The Undefeated Underdogs

Yana Welinder - How to build and scale a VC-backed startup as a solo founder!


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Oct 16 2024 57 mins   1
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👉🏼 About the Guest:

Yana Welinder is CEO and Founder of Kraftful (YC S19) – an AI assistant that helps product teams build better products by listening to users at scale. Before starting Kraftful, she led product teams at multiple tech companies and personally experienced the challenge of trying to involve millions of users in the product development process. At Kraftful, she built a team of Meta, Slack, and IFTTT alumni, backed by Y Combinator, Google, Samsung, and other exceptional investors and entrepreneurs. Yana is also a Stanford fellow and has been invited to give talks at the White House, the UN Internet Governance Forum, Yale, NYU, and many product events and podcasts over the years.


👉🏼 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 24,000 using give-first principles and creating high-value content. He recently sold his second SaaS product, GuestLab, and he is working on a startup idea while hosting this show.

👉🏼 Sponsor Corner:

Shoutout to Acquire.com for sponsoring The Undefeated Underdogs podcast! They’re the best online marketplace to buy/sell startups and I know many founders who have sold their businesses there. If you're looking to wind down your business and cash in some of your founder chips, check them out - https://try.acquire.com/sharath/



👉🏼 Description:

Listen in as Sharath and Yana discuss founder mode, creating sticky products, mental health as a solo founder, and more!

👉🏼 Timestamps:

  • 00:00: Episode Highlight
  • 01:00: Shoutout to Acquire.com
  • 03:26: Introduction to Yana Welinder - YC alum, solo founder at Kraftful – an AI assistant
  • 05:01: How Yana discovered a niche for Kraftful
  • 09:40: How to carry off a pivot, emotionally and tactically
  • 15:52: Signals that indicate a need to pivot
  • 18:30: Building a support system as a solo founder
  • 19:50: Therapy frameworks that help solo founders
  • 22:10: Habits to calm you down as a founder
  • 25:51: How Y Combinator changes your startup journey
  • 30:55: How Y Combinator has changed over the years
  • 34:57: How to drive organic traction as a founder
  • 41:45: Wearing many hats as a solo founder: hiring, growth, marketing, product
  • 45:40: How to make your product sticky
  • 48:22: Founder mode vs Manager mode
  • 54:10: Yana's reply to "founder mode is trash" takes
  • 56:58: Outro and closing thoughts

👉🏼 Resources:

👉🏼 Where to find Yana:

  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/yanatweets
  • Website: https://www.kraftful.com/
  • Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ywelinder
  • TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/author/yana-welinder/

👉🏼 Where to find Sharath:

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