This post summarizes a short clip from Y Combinator (September 2024), where the speakers answer a founder’s question: your product is out there and nobody uses it, so what do you do? Their joke answer is “cry”. Their real answer: the best founders treat it as a problem to solve and diagnose, like sponges that learn from everything. Facing a flop is part of the startup journey, and the way through is to treat each setback as something to diagnose.
Key Takeaways #
- Treat a flop as a problem to diagnose, not a verdict.
- Look for where users or customers drop off.
- Tweak one variable at a time, week by week.
- Check whether you are targeting the wrong people.
Diagnose Before You Change Anything #
The speakers say to treat it like an analytical problem. Ask why you are not getting users or customers, and where the drop-off is. They give examples of what to check:
- Replies: are people not replying to your emails or asking for a demo?
- Messaging: can you tweak the message?
- Targeting: are you aiming at the wrong people?
Experimenting With Strategies #
Their method is to tweak one variable at a time, week by week. For example, try a different message in your emails and see whether more people book demos. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, move to the next variable. The speakers add that tweaking variables one by one is how you dig yourself out.
Targeting the Right Audience #
The last variable in their example is the audience. Maybe, they say, you are trying to sell into thousand-person enterprise companies and should be targeting smaller companies.
Conclusion #
Nobody in the clip promises that a relaunch will succeed. The advice is a method: diagnose where the drop-off is, change one thing at a time, and re-check who you are selling to. If you want the original, watch the clip.
