CEO of Y Combinator, ex-Initialized partner
Garry Tan runs Y Combinator. Software doesn't have to be precious anymore, he says. You can build exactly the tool you need for an audience of one in a weekend, and some of those tools turn out to be entire companies. Emergent, from YC's summer 2024 batch, went from public launch to nine figures of revenue in eight months.
Launch timing
Shipping
Ship the jankiest MVP that still provides value. If users tolerate it, the problem is real.
Launch early, launch often. The best founders use launches to diagnose problems, find their early adopters, iterate on the product based on customer feedback, and then they launch again.
Garry Tan
says ship the jankiest version now and let real reaction decide, because fear of launching kills more startups than competition does. The first launch is a probe, so move fast on anything you can reverse.
says measure before you commit. Forty percent of active users answering very disappointed is the product-market-fit line, and scaling on a vibe instead of that number is how founders pour fuel on a fire that is not lit.
From Launch-Jankiest Rule
