Lessons from Y Combinator, Burnout, Investing and Book Writing, with Devin Hunt

Not My First Guess

Episode #1: Meet Devin Hunt
Devin is a serial founder, investor and startup mentor.
His first startup was accepted onto Y Combinator, on a cohort with Dropbox, Songkick and Disqus, but ultimately failed. His second startup Lyst is still going strong, raising a pre-IPO round of funding at a reported $700m valuation in 2021.
But Devin, having burned out and left the company, also went on to found two more startups. The first, Foundercentric, taught founders "how to suck less" by getting fast and continuous feedback from real customers, and his latest venture, Useful books, helps Non-Fiction writers get real feedback from their readers and community as they write.
He's also an investor at Seedcamp, a fund which has invested in 7 European unicorns: Hopin, Wise, Revolut, Sorare, wefox, Pleo and UiPath.
In this episode he shares:

• What Paul Graham taught him on Y Combinator
• Why his first idea died, and how he could have killed it a lot faster
• How they tested the core assumptions in Lyst
• His experience of burnout, and how he avoids it today
• How to speak to customers to avoid bad data
• The most common advice he gives startups he invests in
• And when to hold your nose...

Links:

• https://www.usefulbooks.com/
• https://www.lyst.co.uk/
• https://seedcamp.com/

Chapters

1. Devin Podcast Final Editing Doc (00:00:00)

2. Y combinator (00:05:09)

3. Why Fuzzwich failed (00:11:29)

4. Proof of concepts (00:14:16)

5. Charismatic foundership (00:15:33)

6. Lyst Founding story (00:18:34)

7. Burnout and Mental Health (00:26:00)

8. Founder Centric (00:31:03)

9. What to look for in a cofounder (00:56:04)