Pod Insights Y Combinator Podcast When Should You Trust Your Gut? | Dalton & Michael Podcast About this episode When you’re making important decisions as a founder — like what to build or how it should work — should you spend lots of time gathering input from others or just trust your gut?
In this episode of Dalton & Michael, we talk more about this and how to know when you should spend time validating and when to just commit.
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 If you wanted to build a new compiler, if you wanted to build something that's like really arcane,
0:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
0:05 Speaker 00 but that you know a lot about and you have a lot of taste, to get a lot of opinions about, a lot of expertise on.
0:10 Speaker 01 Yes.
0:10 Speaker 00 Often, you should listen to that expertise.
0:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
0:16 Speaker 01 This is Dalton plus Michael and today, we're going to talk about commit or validate, when to trust your gut as a startup founder. So I'll set this one up. I find myself encountering two situations at YC. Situation one is a founder who used to work at a company, built something extremely valuable at that company. It was deployed. The company loved that thing. And that founder thought to themselves, hmm, maybe other companies would want it. And so they left, started YC to try to productize the thing they built. Example two. Two kids, maybe worked a year out of college and they want to start a startup. They're trying to figure out what to work on.
1:00 Speaker 01 They're both technical, they're smart, they're bright, they want to get rich. Don't know what to do yet. We see these two patterns constantly. And I find it interesting on how we give advice. I'm like, hey, when, which one of these people, which one of these examples should trust their gut?
1:16 Speaker 00 Yeah. Basically, we're saying that general advice doesn't apply well to these two cases. We are admitting
1:25 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:26 Speaker 00 that you actually need bespoke advice.
1:29 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:29 Speaker 00 Depending on which category you're in, that's a little bit different. And so, again, to make the extreme version of trusting your gut, this is when founders think they're Steve Jobs. You're like, well, Steve Jobs never talked to customers. Steve Jobs.
1:41 Speaker 01 Never.
1:41 Speaker 00 And he would never give people what they asked for. No one asked for the iPhone. He had to like envision it.
1:45 Speaker 01 He didn't even use a phone before he invented the iPhone.
1:48 Speaker 00 And so, the extreme comic book version of trusting your gut.
1:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:52 Speaker 00 Is you talk to no one.
1:53 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:53 Speaker 00 You somehow from having great taste or a great internal
1:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:58 Speaker 00 idea of what people want, you just manifest it and it's totally unique and different.
2:03 Speaker 01 Yes.
2:03 Speaker 00 And the opposite extreme is the comic book version of, you know, the mom test, I don't know anything. I have no ideas at all. I'm going to only talk to people and have them tell me the ideas and have no opinion. I'm going to assume that I know nothing and all my instincts are wrong.
2:21 Speaker 01 In my mind, the perfect version of not trusting your gut is like the typical investor. Like I'm just gonna hedge, I'm gonna invest in a lot of different things and see what works. I can't even commit to one thing.
2:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, sometimes we talk to founders that are like, yeah, we don't, we don't know what to work on. So our plan is to talk to people and they'll tell us what to work on.
2:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:38 Speaker 00 And we're like, great, how's that going? Right? So it's, it's, it's zero percent trusting your gut.
2:45 Speaker 01 All right, so let's say you're in that first category. Let's say that you, um, you have expertise. You're solving your own problem. You've done something that's created value, either for a lot of people or maybe even just a few. How should you think about the challenge of bringing a product to market slightly differently?
3:06 Speaker 00 Yeah, I, I think we would argue that if you were inside of a company, you built a tool. Everyone at the company uses the tool. It's still being used even though you don't work there anymore. You probably know more than you think.
3:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:19 Speaker 00 And that it's probably okay to trust your gut more than you think, that you do understand a problem or that you have a unique insight.
3:26 Speaker 01 You've developed some taste.
3:27 Speaker 00 Yeah.
3:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:28 Speaker 00 And to the extent in other aspects of your life, say you built consumer products. Say you built an iPhone app that was like pretty popular. And you've gone through that whole thing and you have an idea for a new iPhone app. Well, I think you might, you, you understand what it takes to build and launch one of these things.
3:42 Speaker 01 Yes.
3:42 Speaker 00 And so you might have, it might be a better idea to follow those instincts a little bit more.
3:47 Speaker 01 Yes.
3:48 Speaker 00 Than, than thinking you have no, having no confidence in your instincts at all.
3:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:52 Speaker 00 And so the more you've developed this expertise, the more you can self discern that other people validate that things you've done in the past are good. It's not just in your own mind, you're, you're an expert.
4:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, yes.
4:06 Speaker 00 Those folks should feel, I don't know, like, like I think it's sometimes helpful to just be like, no, you should just listen to your instincts and just do the thing. You know more than most people, so listen to yourself to get this off the ground.
4:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, I often find myself saying in this situation, like, make something that would impress you.
4:22 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:22 Speaker 01 Like make something that you would be proud of, like you. And then like, you know, you can sell that to other people like you.
4:31 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:32 Speaker 01 You know, and so I think that's kind of a really cool superpower when you can be like, oh yeah, I can tell whether this is good because it's solving a problem I have or a problem I've solved before.
4:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:41 Speaker 01 I can tell whether this is good.
4:43 Speaker 00 If you wanted to build a new compiler, if you wanted to build something that's like really arcane.
4:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:49 Speaker 00 But that you know a lot about and you have a lot of taste, again, a lot of opinions about, a lot of expertise on.
4:53 Speaker 01 Yes.
4:54 Speaker 00 Often you should listen to that expertise.
4:56 Speaker 01 Yeah. Well, and I think that's what's fun for us as advice givers is sometimes we get to work with those kinds of people. And the biggest mistake we can make is try to have opinions. It's like, build what you want. Would you have liked this? Would you have bought it?
5:12 Speaker 00 Yeah.
5:12 Speaker 01 Would you have talked to yourself? Would you have read this email that you just sent about this thing?
5:16 Speaker 00 Yeah.
5:16 Speaker 01 Like those tests all work when, you know, you should trust your gut when you have some pretty succinct experience. Now, what about when maybe you shouldn't trust your gut?
5:25 Speaker 00 I think one way to self diagnose that maybe, yeah, your, your gut instinct may not be dead on is where you find that you don't have a lot of opinions about what to work on.
5:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:36 Speaker 00 Or that your opinions are very mid. No, I'm just kidding. Where your opinions are just very similar to the 50th percentile of other people.
5:45 Speaker 01 Mainstream.
5:46 Speaker 00 Mainstream. And so it'd be like, oh, well, you know, all the jobs you've had are just very high level. You never went deep on any particular topic where you just haven't had that many jobs.
5:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:56 Speaker 00 Is an example.
5:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:57 Speaker 00 And you just don't have a lot of preferences or to the extent you have preferences, they're the same as everyone else.
6:02 Speaker 01 Yes. And I think in these situations, and I've seen you this many times, you know, you kind of have to have a different mentality. Like part of starting a startup is going to be building expertise.
6:13 Speaker 00 Yep.
6:14 Speaker 01 You're not bringing expertise, you have to build expertise. And I've seen you say this a lot where it's like, hey, if you can start in a good general idea area, a good place where like you might think building expertise here will be valuable. And if you don't over hamper yourself with a complicated plan, you give yourself opportunity to build, to figure something out, you know? And I think that we're not trying to say one path is better than the other. We're just trying to say like, be self-conscious of whether you're bringing expertise or building expertise and then implement a plan. Based on
6:47 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:47 Speaker 01 That.
6:48 Speaker 00 And exactly. So let's give a concrete example. Here's one. Let's imagine that you want to work on a new real estate related software company. That's your startup idea.
6:58 Speaker 01 Yep.
6:58 Speaker 00 And in category A, let's say that you have 10 years of experience working as one of the founders was a real estate agent.
7:07 Speaker 01 Yes.
7:07 Speaker 00 Or one of the founders worked at a mortgage underwriting company for 10 years.
7:10 Speaker 01 Yes.
7:11 Speaker 00 And built software around mortgage underwriting. They have a startup idea and they have a, they are like, we think that mortgage underwriters want X.
7:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:21 Speaker 00 What should we do to validate this? It's like, well, you probably are right. Or like your, your judgment about knowing what mortgage underwriters want. If you've been building software inside of a mortgage underwriting company for 10 years.
7:35 Speaker 01 It's probably pretty good.
7:35 Speaker 00 Probably pretty good. And you probably know way more than the average bear about this stuff.
7:38 Speaker 01 You've probably tried other products.
7:40 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:41 Speaker 01 You've probably been disappointed.
7:42 Speaker 00 You know what vendors are available. You know why things work and why, you know.
7:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:45 Speaker 00 And so those kinds of people should probably trust their gut quite a bit about what mortgage underwriters want.
7:50 Speaker 01 Yes.
7:51 Speaker 00 Now let's use a different example with exactly the same idea. A mortgage underwriting software startup for real estate. And the founders have no experience whatsoever in the industry.
8:02 Speaker 01 Just great software development.
8:03 Speaker 00 Maybe they've not even bought a house before.
8:06 Speaker 01 Well, let's just say they bought a.
8:07 Speaker 00 Okay, we'll give them that.
8:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's why they're interested. They bought a house.
8:10 Speaker 00 And they have some ideas. They're like, well, we think the real estate industry is broken. And it's weird that it works this way. And so we just think we can fix it.
8:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:20 Speaker 00 And you kind of ask, well, what, you know, how much research have you done? Or how many people have you talked to in the industry? None.
8:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:28 Speaker 00 And they don't know anyone. Again, not, these folks can still be successful.
8:31 Speaker 01 Yes.
8:32 Speaker 00 But you, those folks should probably trust their gut a little bit less that they know precisely what to build to get this off the ground.
8:38 Speaker 01 I think that where we see this goes wrong is when.
8:44 Speaker 01 The founder with expertise is fearful and acts like the founder without. And the founder without expertise is too confident and acts like the founder with.
8:54 Speaker 00 Yep.
8:54 Speaker 01 And I can't say this enough, like I've seen so often the founder with expertise, where I'm like, you know so much about this, will be afraid, maybe the thing I built was only, no one else will want it. Or like, maybe my taste is unique.
9:08 Speaker 00 Or, or here's one, have you seen this one where, oh, I know what to build and they want it, but I don't think VCs will fund it.
9:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:15 Speaker 00 Like basically they're like, oh, hey, we actually know exactly what kind of software mortgage writers want, but we're building some AI bullshit.
9:21 Speaker 01 Yes.
9:22 Speaker 00 Because we think we need to say it's AI related.
9:25 Speaker 01 Yes, to raise money.
9:26 Speaker 00 Versus the thing that we know is actually the problem.
9:28 Speaker 01 Yes.
9:29 Speaker 00 That does not involve AI at all.
9:30 Speaker 01 Yes, like we're ignoring all of our expertise.
9:33 Speaker 00 Because it's not AI.
9:34 Speaker 01 Because yeah, and obviously that's the only way you can raise money. And then on the flip side, it's the, the, the team with no expertise, who are planning out their hiring and talking about how much money they need and reading Goldman Sachs reports about market sizes. And, oh, well, we need two years to build it because it's really complicated. It has to be comprehensive solution. It's like, hey, maybe you want to build the smallest thing possible and learn some more. And by the way, this isn't, um, we're not trying to give quote unquote permission to take 10 years to build the magical thing. All we're trying to say is like, when building the MVP, how much should you be trusting your gut? How much should you be trying to impress yourself?
10:20 Speaker 01 Versus trying to impress initial users? And hopefully, um, you realize something really important, which is that if you have expertise and you impress yourself, you're, you're walking a good path. You're walking a good path.
10:35 Speaker 00 And if you don't, no sweat. Most folks that we fund, most folks that get into YC don't have a ton of expertise. That is totally fine.
10:43 Speaker 01 Totally fine.
10:43 Speaker 00 It just means you should admit that to yourself.
10:46 Speaker 01 Yes.
10:47 Speaker 00 And start really simple and learn on the fly. Learn within the idea space that you've chosen.
10:53 Speaker 01 Yes.
10:54 Speaker 00 And don't have a lot of prescriptive ideas on what mortgage underwriters want.
10:58 Speaker 01 Yes.
10:58 Speaker 00 Just sort of walk in with, oh, this is kind of what I'm thinking, but I'm open minded.
11:03 Speaker 01 That's it.
11:03 Speaker 00 I need to learn a lot.
11:04 Speaker 01 And maybe it's helpful to choose an area that you're excited to learn about.
11:08 Speaker 00 Yes.
11:09 Speaker 01 Cause you have a lot of learning to do.
11:10 Speaker 00 Yep.
11:11 Speaker 01 So maybe it's helpful to not choose an area that you think, well, I hate this area, but I think it's going to raise money. It's like, not the best play. I think that if you can figure out how to leverage this advice, it's, it's really interesting. And I want to bring it back to the first point you made. It's really hard to give one size fits all advice. Like these two examples, you come with expertise, you don't.
11:35 Speaker 00 And it's the same idea.
11:36 Speaker 01 See, yeah, yeah.
11:37 Speaker 00 I'm arguing this is precisely the same startup, just with different people that are the founders.
11:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think this is what's fun about working at YC is how often when in office hours with a founder, I'm like, oh, actually, you should maybe do it differently than like what you might hear in the video. Like you, you're like, that's the kind of cool thing about being in the work with people one on one, you can actually customize. Awesome. Thank you very much.
12:02 Speaker 00 Sounds good.
12:03 Speaker 01 Thanks.
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