Join Y Combinator, then raise quickly on strong revenue and CAC/LTV

Morrie Schonfeld… thought it was the right move for us. Like YC delivered a lot of value for us. Like the common like, you know, if debate you see online is like the cash value for the equity versus like the value of like the experience. And like I kind of, going into it, everyone's drinking the Kool-Aid of like the experience and the network of YC and all the investors you get, and I was like, "Wow, everyone's drinking the Kool-Aid. Like this is crazy."

Morrie SchonfeldAnd then I get there, and I'm like, people are drinking the Kool-Aid, and then I get through it, and I go, they're all right, because at least what I found, like the connect Like it's so easy to fundraise after YC. Granted, the big asterisks there is we had really good metrics, like our revenue was high, our CAC/LTV is good, like we were like doing really well, but like everyone just sought us out. Like we had like 100 like at we had like 100 meetings scheduled, and we canceled most of them because we've closed our round in like 3 days. Like it's really easy to raise, and the value of the advice you get in the community you build is great.

Morrie SchonfeldLike the partners are really direct. They've literally seen like 5,000 companies. Like they give it to you straight. They kind of point us in the right direction. And I think for us like, you know, having not built an app at this scale before, for me being the first app ever Like I've never done anything before Pingo. Like this is the first thing I've ever grown. Um Michael's built some other apps before, but like at least for me on like the …

Morrie Schonfeld… like, "Yeah, you have this lever that's working, like just keep doing that. Like index on this." And like some of it's like really obvious advice, but like it's kind of hard to think of on your own, and then when someone tells you, you're like, "Oh, that makes sense." But I think the real value of like at least YC versus general venture was like the community, the fundraising, and the connections, like the network, and the advice we'd get.

Morrie SchonfeldIn terms of venture in general for an app like us, like again, like at least what I've found is like we had negative cash flow for a while, and that was just due to like the timing of costs and like revenue kind of like receive back from the App Store and Play Store, that the venture route made that a lot easier. Like we we had funding. If we had a negative cash flow, it didn't matter. Like we weren't going to go bankrupt. We were fine. Not everyone has like as high costs like a of a voice app, but I personally like it. Like I totally see the value in both. It kind of just depends on what you want your lifestyle to be.

Morrie SchonfeldLike if you go the venture route, you drop out of school. If someone's giving you like YC half a million dollars, investors other millions of dollars, like if people are giving you money, like they want to know that that's your full That's what your full time is. So you got to be ready to like commit to that. If you're not, then like still bootstrap in school. Like there's kind of like pros and cons to both, and like depends on what you want, and …