Jake Johnson

@KevinNaughtonJr Take your shot, king 🫡

*nervously clears throat* i also need a vc

@ycombinator @gru_space Let's goooo! Might have to get Bolto to the Moon with GRU 👀

🌕@GRU_Space built the world's first Moon factory in just 6 weeks—patent-pending hardware turning lunar dirt into bricks and inflates habitats on the Moon. It's landing as early as next year to lay the foundation for lunar hotels and base infra. Congrats on the launch, @skyler_chan_! ycombinator.com/launches/Pfb-g…

@chrispisarski People are way too afraid to find out it’s a no. If people don’t want it, they’ll churn eventually. Might as well make it clear so you don’t waste more time.

YC taught us a simple sales rule: never let a prospect end a call with “i’ll get back to you” replace it by saying this: “totally fair. do you want to: A) put 15 minutes on the calendar so we can talk it through, or B) call this a no for now?” not booking the follow-up meeting during the call is one of the fastest ways to lose a deal

Fr Alexander Hamilton had incredible forethought

@paulg I really hope this doesn’t change. Every time we talk to @koomen I feel like I’m back in the batch.

One of the things that surprised me about YC is how long we continue to advise founders. We thought we'd just help them get started and then hand them over to later stage investors, but in fact we're still talking to founders 10 years in.

@mrinalsingh02 Absolutely 0 room for caffeine withdrawals @DensityChi when I’m in town

No task too small for a founder Office coffee via @jakesmaincrew

@airkatakana @tbpn @bchesky I don’t actually think this is the biggest advantage of being a YC company. This helps with fundraising way more than sales.

@tbpn @bchesky it makes sense that almost all yc companies would be b2b though the biggest benefit from being in yc these days is slapping the "yc approved" label on your company for marketing purposes, but consumers dont care about that at all

Airbnb CEO @bchesky says more AI founders should be starting consumer businesses. "I'm on the board of Y Combinator. 87% of companies are enterprise companies per batch." "Enterprise is awesome... but the biggest prize is consumer. That is what's going to reach daily life for billions of people." "Think about all the little parts of daily life that are kind of annoying. Pay attention to whoever's in your life and ask: 'How could their daily life be a little bit easier?'"

Startup life is weird man. On my literal worst days I still love my job, even though it sucks. Does that make sense?

Happy Aaron Rodgers elimination day to all who observe

@shiftj @garrytan The most memorable moment for me in YC was when Dalton gathered all of Group 3 after demo day and gave us the Just Don’t Die speech. Made for a happy little milestone when we reached the two year anniversary of that day.

Arguably the best YC advice I ever got. They call this “default alive”. It means you’ve got enough cash to survive without being dependent on the next raise. This prevents over-spending and driving yourself off a cliff. If you think about it, that’s the only way to kill your startup. You spend too much and can’t survive another day. All other reasons for death can be figured out if you’ve got enough time (or cash to buy time) Takeaways: 1) To guarantee failure: spend more than you make. 2) To increase odds of success: survive long enough to figure it out.

Working in office in Chicago (@DensityChi ) genuinely feels different while the Bears are on a run. This city is fueled by sports.

Saturdays are for building @boltohq (& the @ChicagoBears when in Chicago)

Overheard dog patch: Person #1: “cofounder cest might be the single worst kind of cest.” Person #2: “you serious right now?”

Somebody (me) said “go packers” in the @DensityChi office in Chicago and now nobody is focused anymore

@endpoint @browserbase @pk_iv Does exiting a company not count as real startup experience??

i’m moving to san francisco and joining @browserbase full-time. a little over a year ago, i had no "real" experience on my resume. after selling my last company and 400+ cold applications: nothing. one warm intro later, i hopped on a call with @pk_iv. shortly after, i joined as an intern. today, i’m graduating from that role - and coming back full-time. i’m deeply grateful for the opportunity, and especially for the risks people took on me - then and now. there are only a handful of category-defining companies: twilio, stripe, vercel… i believe browserbase is next. 2026 is our year. إن شاء الله

24

I’m gonna see how many billboards say “AI” on them between SFO and the marina. o/u I’m setting is 17.5. Place your bets

founders interviewing for w26 we are doing mock interviews dm!

@olvrgln Imagine betting against these guys

Introducing Mesa, the world’s first multi-agent code review system that truly understands your system and architecture to deliver senior-level reviews.

Thank you for an AMAZING August at Bolto! We had an absolutely jam packed month, including: 1/ Mary Landis stepping up as our new CTO 2/ Hiring Lia Mason 3/ An all company offsite in Seattle ☀️ 4/ Shipping improvements to our contractor management tool and making headway on our US payroll rollout Growing team, growing company, customers happy, doesn't get better than that. Thanks to our customers and the Bolto team for one of our best months yet. So much to come this fall that we can't wait to announce!