase comes from a Napoleon line: ‘What the average person calls luck is a characteristic of genius.’ It's a thing that's hard to describe. How do you actually create these conditions in which you can be successful?
“And I think founders who join Applied Intuition, they’re looking at that.”
Left: Hosting Scania autonomy leadership for onsite at early Applied Intuition office in Sunnyvale. Alan ElSheshai (far left edge of photo) spent two months in Sweden leading the Scania POC & integration. Right: Fahrzin Hemmati lives the Applied Intuition core value of “Move fast, move safe” by not bothering to unbox the chair before sitting on it.
Failure and Success: Lessons in Disguise
The ex-founders have accumulated a treasure trove of lessons learned. To close out this series, below are 21 tips gleaned from our time with them. Some are humorous, all are helpful.
Iterative product development.
"Build the smallest amount of thing possible, and then see who uses that, and then use that to inform what to build next."—Greg Granito
Starting a company is hard to do right out of school.
“Usually, you don't know a market well enough to have any advantage over it. And then the only advantage you really have is your low cost of living and burn rate. You can live off Ramen pretty easily in a dorm room.”—Alan ElSheshai
Absorb and adapt.
“We really had to learn the industry quickly."—Ryan Brigden
Speed is more important than correctness.
"85 percent is great. Honestly sometimes 40 percent is okay."—Greg Granito
Assess market viability realistically.
"I learned that there might be a gap in the market, but there might not be a market in the gap."—Yaser Khalighi
Understand your value proposition.
"Who is the customer and what value are you providing to them?"—Greg Granito
Learn on the job.
"One of the things that the founder chair forces you to do is you become experienced fairly quickly. That doesn't mean that you're going to do a good job at it, but at the very least you're going to give it a shot."—Adriano Quiroga
Understand who the customer is and what value you provide them.
"You either have to provide a decent amount of value to an exceptionally large number of people, or you have to provide a lot of value to a few people. Stuff in the middle tends to fall into the ‘kind of hard.’"—Greg Granito
Patience pays off.
"You can get pretty impatient when you hit these lows. I think you understand that there's a long way to go. So many different pathways that you can find, and you can create, and you should spend your energy on that. Rather than moping about, ‘Oh, my God, what the hell just happened?’"—Gaurav Bhatia
Customer communication.
"I should have been talking to my customers much earlier."—Fahrzin Hemmati
Value of forward pitching.
"You have to have a certain confidence in being able to build something on short notice. Such that when you promise it to somebody, even though you don't have it, you'll be able to deliver if they bite."—Roland Philippsen
Be ready to correct your course.
"I don't think it happens often that you sit in a room, you come up with such a great idea or where you say, ‘Yeah, this is great.’ And you execute and it works that way. It never works that way. Never. You start in the general vicinity of where you think you want to go and then you adjust a little bit and you adjust a little bit and you adjust a little bit."—Adriano Quiroga
Choose co-founders wisely.
"The co-founder dynamic is extremely important. You have to try to find at least one co-founder where you can have strength and weakness kind of balance each other out. And you can have very healthy conversations around that."—Roland Philippsen
Be directly involved in hiring.
“[Candidates] are going to 100 percent index extremely hard on you. On the person that's actually hiring, the person that they’re going to be working with, their manager, the founder."—Adriano Quiroga
Network for success.
"I wish I had spent more time cultivating a network of people."—Alan ElSheshai
Know what your tech debt is.
“Sometimes you have to pay the piper."—Joe Moster
How startups work.
"I originally thought that the way startups work is you have a good idea, you build a good idea, and then you find a way to sell the good idea. And I was really surprised that that's not how it works in practice."—Greg Granito
Risk-taking confidence.
"Taking on risk doesn't faze me anymore. I understand risk."—Gaurav Bhatia
Disadvantage of working remotely.
“An in-office presence is important. Learning about other people—if you're in a startup, or any company, that's all remote, I think it's much harder to do that. You learn a lot less about the people."—Alan ElSheshai
Not everybody needs to be an engineer.
“It's a decision about how you want to structure your career. There are other disciplines outside of engineering [where] you can provide a lot of value—sales, business development, corporate strategy.”—Amir Shah
Experience helps avoid repeating mistakes.
"I know exactly what NOT to do. And that is very powerful. Because I know I don't have to take those steps anymore."—Gaurav Bhatia
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