Arjun Mahadevan(doola, YC S20) - Building in a high-competition space, building in public, and educating customers!

10/03/23 • 41 min

Today’s guest is Arjun Mahadevan from doola (YC S20), a “Business-in-a-Box” for creators. Mahadevan previously worked at Dropbox as a Product Manager and started doola in 2020.

doola (formerly StartPack) is a “Business-in-a-Box” for creators. We take care of everything creators need to form an LLC, set up their bank account, accept payments, and manage ongoing compliance and tax filings. We realized how difficult it was to set up the full stack of software and accounts you need to get a business off the ground. This is the same problem faced by online businesses, who begin their business as a side hustle, and just want to focus on growing their business, not annoying administrative work. That’s why we built doola: to take care of it all. Today, people on every continent have launched companies with doola.

Listen on to learn more about Arjun’s YC application and journey!

Prefer to curl up and read the transcript? Read our newsletter at https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/

Episode Timestamps:

1:22: What is your startup idea?
3:45: How did you come up with the idea?
5:18: When did you get into YC?
5:30: What are the key elements to focus on when applying to YC?
7:32: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
9:58: Did you pivot your idea during or after YC?
10:10: How did YC help you go from 0 to 1 to N?
12:17: Share a “do things that don’t scale” story in your startup journey.
15:52: How did you get your first 1000 users?
17:50: How was Demo Day?
18:55: Share 3 tips for founders who are trying to get into YC.
21:42: How was your experience pivoting doola?
26:43: How do you educate founders on the company-making process?
31:10: How did building in public help accelerate doola’s growth?
34:30: How did you convince YC and investors that doola is a differentiator, given existing products like Stripe Atlas?
37:25: What advice would you give founders who are building in spaces with heavy competition?
39:55: Any last few thoughts that you want to share before we wrap up?

👉🏼 About the Host:

Sharath is a founder, creator, and community builder. He is also a serial maker who built and shipped 15+ projects using no-code tools. His SaaS product Shoutout generates $30k ARR, which was sold to a UK-based product studio. Prev, Sharath worked for world-changing startups like Product Hunt and On Deck, where he helped build and nurture communities. He also grew his audience on Twitter from 200 to 21,000 using give-first principles and creating high-value content. Currently, he is the Head of Community at Threado and hosts another podcast called The Undefeated Underdogs.

👉🏼 Where to find Arjun:

Doola: https://www.doola.com/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/arjunmahadevan
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahadevanarjun/

👉🏼 Where to find Sharath:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/5harath
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@5harath
Website: https://5harath.com/
Newsletter: https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/
The Undefeated Underdogs Podcast: https://undefeatedunderdogs.com/

Today’s guest is Arjun Mahadevan from doola (YC S20), a “Business-in-a-Box” for creators. Mahadevan previously worked at Dropbox as a Product Manager and started doola in 2020.

Listen on to learn more about Arjun’s YC application and journey!

Prefer to curl up and read the transcript? Read our newsletter at https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/

Episode Timestamps:

1:22: What is your startup idea?
3:45: How did you come up with the idea?
5:18: When did you get into YC?
5:30: What are the key elements to focus on when applying to YC?
7:32: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
9:58: Did you pivot your idea during or after YC?
10:10: How did YC help you go from 0 to 1 to N?
12:17: Share a “do things that don’t scale” story in your startup journey.
15:52: How did you get your first 1000 users?
17:50: How was Demo Day?
18:55: Share 3 tips for founders who are trying to get into YC.
21:42: How was your experience pivoting doola?
26:43: How do you educate founders on the company-making process?
31:10: How did building in public help accelerate doola’s growth?
34:30: How did you convince YC and investors that doola is a differentiator, given existing products like Stripe Atlas?
37:25: What advice would you give founders who are building in spaces with heavy competition?
39:55: Any last few thoughts that you want to share before we wrap up?

👉🏼 Where to find Arjun:

Doola: https://www.doola.com/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/arjunmahadevan
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahadevanarjun/

👉🏼 Where to find Sharath:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/5harath
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@5harath
Website: https://5harath.com/
Newsletter: https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/
The Undefeated Underdogs Podcast: https://undefeatedunderdogs.com/

Previous Episode

Gonzalo Espinoza Graham (Double, YC W23) - Building robots, seeing the future, and leveraging AI

Today’s guest is Gonzalo Espinoza Graham from Double (YC W23), a tool that makes it easy for sales teams to answer very specific questions about their prospects, the kind that ZoomInfo can't answer.

Gonzalo’s previous companies include Ninja Delivery (acq. 2022) and Watfly. He is currently the co-founder of Double.

Double makes it easy for sales teams to answer very specific questions about their prospects, the kind that ZoomInfo can't answer. We do this by searching the web and using LLMs to compile verifiable answers with citations. We can answer questions like: - Is this a remote-first company? - Do they offer customer support via Slack? - Is their primary product an API? - Is this a law firm that specializes in personal injury? - And anything else you can think of

Listen on to learn more about Gonzalo Espinoza Graham’s YC application and journey!

Prefer to curl up and read the transcript? Read our newsletter at https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/

Episode Timestamps:

1:13: What is your startup idea?
2:23: How did you come up with the idea?
4:41: When did you get into YC?
5:18: What are the key elements to focus on when applying to YC?
6:05: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
6:51: Did you pivot your idea during or after YC?
7:45: How did YC help you go from 0 to 1 to N?
8:56: Share a “do things that don’t scale” story in your startup journey.
9:45: How did you get your first 1000 users?
11:16: Share 3 tips for founders who are trying to get into YC.
13:13: How was Demo Day?
14:08: How did you go from a non-linear career in robotics, delivery, etc. to Double?
18:23: What insights do you want to give founders on timing the market and understanding market cap?
20:13: You said you've been rejected three times by YC, and this is the fourth time you got in. Talk to me about the whole experience.
26:19: What is the status of Watfly and Ninja Delivery now?
27:15: What was the process of building the prototype for Watfly and did you look into selling it versus shutting it down?
30:18: What inspires you? Who do you look up to these days or even in the past?
32:22: What are the big differences you're seeing in the whole process of building software vs hardware?
34:57: In terms of Double or other technologies, what are you passionate about right now?
36:47: Do you see a future of autonomous robots roaming around in the streets and delivering food and doing things for us?
39:06: When you go through the lows, how did you build that conviction to know you were on the right path?
41:56: Any last few thoughts that you wanna share before we wrap up?

👉🏼 Where to find Gonzalo:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/geepytee
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gonzaloesp/

👉🏼 Where to find Sharath:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/5harath
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@5harath
Website: https://5harath.com/
Newsletter: https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/
The Undefeated Underdogs Podcast: https://undefeatedunderdogs.com/

Next Episode

Building a life-changing startup, making your own marketing, and rejection + conviction: Kathryn Cross (Anja Health, YC W22)

Today’s guest is Kathryn Cross from Anja Health (YC W22), which reimagines cord blood banking.

Kathryn previously founded Bridge Strategy, a management consultancy helping early-stage businesses grow their Gen Z consumer base and worked at MIT Research Lab and Goldman Sachs.

Anja Health is helping pregnant parents save the most personal source of stem cells - from their umbilical cord and placenta - to unlock future disease treatments. Offering cord blood banking, cord tissue banking, and placenta stem cell banking.

Listen on to learn more about Kathryn’s YC application and journey!

Prefer to curl up and read the transcript? Read our newsletter at https://ycfounderstories.substack.com/

Episode Timestamps:

00:42: What is your startup idea?
00:53: How did you come up with the idea?
01:36: When did you get into YC?
01:45: What are the key elements to focus on when applying to YC?
02:14: Share your YC interview experience in 1-2 sentences.
02:38: How did YC help you go from 0 to 1 to N?
03:12: Share a “do things that don’t scale” story in your startup journey.
03:34: How did you get your first 1000 users?
03:44: Share 3 tips for founders who are trying to get into YC.
04:56: How was Demo Day?
05:36: Talk to me about how much of a struggle is for you to educate parents.
07:35: What are the biggest gaps you’re seeing in educating parents and how does Anja Health fill that gap?
09:25: How do you show parents the importance of Anja Health?
11:14: What does the biggest chunk of your audience look like?
12:12: Talk to me about Anja’s business model.
13:20: How did you convince YC to invest in you during the interview?
14:34: When you got rejections, what were the things that they didn't believe in that you had a strong conviction towards?
15:30: How is the experience working with Alexis Ohanian from Seven Seven Six, since he is an investor in Anja Health?
17:03: How did you prove that your product was successful and how did you go to market and scale that up?
19:19: How do you keep up with the competition when you create content as well as your own competition in healthcare?
21:36: What is an ambitious goal you're chasing?
22:56: Any closing thoughts before we wrap up?

👉🏼 About the Host:

Sharath is a founder, creator, and community builder. He is also a serial maker who built and shipped 15+ projects using no-code tools. His SaaS product Shoutout generated $30k ARR, which was sold to a UK-based product studio. Prev, Sharath worked for world-changing startups like Product Hunt and On Deck, where he helped build and nurture communities. He also grew his audience on Twitter from 200 to 22,000 using give-first principles and creating high-value content. Currently, he is the Head of Community + Brand at Threado, building a side project called GuestLab, and runs a podcast called Undefeated Underdogs alongside hosting this podcast.

👉🏼 Where to find Kathryn: