At first I was solely focused on revenue generation as a measure for progress.

But, as we’ve moved along in the last two weeks, I’m realising the importance of digging deeper to find the indicators that aren’t monetary but do have an effect on revenue generation.

And measuring those accordingly.

Welcome back, this is Week 17 of The Unicorn Founder, and we are reaching a sort of new level of maturity (I think).

We’re gonna go through what’s changed in my mind, what’s changed in the startup, and what the YC application inspired.

This Week’s Update Overview:

• 🖊️ The Recap: A high-level summary of what happened this week, and it’s subsequent effect on the startup and myself, the founder.

• 😤 The Current Obstacle: Anxiety around current skillsets, lack of a tech moat, and time.

• 🕺 The Next Week Ahead: What this next week looks like.

🖊️ The Recap

Negotiation ✅ 

So, our first paying client wanted to order a refund halfway through his call package.

“You’re kidding right?”
Nope.

The Issue: He was spending more time trying to get things sorted on his side for the automation to work properly than it was intended to solve in the first place.

100% agree and understand that.

Sometimes additional tech intended to simply our lives actually complicates it more — which is one massive thing I never want Casper AI to be.

The Core Problem: He had his own dev team that was managing the integration of sending data from completed calls to his CRM — which we usually handle in-house and do it for them.

The Core Solution: To not cancel the call package but for us to have direct contact with the dev team to help them sort out their issues with the integration.

The Outcome: We managed to keep the client on, fixed the integration issues, and next week we get back to calling.

Whew, that was a close one 😅 

The Realization: Be patient with people, be polite, and make sure you stay 100% calm all the time. Logic and rationale prevails once you successfully navigate the emotions, and if you’re in the right, it will come to the surface organically.

Completed Website ✅ 

We finally got the website completed: https://www.casperai.co 

It was going on the YC application so it was super important to have it sorted before we submitted…

Despite the fact that there are still tiny little fixes we’re making here and there.

But one cool thing on the website is that you can receive a personal phone call from the AI yourself and have a chat about what features we offer, ask questions about Casper AI, and experience the tech for yourself.

And one really cool thing that happened ±1 day after publishing the completed website was that we had an inbound lead schedule a meeting with absolutely zero work done on our side.

Proving the power of a well-designed website that converts.

YC Application Submitted ✅ 

After proof-reading so many times, checking out so many resources such as https://www.getintoyc.com and having a few people read through the application, we submitted.

I am intentional about my application but detached — meaning if it doesn’t get accepted, that’s okay, my world doesn’t crumble.

I’m still continuing the journey of building a billion dollar company.

And besides, in three month’s time, there’ll be another batch I can apply to, with ideally a lot more traction, revenue, and proof-of-commitment.

But it did make me question a lot of things:

1. Is my team right?

2. Is my product right?

3. Is my industry right?

4. Is my skillset enough to be right?

And so forth.

The main conclusion I have reflected upon: None of those things matter. If you are willing to learn, to commit, and to persevere, those things get solved.

1. The right team gets formed.

2. The product iterates, evolves, and pivots until it’s right.

3. The right industry gets found.

4. The right skillset gets developed.

I think because so few people are willing to just commit to things, that in itself represents an opportunity to stand out.

So that’s what I’m continuing to do.

😤 The Current Obstacle

In going down this journey, I have found an incredibly deep passion for coding, technical development, machine learning, deep learning, mathematics, and data science — and a bunch more down that rabbit hole.

However, I have been jumping into the deep end immediately, following a very non-linear path to learning this stuff.

My foundation for this all is very rudimentary.

Which I count as a blessing: It has forced me to learn at an extremely fast rate and to retain the information quickly because I implement as soon as I learn it.

Now there are a ton of things I don’t know how to do, yet.

And that is a cause for anxiety — especially because I want to move at the fastest rate possible.

Something I am pondering continually: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

That has helped a lot in reminding me to focus on getting things done properly and not being reckless in haste.

Which has also allowed me the luxury to think about potentially spending part of my day learning things that I can start applying in the building.

The Realization: I am a builder; and the more skills I have, the more elaborate, valuable, and noteworthy things I can build.

How I see things:

We have lack of a tech moat because very little of what we have currently built is original — for MVP purposes it has been perfect.

The original building takes a bit more time and is underway.

Hence, if I learn skills that can allow me to contribute to that, then we can get the original building built and shipped faster.

The Process:

1. Learn skills

2. Build original (tech moat)

3. Have patience with the time it will take.

A big thing I do is forecast and simulate my future self: “How am I going to look back on this time in 3 month’s/12 month’s/24 month’s time?”

And I know for a fact I will say this: “I wish I dedicated more time to upskilling myself with the tools required to build all the things in my head.”

So I’m going down this path. 100%.

What it looks like: Dedicating meaningful time each day to learn deeper coding, machine learning, mathematics, data science, etc. etc. all the while maintaining the customers we’re currently onboarding & serving, building a sustainable monthly recurring revenue (and getting meaningful feedback).

🕺 The Next Week Ahead

1. Revenue: A couple customers are onboarding, will be completing their free trial, and (hopefully) signing up for the paid plan — as well as doing in-person visits to real estate agencies around Cape Town.

2. Reddit Research: I have found a goldmine of very active people in real estate and real estate tech that I am communicating with — got a lot of information to gather (both builders and customers).

3. YC Interview Practice: Practicing answers to potential questions and then also getting stuck into where we want to take this company, the vision, the plan, etc.

4. Education: Completing Harvard’s Introduction to CS50, looking into how to build probabilistic models with python, and doing Fundamentals of Statistics from MIT.

5. Social Media: Doing a lot of reflection on why I want to put content out on social media, who my audience is, and brainstorming how the content should be presented and what the content should be.

Let’s see what we can achieve 🙂 

😌 Want to give honest feedback?

All you need to do is reply to this email to tell me your experience versus expectations.

I’ll see what I can do to improve either a) the experience or b) the expectations I am promoting.

Or just thank you for the really helpful feedback :))))

Did I miss anything? Hit that Reply button and let me know what you’d like to see.

Did someone forward this to you? You can follow the billion dollar company journey here.

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Ciao, see you next week!

Ethan