RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

The first time I founded a company, I was overly concerned about what others thought, including my team and investors. The second time, I focused on building something that people genuinely wanted.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

Zip is a procurement software company that provides a single point of contact for employees to request purchases, routing them for approval across various departments before integrating with the ERP financial system.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

At Zip, we raised about $370 million and achieved a valuation of $2.2 billion after our Series D round last month.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

FlightCar was born from the idea of car-sharing at airports, allowing travelers to rent out their cars while they were away, fully insured.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

In the early days of FlightCar, we launched without a parking lot by using a local BART station, which led to rapid growth but also caught the attention of the BART police due to the number of cars parked there.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

We had to be scrappy at FlightCar, even resorting to undercover operations to meet customers and park their cars without drawing attention to our business.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

Starting a business with low margins creates a negative feedback loop, making it harder to raise funds and sustain operations, as seen with FlightCar's struggles during its early days.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

After FlightCar, I joined Airbnb as a product manager to learn how successful companies operate and to gain insights into building a great product.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

At Airbnb, I learned the importance of quality and detail in product development, especially from observing CEO Brian Chesky's involvement in the experiences product.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

During my time at Airbnb, the company grew significantly, from around 30 product managers to over a hundred, highlighting the rapid expansion and the scale of operations.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

You want to ensure that the pain your company experiences is mostly externally inflicted, not self-inflicted.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

At Airbnb, there was a need for change, which created conflict within the company to ask hard questions about team needs and project justifications.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

After FlightCar, I knew I was going to start another company, but this time I was going to be much more thoughtful about it.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

We decided to sell to our first 10 customers completely cold, without referrals, to prove market fit.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

It's important to charge for your product because if there's enough pain and promise of a solution, people will pay for it.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

If a company isn't willing to pay for your product, it indicates that you may need to tweak what you're building.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

The second time as a founder, I focused on building something that works and sought to disprove things with my first set of customers.

RZ

Rujul Zaparde

01/09/25

@ Y Combinator

In board meetings, I prefer to focus on what's broken in the business rather than what's going well, as that leads to improvement.

Building A $2 Billion SaaS Company: Lessons From A Two Time Founder

Takeaways