YC
Hosain Rahman at Startup School SV 2014
@ Y Combinator
10/15/14
Takeaways
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
In 1999, we aimed to create a voice interaction system for mobile devices, inspired by the mobile device revolution led by companies like Palm and Nokia.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We realized that our initial ideas for speech recognition weren't feasible, which led us to pivot and focus on developing noise cancellation technology.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Raising our first half a million dollars was more challenging than raising our first $200 million, as investors were skeptical about mobile voice technology at the time.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We invented noise cancellation technology that became a significant breakthrough in mobile audio, which we initially stumbled upon while trying to solve a problem.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Despite the initial excitement around our technology, major handset manufacturers were reluctant to integrate it due to cost concerns, which hindered our progress.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
DARPA funding allowed us to develop our noise cancellation algorithms for military applications, which helped us keep our company afloat during tough times.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We learned that many innovative ideas from 1999 were ahead of their time, and it was crucial to stay the course and believe in the potential of mobile technology.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We decided to create our own hardware device instead of licensing our technology, believing we could do it better ourselves. Building consumer hardware as a startup was considered totally insane in the early 2000s, with very few successful examples to follow.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
When we raised venture capital in 2003, it was one of the only deals that the firm had done at that time, highlighting the challenges of building hardware.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Design in the tech industry was often an afterthought, typically involving superficial changes like color, rather than a fundamental aspect of product development.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Apple was a pioneer in merging technology and design, especially with the iPod, setting a standard for consumer electronics that we aimed to follow.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Meeting Steve Jobs before our product launch was a pivotal moment; his brutal feedback made us realize we had compromised on our core values and instincts.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
After launching our first consumer product, we realized we had compromised on key design elements, which ultimately led to its poor performance in the market.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Despite the failure of our first product, we believed in our mission to improve communication and enhance people's lives, which motivated us to continue.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
After facing significant setbacks, we took back control from our investors and focused on learning from our mistakes to develop a better product.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Failure is often the best teacher, forcing you to analyze every angle and understand what went wrong in order to improve in the future.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We spent two years without salaries, focusing on our first headset and exploring the potential of wearable computing, which is now a hot topic in tech.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Launching a product just before Christmas, like December 21st, is not ideal because it's too late to capture holiday sales.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We went from zero to seventy million in revenue in our first year after launching our product, which sold out in a few hours.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Focusing ruthlessly on the problems you're trying to solve can transform your business significantly.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
If you don't address core issues, everything can go wrong, but if you do, you can build from there and see rapid transformation.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We scaled our company from zero to seventy million in revenue with just six people at the start, which was a challenging situation.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
In 2008, we faced a major setback when the financial crisis hit, leading to canceled orders and a million units on backorder.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We spent a lot of 2009 working down our excess inventory, including a significant deal with Costco to move products.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
When we launched a new product in 2011, we received a billion media impressions, but we also faced issues with product failures at scale.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
We learned that in hardware, you must create products that people are willing to pay more for than it costs to make them.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Integrating software and hardware effectively requires collaboration between teams that often speak different languages.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
The modern consumer electronics landscape demands that the software experience is just as important as the physical product itself.
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Hosain Rahman
10/15/14
@ Y Combinator
Designing mobile applications involves a blend of three-dimensional and two-dimensional interactions, not just simple visuals.