Building A $2 Billion SaaS Company: Lessons From A Two Time Founder

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

#Future Trends #Kevin Hale #Tech #YC Content

26:18

How do you know when it’s time to make your next big career move? With International Women’s Day around the corner, we are excited to feature Avni Patel Thompson, Founder and CEO of Milo. Avni is building technology that directly supports the often overlooked emotional and logistical labor that falls on parents—especially women. Milo is an AI assistant designed to help families manage that invisible load more efficiently. In this episode, Avni shares her journey from studying chemistry to holding leadership roles at global brands like Adidas and Starbucks, to launching her own ventures. She discusses how she approaches career transitions, the importance of unpleasant experiences, and why she’s focused on making everyday life easier for parents. [01:26] Avni's University Days and Early Career [04:36] Non-Linear Career Paths [05:16] Pursuing Steep Learning Curves [11:51] Entrepreneurship and Safety Nets [15:22] Lived Experiences and Milo [19:55] Avni’s In Her Ellement Moment [20:03] Reflections Links: Avni Patel Thompson on LinkedIn Suchi Srinivasan on LinkedIn Kamila Rakhimova on LinkedIn Ipsos report on the future of parenting About In Her Ellement: In Her Ellement highlights the women and allies leading the charge in digital, business, and technology innovation. Through engaging conversations, the podcast explores their journeys—celebrating successes and acknowledging the balance between work and family. Most importantly, it asks: when was the moment you realized you hadn’t just arrived—you were truly in your element? About The Hosts: Suchi Srinivasan is an expert in AI and digital transformation. Originally from India, her career includes roles at trailblazing organizations like Bell Labs and Microsoft. In 2011, she co-founded the Cleanweb Hackathon, a global initiative driving IT-powered climate solutions with over 10,000 members across 25+ countries. She also advises Women in Cloud, aiming to create $1B in economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs by 2030. Kamila Rakhimova is a fintech leader whose journey took her from Tajikistan to the U.S., where she built a career on her own terms. Leveraging her English proficiency and international relations expertise, she discovered the power of microfinance and moved to the U.S., eventually leading Amazon's Alexa Fund to support underrepresented founders. Subscribe to In Her Ellement on your podcast app of choice to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, business, and technology.…

about a year ago 24:31

MP3•Episode home

Two-time founder Rujul Zaparde knows a thing or two about resilience and learning from failure.

After dropping out of college to build FlightCar, he worked as a PM at Airbnb, and later as a visiting partner at YC.

In 2020, he co-founded Zip, a procurement software company that has since raised $370 million and reached a $2.2 billion valuation.

In this conversation with YC's Dalton Caldwell, Rujul demystifies the world of enterprise sales, shares his hard-earned lessons about scaling a business from zero, and explains how founders can use first-principles thinking to better approach the challenges of building a startup.

252 episodes

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Building A $2 Billion SaaS Company: Lessons From A Two Time Founder

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

425 subscribers

published about a year ago

MP3•Episode home

Two-time founder Rujul Zaparde knows a thing or two about resilience and learning from failure.

After dropping out of college to build FlightCar, he worked as a PM at Airbnb, and later as a visiting partner at YC.

In 2020, he co-founded Zip, a procurement software company that has since raised $370 million and reached a $2.2 billion valuation.

252 episodes

#Future Trends #Kevin Hale #Tech #YC Content

Todos los episodios

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
Customer Obsession Made Gusto A $9.6 Billion Company 24:58

2 hours ago24:58

24:58

Gusto (https://gusto.com) made payroll and HR painless for small businesses, growing into a $9.6B company along the way. Co-founder & CEO Josh Reeves joined YC's Harj Taggar to share how they built a payroll company from scratch and their customer-first approach to product design and culture.

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
The Future Of Design With Figma's Dylan Field 37:41

5 days ago37:41

37:41

Design isn’t just about making things work—it’s about how they work, says Dylan Field, the co-founder & CEO of Figma. As AI transforms tech, he believes a designer's judgment, taste, and agency will matter more than ever. Dylan sat down with YC's Garry Tan to discuss the evolving world of design in the age of AI, the challenging early days at Figma, and how his team forever changed the way designers and engineers collaborate.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
How To Build The Future: Aravind Srinivas 34:38

25 days ago34:38

34:38

YC General Partner David Lieb sits down with Aravind Srinivas, the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, to discuss his origins in Silicon Valley, what it's like to compete with Google, and what the future of search could look like. Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
Building A Supersonic Plane Company From The Ground Up 13:45

5 weeks ago13:45

13:45

Imagine flying from NY to London in just a few hours. That’s the future that Blake Scholl and his team at Boom Supersonic are working towards. Blake started as a software engineer and pivoted mid-career to aviation. Now, he’s at the forefront of trying to bring back supersonic travel for all of us. In this episode of Hard Tech, YC’s Jared Friedman visited Blake in the Mojave desert to find out how someone who didn’t have a background in aerospace engineering was able to build the first-ever independently developed supersonic plane.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
The Right (And Wrong) Way To Spend Money At Your Startup 29:06

5 weeks ago29:06

29:06

Many startups fail because they run out of money. So how should you think about how to spend the money you raise? In this episode of Office Hours, YC General Partners Brad Flora, Pete Koomen, Nicolas Dessaigne, and Gustaf Alströmer discuss how to spend responsibly at each stage of a startup— including advice on when to hire, whether to invest in marketing and what spending mistakes to avoid. Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
How To Build The AGI Future: Bob McGrew 30:44

7 weeks ago30:44

30:44

According to OpenAI's former Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, reasoning and test-time compute will unlock more reliable and capable AI agents— and a path to scale to AGI. In this episode of How to Build the Future, YC's @garrytan sits down with Bob to discuss the lessons learned from his time at OpenAI, scaling laws, his advice for startups, and what all of this means for the jobs of the future.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
How To Use AI In Your Startup 14:02

9 weeks ago14:02

14:02

AI continues to improve at an exponential pace. So what can you do as a founder to take advantage of it? In this episode of Office Hours, YC Partners discuss what you should consider if you’re thinking about pivoting to or incorporating AI as part of your startup.

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
How To Build The Future: Parker Conrad 43:28

10 weeks ago43:28

43:28

In this episode of How to Build the Future, Garry sits down with Parker Conrad, Co-founder & CEO of Rippling, the all-in-one HR, Finance, and IT software company that’s valued at $13.5 billion. Parker is the co-founder of two unicorns and has one of the more dramatic startup journeys in recent years. In this interview, he shares his origin story, the lessons learned from his first two companies, how AI is changing the game, and why he thinks the future will be defined by "compound" software startups.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
Building A $2 Billion SaaS Company: Lessons From A Two Time Founder 24:31

10 weeks ago24:31

24:31

Two-time founder Rujul Zaparde knows a thing or two about resilience and learning from failure. After dropping out of college to build FlightCar, he worked as a PM at Airbnb, and later as a visiting partner at YC. In 2020, he co-founded Zip, a procurement software company that has since raised $370 million and reached a $2.2 billion valuation. In this conversation with YC's Dalton Caldwell, Rujul demystifies the world of enterprise sales, shares his hard-earned lessons about scaling a business from zero, and explains how founders can use first-principles thinking to better approach the challenges of building a startup.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
How David Lieb Turned A Failed Startup Into Google Photos | Backstory 19:32

13 weeks ago19:32

19:32

YC General Partner David Lieb’s story is all about perseverance. In 2008 he co-founded Bump, one of the hottest startups of the early iPhone era. But even with 150 million users, he couldn’t find a way to create a sustainable business. For many founders, that would be the end of the road. But he didn’t quit there. Instead, David and his team pivoted several times, got acquired, and eventually went on to build Google Photos. In this episode of Backstory, he shares his advice for finding the right idea, what mistakes to avoid, and how to maintain a positive mindset no matter what gets thrown at you.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
How To Start A Dev Tools Company with Nicolas Dessaigne | Startup School 32:56

16 weeks ago32:56

32:56

YC's Nicolas Dessaigne was the co-founder and CEO of @algolia, a Search API used by millions of developers to build great search experiences into their apps and websites. Today it powers over 1.75 trillion searches annually for 17,000+ customers worldwide. In this episode of Startup School, @dessaigne shares his advice for founders building a dev tools company from the ground up— covering everything from team and idea to GTM and sales.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
Twitter vs. X: Product Lessons For Startup Founders | The Breakdown 22:42

17 weeks ago22:42

22:42

Since Twitter rebranded to X, the platform has added new features and implemented a few major updates to both its UX and algo. So what can founders interested in product design learn from all this? In the first episode of our new series, The Breakdown, YC’s Tom Blomfield (co-founder of Monzo) and David Lieb (creator of Google Photos) take a closer look at X to find what lessons there are for founders building consumer products.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
How To Build The Future: Sam Altman 46:51

17 weeks ago46:51

46:51

It’s fair to say that few people in tech are positioned to have a bigger impact on the future than Sam Altman. At OpenAI, Sam and his team have overseen monumental leaps forward in machine learning, generative AI, and most recently, LLMs that can reason at PhD levels. And this is just the beginning. In his latest essay Sam predicted that ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) is just a few thousand days away. So how did we get to this point? In this episode of our rebooted series "How To Build The Future," YC President and CEO Garry Tan sits down with Sam to talk about the origins of OpenAI, what’s next for the company, and what advice he has for founders navigating this massive platform shift.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
How Do Billion Dollar Startups Start? | Office Hours 18:33

17 weeks ago18:33

18:33

The biggest companies in the world all had to start somewhere. In this episode of Office Hours, the Group Partners explore the humble origins of several top YC companies to try and identify common traits of the most successful founders. They’ll explore what it takes to keep your company alive in the early days, where to focus your energy and how to find product market fit that leads you to mega success.…

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

1
Why Design Matters: Lessons from Stripe, Lyft and Airbnb | Design Review 33:37

17 weeks ago33:37