I buy it. There are lots of stories though where a CEO change for an established company has happened for the better: Bob Iger, Satya Nadella, etc.

I do wonder about this. Do you think culturally it's essential for a business to retain its initial employees, maybe at the cost of productivity and benefit of a stronger cultural identity? On the one hand... those employees end up, naturally, as senior leaders in the company. So while they might have the history of having built the early company, they're also now tasked with leading the next generation of employees. That initial group ends up making hiring and product decisions that others execute on... how do you solve for this if they're not "A+"?

what do you think? Keep early employees around regardless for cultural benefit?

I had about $500 left in the bank. Monthly compute cost was just under $500. PT work accounted for my living expenses.

a) Sell the tech.
b) Insane product discount.
c) suppose I could've raised money,butknew nothing about that process

Tried to do the discount, but couldn't find a good enough market. Ended up selling the tech for SUPER cheap. Silver lining is the sale has allowed me to jam on a bunch of different projects without worrying about PT work.

This is great, thanks for sharing. Are there other quick/easy changes engineering teams can make?

(Not looking for "it takes more than that"/"hire X type of person" responses here -- that's a given.)

What is the most undervalued YC benefit? Overvalued?

Yes! I think even after stopping working on my first serious project, my thinking was forever changed. Much more specific, to your point, and much more focused on what would actually be useful to people.

Mixmax is great! Has a solid free tier: https://mixmax.com

Lenny is pretty active on Twitter...maybe tweet at him and ask? https://twitter.com/lennysan/status/1277620704146423809

Love this. Feel like there's a whole category of founder psychology (at any age) that's not written about enough.

You may feel depressed, anxious or lonely. Know that you are not alone. In almost all cases, things will get better, and you will make it through. My Dad used to tell me ‘it always gets darkest before dawn’. I didn’t understand what he meant when I was a kid, but now I do.

Awesome! Any tips for others on making their first successful cold call?