but a great opportunity for a digital marketplace</a>. On the supply side of the US freight market, there are 1.6 million carriers, 95% of which operate 10 or fewer trucks<sup id=\"footnoteid2\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote2\">2</a></sup>. On the demand side, there are more than 100,000 shippers<sup id=\"footnoteid3\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote3\">3</a></sup>. A further source of complexity is the fact that some shipments require specialty vehicles such as refrigeration or flatbed. On top of all of this, many carriers operate regionally. Suppliers must build liquidity on a regional basis and then implement complicated logistics to move between regions.</p>\n<p>To navigate this fragmented marketplace, shippers and carriers work with a multitude of brokers and sales reps. These middlemen find potential trucks, collect bids, and present the best match to shippers—all of which is typically done in spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls. In return, they collect 15–20% of the shipping cost. This unwieldy process drives up shipper costs and suppresses carrier earnings. But the alternative is to leave shippers and carriers to negotiate amongst themselves, which, given the fragmentation, is almost impossible without software.</p>\n<p>By building a network that aggregates supply and demand, Convoy has replaced middlemen with efficient algorithms. Complex matching logistics are becoming fast, seamless, and less costly. And, like many rich data marketplaces, the economics will only improve dramatically with experience and scale.</p>\n<p><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2021/01/Blog-Post-Image-2.png/" alt=\"One seamless network\" /></p>\n<p><strong>(2) Automated Matching Reduces Booking Time and Empty Miles</strong></p>\n<p>When matching a shipper to a carrier, brokers must take into account at least 10 attributes (e.g., origin, destination, type of truck, load, shipper, facility, seasonality, price per shipment, cost per mile, quality of truck carrier, mix of headhaul and backhaul). No human with a spreadsheet can manually optimize all of these criteria. It’s an extraordinarily inefficient system, with each match costing 1–2 hours and $40–80 per load<sup id=\"footnoteid4\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote4\">4</a></sup>. On top of this, brokers are incentivized to maximize carrier margins rather than plan efficient routes. As a result, almost <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http:// https://convoy.com/blog/empty-miles-in-trucking//">35% of all miles driven</a> by trucks in the US aren’t actually transporting any freight.</p>\n<p>Convoy realized freight resembled the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem/">traveling salesman problem</a> in computer science, and built software that incorporates shipment criteria with real-time supply and demand data to generate matches with the fewest empty miles at the lowest price. Today, Convoy <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://convoy.com/blog/convoy-reaches-automated-brokering-in-top-freight-markets//">automatically brokers 100%</a> of loads in its top markets, bundles shipments on both headhauls (shipments to destination) and backhauls (shipments to return to origin), and optimizes for the shortest trip possible using software-driven scheduling and routing. To date, Convoy has:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Eliminated the standard $40–80 of broker overhead per load for shippers</li>\n<li>Reduced matching time (the time it takes to match a truck to a shipment) from 2–8 hours to &lt;1 hour in top markets</li>\n<li>Reduced empty miles from <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http:// https://convoy.com/blog/automated-reloads-reducing-empty-mile-carbon-emissions//">35% to 19%</a>, resulting in higher driver earnings and lower waste</li>\n<li>Improved carrier on-time rate from 85% to 92% by tracking carrier performance and shipment progress<sup id=\"footnoteid5\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote5\">5</a></sup></li>\n<li>Enabled many shippers to reduce the number of carriers and brokers that they work with</li>\n</ul>\n<p><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2021/01/Blog-Post-Image-3.jpg/" alt=\"Traditional brokering\" /></p>\n<p>Convoy’s industry-leading key performance indicators will only get better with scale. As Convoy’s network grows, and efficiency and service advantages grow even further, it will be a no-brainer for shippers to move their business to the platform.</p>\n<p><strong>(3) A Strategy That Alleviates Systemic Supply Shortage</strong></p>\n<p>Freight matching is further complicated by the fact that the supply base is fixed. The number of truck drivers in the US has remained stable between 3 and 4 million since the early 2000s. Due to increasing shipping demand, regulations that limit driver hours, and a lack of young people joining the trucking workforce, the industry is experiencing a growing driver shortage. In 2019, the American Trucking Association recorded a shortage of 60,000 freight drivers. This number is expected to increase to 160,000 by 2028.<sup id=\"footnoteid6\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote6\">6</a></sup></p>\n<p>Unlike ride-hailing services, Convoy cannot easily increase the number of drivers in the US. Trucking requires commercial licenses and special vehicles. But Convoy’s software-driven approach can help make trucking more attractive to new potential drivers in the long run. An online interface eliminates many of the barriers that discourage workforce entrants. Instead of calling multiple shippers or brokers for jobs, drivers can use Convoy’s mobile app to sign up and book their first load in under an hour. The process requires very little upfront financial investment or social networking by drivers or carriers. As a result, Convoy has enabled the long tail of owner-operator carriers that own 1–2 trucks to carry loads for large shippers. These small carriers now account for the vast majority of volume on Convoy, quickly building supply in the company’s operating regions.</p>\n<p>To further amplify the existing supply base, Convoy launched <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://convoy.com/power-only-loads//">Convoy Go</a>, a network of preloaded trailers that can be picked up by any truck driver free of rental fees. By eliminating the need for drivers to wait around for trailers to get loaded and letting drivers flex across loads irrespective of their trailer type, Convoy is able to serve more enterprise shippers with fewer drivers.</p>\n<p>Most crucially, Convoy minimizes empty miles, which increases driver earnings. The company’s data suggest that drivers can increase revenue-earning miles by 25% by switching to Convoy<sup id=\"footnoteid7\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote7\">7</a></sup>. Assuming the average driver logs 120,000 miles per year, Convoy can increase each carrier’s annual earnings by ~$40,000 with a negligible increase in their operating costs<sup id=\"footnoteid8\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote8\">8</a></sup>. These economics will get even better as Convoy scales its network. Looking at other on-demand marketplaces, we’ve learned that supply follows the money. Higher salaries will both attract new drivers and influence existing drivers to prioritize Convoy shipments.</p>\n<p><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2021/01/Blog-Post-Image-4.png/" alt=\"Driver Earnings Opportunity\" /></p>\n<p><strong>(4) A New Pricing Model Enables Better Options in a Volatile Market</strong></p>\n<p>Freight pricing is more volatile and less predictable than the stock market. Prices move up and down with macroeconomic events and changes in supply and demand, and there is nothing resembling a flat shipping rate. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a surge in demand, pushing freight pricing per mile to increase 56% in the last eight months alone<sup id=\"footnoteid9\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote9\">9</a></sup>. Historical price data from <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.dat.com/company/">DAT Solutions</a>, a widely used data source in the industry, show freight pricing volatility over the past several years:</p>\n<p><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2021/01/Blog-Post-Image-5.png/" alt=\"DAT price per mile\" /></p>\n<p>Pricing volatility makes it extremely difficult to forecast business outcomes, which can cause margins to swing for carriers, shippers, and brokers. To navigate volatility, the freight industry uses two pricing methods: contract pricing (used by 80% of the market) and spot pricing<sup id=\"footnoteid10\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote10\">10</a></sup>. With contract pricing, a shipper agrees on a fixed price for a guaranteed volume of loads with a specific carrier for a fixed period (usually 12 months). Spot pricing is set case-by-case, based on the market clearing price 48 hours before a shipment.</p>\n<p>High-volume shippers prefer contract pricing to guarantee reliable shipping and lock in costs. But this predictability comes at a cost: contract freight charges as much as a <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://medium.com/@aterrazas/contract-freights-paper-curtain-a8f5b935ae45/">7% premium</a>. This premium is rationalized by the fact that contracts rarely go as planned. Even with contracts, carriers turn down loads or renegotiate terms in the face of extreme market changes (e.g., COVID-19 or a hurricane that wipes out supply).</p>\n<p>Pricing complexity is exacerbated by the fact that brokers are not incentivized to share rates with shippers and carriers. A broker earns 15–20% on every transaction—the higher the transaction cost, the higher the broker’s earnings. This cost is passed onto the shipper, the carrier, the driver, and eventually the consumer.</p>\n<p>Convoy is flipping the freight business model on its head. Instead of charging a fee, Convoy’s revenue model is based on the spread between the shipper’s willingness to pay and the carrier’s pricing expectations on that route. Using software, they’re able to provide a cost estimate to shippers and run an auction on the carrier side. This eliminates the 15–20% brokerage fee, lets shippers and carriers work with fewer counterparties, and improves pricing visibility.</p>\n<p>Secondarily, Convoy guarantees supply to carriers while minimizing administrative overhead (e.g., RFP processes). Instead of pricing on a fixed rate per mile, Convoy agrees to a fixed margin with a shipper and guarantees that all loads will be tendered. This eliminates the need for contracts and provides partners with upfront, transparent pricing (as well as a clear picture of their savings).</p>\n<p>Enterprise shippers like Home Depot like this model because it reduces administrative costs and spillage onto the spot market. Small shippers like it because it guarantees loads and eases the pricing burden on the spot market. Convoy can reduce annual transportation costs for shippers of all sizes by 4–19%—while also reducing the risk carriers take on contract pricing<sup id=\"footnoteid11\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote11\">11</a></sup>. This is just an example of one offering called <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://convoy.com/blog/introducing-guaranteed-primary//">Guaranteed Primary</a>, one of 6-7 pricing/volume commitment models used by Convoy to tailor to shippers’ needs.</p>\n<p><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2021/01/Blog-Post-Image-6.jpg/" alt=\"Annual estimated savings\" /></p>\n<h2>The Problem of Scaling</h2>\n<p>The specificities of the freight marketplace make implementing and scaling more complex than other online marketplaces. Unlike Airbnb, where guests are usually only looking for one home at a time, a large shipper is looking to ship across multiple lanes simultaneously (e.g., an enterprise shipper is looking to ship from Chicago to Tampa, Houston to Boise, Boise to Tampa, etc.). In other words, Convoy had to be everywhere and get big fast.</p>\n<p>Convoy’s initial strategy was to support only two large shippers. Instead of launching nationwide, Convoy narrowed its focus to these shippers’ highest-volume routes. There are ~2,000 trucking lanes nationally, and 60% of freight moves through the top 10% of those lanes. Convoy prioritized the top 10% of lanes serviced by the two large shippers. Once Convoy had enough demand to service loads, they used bookings to attract more supply in those lanes. As supply grew, Convoy scaled its capacity to take on other large shippers in these same routes, and eventually shippers of all sizes in additional routes.</p>\n<p>In most marketplaces, aggregating demand is a lot harder than aggregating supply. Supply naturally gravitates to the platforms where it can make money. This was true for Convoy as well, but acquiring supply was more difficult because of geographic fragmentation. Even with two shippers in their top 10% routes, Convoy still had to solve the problem of traversing multiple regions simultaneously. This was no easy task for a young startup with limited resources, but Convoy stayed focused and it paid off. Within three years of launch, the company had five large shippers, nearly 500 smaller ones, and was growing more than 30% month-over-month.</p>\n<h2>The Flywheel and Unit Economics</h2>\n<p>When we met Convoy, even though the company was growing quickly, it was still trying to make the unit economics work (the contribution margin was negative on each load). We invested anyway. As Hamilton Helmer outlines in <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://bookshop.org/books/7-powers-the-foundations-of-business-strategy/9780998116303/">7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy</a>, it is important to look beyond short-term economics to long-term potential. We believe that Convoy’s model will create outsized returns as it scales its unique strategy.</p>\n<p>Convoy’s automated matching and servicing translates to lower operating cost per load and higher long-term cash flows. Today, Convoy’s operating cost per load for enterprise loads is about one-third of incumbents’ operating cost per load. The advantage is durable; legacy shipping giants like CH Robinson scale with mostly manual operations, and new entrants lack the scale to match the costs. As Convoy continues to grow, neither incumbents nor new competitors will be able to match its low operating costs.</p>\n<p>Convoy’s business also benefits from a powerful flywheel that drives scale benefits. As more drivers join the network, more shippers’ needs are met, and vice versa. More load volume leads to more data to optimize batching and better match rates, which in turn lowers shipper costs while also increasing utilization and driver earnings. Incumbents who have built their businesses on 15–20% take-rates will not be able to match Convoy’s pricing without sacrificing their own unit economics.</p>\n<p><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2021/01/Blog-Post-Image-7.png/" alt=\"Better customer experience\" /></p>\n<p><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2021/01/Blog-Post-Image-8.png/" alt=\"Unit economics at scale\" /></p>\n<h2>Convoy: The Future of Truck Freight</h2>\n<p>We cannot overstate the opportunity Convoy presents. Freight is a critical industry that is only getting more important in the face of work from home and online retail trends. In a status quo scenario, increased shipping demand might trigger prohibitively high prices, leading to large scale economic consequences once those prices are reflected in the consumer market. In contrast, Convoy is in a position to make the industry more efficient. In the long term, this isn’t just convenient; it’s necessary.</p>\n<p>Today, Convoy’s scale is already substantial; it moves freight across the entire country and has expanded to thousands of shippers. In the near future, we expect that its network-driven approach will enable the company to capture billions of dollars of value while reducing overall freight spend and increasing driver earnings. Much like DoorDash in food delivery or Airbnb in hospitality, we believe it is only a matter of time before Convoy becomes a market leader in freight.</p>\n<p>While Convoy is leading the way, freight’s offline to online transition is still in its early days. Within the YC community, we are starting to see other companies approach freight from first principles. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.kobo360.com/US/en//">Kobo360 (S18) is building a to improve inter- and intra-region freight in Africa. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.roserocket.com//">RoseRocket (S16) is building software for carriers and brokers to improve connectivity with shipper partners. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.truenorthfleet.com//">TrueNorth (W20) is building tools for carriers to better manage their businesses. Combined, these companies will transform the way freight is moved in the US and globally.</p>\n<p><em>Thank you to Aaron Terrazas, Chloe Gordon, the entire Convoy team, and to Mia Mabanta at YC, for reviewing this essay.</em></p>\n<h2>Notes</h2>\n<p><b id=\"footnote1\">1.</b> American Trucking Association <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid1\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote2\">2.</b> FMCSA Registration Statistics <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid2\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote3\">3.</b> Convoy data <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid3\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote4\">4.</b> Per BLS, the average hourly wage for brokers is $26.50 ($40.15 including non-wage benefits). Assuming 1–2 hours of human time and $40.15 of cost per hour, it costs a traditional broker $40–80 per load for matching. Note: Shippers can use load boards, but these are used for a minority of loads and give carriers limited shipment visibility. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid4\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote5\">5.</b> Based on qualitative feedback from shippers <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid5\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote6\">6.</b> American Trucking Association 2019 Driver Shortage Report <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid6\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote7\">7.</b> <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://convoy.com/blog/empty-miles-in-trucking//">convoy.com/blog/empty-miles-in-trucking <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid7\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote8\">8.</b> ATRI <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid8\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote9\">9.</b> Historical DAT freight pricing data <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid9\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote10\">10.</b> <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.freightwaves.com/news/what-is-the-difference-between-trucking-contract-and-spot-rates/">freightwaves.com/news/what-is-the-difference-between-trucking-contract-and-spot-rates <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid10\">↩</a><br />\n<b id=\"footnote11\">11.</b> <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://convoy.com/blog/introducing-guaranteed-primary//">convoy.com/blog/introducing-guaranteed-primary/ <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid11\">↩</a></p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104654","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-01-21T00:50:18.000-08:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T10:52:14.000-07:00","published_at":"2021-01-21T00:50:18.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7107b","name":"Anu Hariharan","slug":"anu-hariharan","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Anu.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Anu is a Managing Director & Partner at YC Continuity. Previously, Anu was a Partner at a16z, where she worked actively with the management teams of companies including Airbnb, Instacart, and Medium.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/anu-hariharan/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116d","name":"Essay","slug":"essay","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/essay/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71170","name":"Startups","slug":"startups","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startups/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7107b","name":"Anu Hariharan","slug":"anu-hariharan","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Anu.png","cover_image":null,"bio":"Anu is a Managing Director & Partner at YC Continuity. Previously, Anu was a Partner at a16z, where she worked actively with the management teams of companies including Airbnb, Instacart, and Medium.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/anu-hariharan/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116d","name":"Essay","slug":"essay","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/essay/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/convoy-the-future-of-truck-freight/","excerpt":"Online marketplaces bring efficiency to traditional sectors. They offer a better\nuser experience and increase margins for participants. They can accrue huge\nvalue by reducing friction and aggregating supply and demand — particularly\nbecause they have the ability to build network effects and economies of scale.\nWe have seen this play out across several business-to-consumer verticals over\nthe past decade: Airbnb in hospitality, Instacart in grocery, DoorDash in food\ndelivery, and Lyft in transport","reading_time":11,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"63f91878d2b0220001e8d6e9","uuid":"a99f2458-1bdd-4a40-81e6-36ee441b133c","title":"Congratulations to the 2023 YC Top Companies!","slug":"yc-top-companies-feb-2023","html":"<p>We’re excited to present the 2023 YC Top Companies!</p><p>The startups are separated into 3 lists: YC’s top <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">private</a>, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/public/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">public</a>, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/exits/" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">exited</a>. Private companies and exits are sorted by the company's valuation from their latest funding round, and all are valued at over $150M. Public companies are listed in alphabetical order.</p><p>The Breakthrough Companies list highlights the fast-growing companies we’ve doubled down on – which means they’ve all received significant additional investment from YC in their post-Demo Day rounds. </p><p><strong>Here are stats about the companies on this year’s list:</strong></p><p><strong>&gt;</strong> More than 290 private YC companies and 33 exits are valued at over $150M, over 90 are worth more than $1B, and 16 are public. </p><p><strong>&gt;</strong> 58% of the companies have HQs in the Bay Area. 27% of the companies are fully remote, and 55% list themselves as partially remote.</p><p><strong>&gt;</strong> YC Top Companies have HQs in 40 countries including: United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Spain, Israel, Netherlands, Philippines, Portugal, Germany, Egypt, Ireland, South Korea, Peru, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Bolivia, Switzerland, Algeria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Romania, Sweden, Senegal, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam</p><p><strong>&gt;</strong> YC W16 is the most represented batch (by percentage). 23% of the companies from W16 are on the YC Top Companies list. </p><p><strong>&gt;</strong> Here’s a sector breakdown of the top companies:</p><ul><li>B2B Software and Services: 43%</li><li>Financial Technology and Services: 19%</li><li>Consumer: 13%</li><li>Healthcare: 12%</li><li>Industrials: 7%</li><li>Real Estate and Construction: 3%</li><li>Education and Government: 3%</li></ul><p><strong>&gt;</strong> 10 new companies joined the lists since August 2022:</p><p>Private:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/treasury-prime/">Treasury Prime</a> (YC W18) - Embedded banking software platform and marketplace</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/onesignal/">OneSignal (YC S11) - Engage customers through personalized omni-channel messaging</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/skill-lync/">Skill-lync (YC W19) - Online engineering college for India</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tigereye/">TigerEye (YC S22) - Modern enterprise software for sales leaders</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zeitview/">Zeitview (YC W15) - Inspection software for renewable energy &amp; sustainable infrastructure</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ontop/">OnTop (YC W21) - A bank for remote workers connected to payroll</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/obie/">Obie (YC S19) - Insurance and risk management for landlords</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nabis/">Nabis (YC W19) - The largest licensed cannabis wholesale platform</li></ul><p>Public:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/presto/">Presto (YC S10) - Digital meets physical for big chain restaurants</li></ul><p>Exits:</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nurx/">NURX (YC W16) - Medicine or testing kit, prescribed online, and delivered to your door </li></ul><p>One thing to note is that this is not an exhaustive list of YC’s top companies. We allowed founders to opt out of being listed for any reason. The full list of YC companies can be found <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/">here. </p><p>Congrats again to the companies recognized on the 2023 YC Top Companies list!</p>","comment_id":"63f91878d2b0220001e8d6e9","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/02/BlogTwitter-Image-Template.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-02-24T12:05:12.000-08:00","updated_at":"2023-03-16T09:44:58.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-02-27T09:00:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"There are now 16 public YC companies, 290 private YC companies and 33 exits that are valued at over $150M, and over 80 that are worth more than $1B.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7106f","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC 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Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-top-companies-feb-2023/","excerpt":"There are now 16 public YC companies, 290 private YC companies and 33 exits that are valued at over $150M, and over 80 that are worth more than $1B.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a7191b","uuid":"395e6c97-7acc-49bb-9d6d-f833e439e99b","title":"What’s the Second Job of a Startup CEO?","slug":"the-second-job-of-a-startup-ceo","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p>Successful startups go through three broad phases as they scale, and a startup CEO’s job changes dramatically in each phase. A CEO’s first job is to build a product users love; the second job is to build a company to maximize the opportunity that the product has surfaced; and the third is to harvest the profits of the core business to invest in transformative new product ideas. This blog post describes how to become a great Phase 2 CEO by focusing on the highest leverage tasks that only the CEO can accomplish. As YC’s Continuity team, we’ve seen many Phase 1 CEOs transition successfully into Phase 2, and some who have not. The future of your startup depends on which kind you are.</p>\n<p><strong>Your First Creation is a Product, Your Second Creation is a Company</strong></p>\n<p>A CEO’s first job is to build a great product and find a small group of people who love it and use it enthusiastically.<sup id=\"footnoteid1\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote1\">1</a></sup> A Phase 1 startup CEO is the Doer-in-Chief. You must be deeply involved in both building the product (observing/interacting with users, writing code, designing product specs) and acquiring users/customers. Delegation should not be a word in your vocabulary. If you succeed, it’s because your deep involvement and unique vision give the company a perspective and drive that few others have. The other imperative for a Phase 1 CEO is to conserve money in order to extend the time to iterate and improve the product.</p>\n<p>Most startups fail because they are not able to create a product that users love enough to abandon existing alternatives. Success in this first phase means discovering more demand for your product than your small team can handle. When this happens, you have to shift your focus as CEO to building a company that can capture and maximize the demand that your product has surfaced. Company-building becomes the CEO’s primary job in a Phase 2 startup. The company you build is your second creation and will be your lasting legacy as a founder.</p>\n<p>As a Phase 2 CEO, you need to transition from “Doer-in-Chief” to “Company-Builder-in-Chief.” This is how you scale as a CEO, and CEO scaling is the first step in company-building. For most founders, this is very difficult. When you’ve been a successful Doer-in-Chief, it’s hard to stop. It’s hard to stop coding, designing product specs, and interacting with customers on a daily basis. It’s hard to stop answering support tickets, doing all the product demos, and debugging the latest build. It’s even hard to delegate the random and sometimes menial tasks that you’ve accumulated over the years because they were “no one’s job.” But you have to stop doing all of these things so that you can safeguard your time for high leverage tasks that only CEOs can do.</p>\n<p>This transition can cause confusion and even friction with your team, who can suddenly wonder what you are doing if you’re no longer committing code or why you’re suddenly delegating a bunch of menial tasks that you’d been doing for years. But once your startup reaches 20-30 people, you’ll have to spend more time leading (i.e., directing the activities of others). And since time is finite, the only way to lead more is do less. Without delegating, you simply won’t have time to focus on company-building and you’ll end up slowing everyone else down.</p>\n<p>It may seem impossible at first, but you can eventually delegate day-to-day responsibility for everything you did in Phase 1, even Product. You obviously can’t drop everything overnight, but your job is to replace yourself by hiring people better than you into leadership positions. As David Rusenko, the co-founder and CEO of Weebly has said, “Often, the first time I find out about a product feature is reading about it on our blog. It shocks most founders to hear this, but I know I’ve done my job well because I’ve yet to see a feature that was built poorly. You should aspire to build a team that’s so good that you don’t have to be involved in the product details.”</p>\n<p>In practice, Phase 2 usually begins when a startup has around 20-25 employees and ends when it reaches 400-500 employees. At the end of Phase 2, you’ll have a leadership team that you’ve “road tested” to the point that you can confidently delegate everything you did in Phase 1. Your direct reports should be experienced leaders who can perform at a high level with minimal involvement from you, provided that you have set direction well. You can then shift the burden of company building to your leadership team so that you can start working on Phase 3: taking profits from the core business and investing them in new, transformative products. As an example, Facebook built its senior management team in Phase 2 while running the business at roughly breakeven. In Phase 3, it began to generate huge profits in its core business thanks to more lucrative in-stream ads, so it could allocate significant resources towards Messenger as a separate product and buy Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus.</p>\n<p><strong>Three Tasks That CEOs Can’t Delegate</strong></p>\n<p>Stated simply, your job as a Phase 2 startup CEO is to delegate everything you did in Phase 1 in order to create time to focus on three critical operational tasks that only the CEO can do <sup id=\"footnoteid2\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote2\">2</a></sup>:</p>\n<p><strong>1&#46; Hiring a Leadership Team and Making Sure They Work Well Together</strong></p>\n<p>Only the CEO can hire the company’s senior leadership team and make sure that they work well together. You can get help and feedback from others as you hire, but when you bring leaders like a VP of Engineering, VP of Sales, and CFO on board, the ultimate hiring decisions must be yours. You can’t hire by compromise, looking for someone who everyone around you likes. The choice has to be yours because the consequences are yours as well.</p>\n<p>Recruiting senior executives takes an extraordinary amount of time. If you are doing it for the first time, meet lots of people so that you can develop good judgment about the skills, experiences, and personality traits that you need. Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, made it a point to meet with the “best-in-the-world” in each field so he could get a sense of what a great candidate looks like. Because executive hiring takes so much time, you should stage these hires rather than trying to hire everyone at once. Our recommendation is to hire a good executive search firm to help you run your first couple of searches. It will cost you an arm and a leg, but if it helps you hire the right person, it’s worth every penny.</p>\n<p>YC teaches founders to manage their startups using weekly milestones to ensure rapid iteration and progress. That’s great for a small company trying to find product-market fit, but it’s not the way to manage senior executives. You manage senior people to longer term outputs rather than week-to-week tasks. To do this well, you first have to set the right quarterly and annual milestones for the company and for each executive. It’s also your job to acclimate new executives to the culture of the company. As you build your senior team, expect to spend extra time with new executives individually and as a team on culture and teamwork. You should insist that new executives take the time to build relationships across the organization rather than pressuring them to come in and start changing things immediately.</p>\n<p>Learning how to evaluate the performance of senior executives is also a challenge, partly because your face-to-face interactions do not provide much of the information you need. You have to evaluate how well they are building their organizations, how productive and happy their employees are, and how well they are working with other teams and executives. You should expect that at least 25% of your leadership hires don’t work out. For most startup CEOs, it’s very difficult to fire their first executive, and most CEOs take too long to do it. But it’s better to act quickly and leave a void in the organization than to leave an ineffective senior executive in place for too long. The longer you leave an under-performing executive in place, the more credibility you lose with everyone else on your team.</p>\n<p>Your job is done when your entire leadership team has been hired, you’ve coached them to work well together, and they can operate at a high level with minimal involvement from you. Don’t be surprised if 50% of your time goes to hiring and managing your senior team; it’s time well spent.</p>\n<div id=\"creating-purpose-and-alignment\">\n</div>\n<p><strong>2&#46; Creating Purpose and Alignment</strong></p>\n<p>The second task that CEOs cannot delegate is creating purpose and alignment at the company. When your startup has less than 10 people who all sit together, you don’t need to work very hard to keep people aligned. Everyone can easily hear what’s going on, understand how their work fits into the broader goals, and have a say in every decision. Communication is simple and creating alignment is easy.</p>\n<p>But when you start hiring more people, soon in different offices and from broader backgrounds and functions (e.g., sales, finance, etc.), creating alignment becomes a lot harder. Your team no longer sits within earshot. You aren’t able to interview or even meet everyone who joins the company. And you may not even able to attend employee onboarding sessions. As an example, there was an 18-month period at Twitter where the company was hiring 50 people per month in offices all around the world. There was no way the CEO or any one executive could meet everyone who was joining the company.</p>\n<p>As a Phase 1 CEO, you are the lead rower on the boat. But in a Phase 2 startup, your job is no longer to row. Instead, it’s to define the purpose of the voyage, set the direction of the boat, and measure the pace and performance of a much larger number of rowers. In business speak, the CEO’s job is to define the Mission (purpose), Strategy (direction), and Metrics (pace and performance). These three elements provide the essential context that a growing company needs to be able to perform.</p>\n<p>One of the best examples of “Mission-to-Metrics” alignment comes from a friend who visited the manufacturing floor at SpaceX. Seeing a SpaceX employee assembling a large part, he stopped to ask him, “What is your job at SpaceX?” He answered, “The mission of SpaceX is to colonize Mars. In order to colonize Mars, we need to build reusable rockets because it will otherwise be unaffordable for humans to travel to Mars and back. My job is to help design the steering system that enables our rockets to land back on earth. You’ll know if I’ve succeeded if our rockets land on our platform in the Atlantic after launch.” The employee could have simply said he was building a steering system for landing rockets. Instead, he recited the company’s entire “Mission-to-Metrics” framework. That is alignment.</p>\n<p>Can you define the Mission, Strategy, and Metrics for your startup in a way that’s clear, simple, and inspiring? Most Phase 2 CEOs can’t readily do this. And, when they sit down to define it, they find it harder than they thought. The diagram below captures the task at hand:</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ycombinator.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Artboard-2white_wborder.png/">How To Start A Startup</a> and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.paulgraham.com/ds.html/">Do Things That Don’t Scale</a>.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid1\">↩</a></p>\n<p><b id=\"footnote2\">2</b> The focus of this essay is on a CEO’s operational responsibilities. There are certain non-operational responsibilities such as building/managing a Board, raising money, interacting with the press, etc., that are also part of a CEO’s job, especially when a startup is small. Generally speaking, the less time a Phase 2 CEO spends on these types of non-operational tasks, the better, because they come at the cost of running the company.<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnoteid2\">↩</a></p>\n<p><em>Thanks to Daniel Yanisse, Patrick Collison, David Rusenko, Ben Holzman, Michael Seibel, Ed Catmull, Sam Altman, Leore Avidar, Tyler Bosmeny, and the YC Continuity team for reading drafts of this essay.</em></p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1096555","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2016/11/businessman-standing-in-office-looking-out-picture-id150220735__1024%C3%97768_.jpg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2016-11-29T00:00:11.000-08:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T13:17:53.000-07:00","published_at":"2016-11-29T00:00:11.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71078","name":"Ali Rowghani","slug":"ali-rowghani","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Ali.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Ali is Managing Director of YC Continuity, where he invests in & advises growth-stage startups. Ali directly contributed to the growth of 2 great companies — as CFO / COO at Twitter and COO at Pixar.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/ali-rowghani/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7114b","name":"CEO","slug":"ceo","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/ceo/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7114c","name":"Company Building","slug":"company-building","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/company-building/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7114d","name":"culture","slug":"culture","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/culture/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71155","name":"Growth","slug":"growth","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/growth/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71156","name":"Growth-Stage","slug":"growth-stage","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/growth-stage/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71174","name":"Advice","slug":"advice","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/advice/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116d","name":"Essay","slug":"essay","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/essay/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71181","name":"YC Continuity","slug":"yc-continuity","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-continuity/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71182","name":"#ycc","slug":"hash-ycc","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71078","name":"Ali Rowghani","slug":"ali-rowghani","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Ali.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Ali is Managing Director of YC Continuity, where he invests in & advises growth-stage startups. Ali directly contributed to the growth of 2 great companies — as CFO / COO at Twitter and COO at Pixar.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/ali-rowghani/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7114b","name":"CEO","slug":"ceo","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/ceo/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/the-second-job-of-a-startup-ceo/","excerpt":"Successful startups go through three broad phases as they scale, and a startupCEO’s job changes dramatically in each phase. A CEO’s first job is to build aproduct users love; the second job is to build a company to maximize theopportunity that the product has surfaced; and the third is to harvest theprofits of the core business to invest in transformative new product ideas.","reading_time":13,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c00","uuid":"97054c2c-02ab-42bd-9eeb-19a4567bf9d4","title":"Aspiring Founders Forum for Women Globally","slug":"aspiring-founders-forum-for-women-globally","html":"<p>On November 17, we are hosting our second <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://aff2021.ycombinator.com//">Aspiring Founders Forum</a> for women who aspire to become a startup founder. The event will be online, and whether you are curious about launching your own startup or are in the early stages of building one, you’ll walk away with the knowledge to define your own path.</p><p>Attendees will meet YC partners, our alumnae, and other entrepreneurial women. The one-day event will feature talks and panels (agenda <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://aff2021.ycombinator.com//">here), followed by breakout rooms with experts. Speakers will share their honest accounts of entrepreneurship, as well as essential startup advice.</p><p>Speakers include:</p><ul><li><strong>Jessica Livingston</strong>, Co-founder at Y Combinator</li><li><strong>Diane Green</strong>, Co-founder and former CEO at VMware</li><li><strong>Surbhi Sarna</strong>, Group Partner at YC and Co-founder at nVision</li><li><strong>Holly Liu</strong>, Co-founder at Kabam</li><li><strong>Kerry Wang</strong>, Co-founder and CEO at Searchlight</li><li><strong>Stephanie Simon</strong>, Head of Admissions at YC</li><li><strong>Carolyn Mooney</strong>, Co-founder and CEO at Nextmv</li><li><strong>Anu Hariharan</strong>, Continuity Investing Partner at YC Continuity</li><li><strong>Kat Mañalac</strong>, Head of Outreach at YC</li><li><strong>Erika Hairston</strong>, Co-founder at Edlyft</li><li><strong>Vivian Shen</strong>, Co-founder and CEO at Juni Learning</li><li>And more!</li></ul><p>If you’d like to attend, RSVP <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://aff2021.ycombinator.com//">here by November 10. This event is for women who are curious about starting a startup or have just started one. It will be particularly useful for women with science, engineering, or product management backgrounds, or with specific domain expertise that could turn into a startup.</p><p><em><em>At YC, we use an inclusive definition of “women” and welcome trans women as well as genderqueer and non-binary people who identify as women or femme in any way to include themselves in these listings.</em></em></p><p>The Aspiring Founders Forum is an evolution of Y Combinator’s <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.femalefoundersconference.org//">Female Founders Conference</a>. Since 2014, the Female Founders Conference has helped women who want to start and run their own startups. We believe creating a platform where successful women can share their stories and advice with founders who are just getting started is one way to bring about even more successful women-led companies.</p><p>We need more women-founded startups, and we hope to see you on November 17. If you have questions, please reach out to Events Director Lindsay Selvitelle at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/\"mailto:ls@ycombinator.com\">ls@ycombinator.com.

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