How to know if it’s a good Co-Founder Match

Co-Founder Matching</a> (CFM) Platform, a tool we built to help co-founders find each other. Even in early conversations, their fit as co-founders was clear to each of them. With both eager to build, work began on <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.whalesync.com//">Whalesync — which helps businesses sync their data across no-code tools like Airtable and Webflow — before the two even met in person. YC invested in Whalesync in the Summer 2021 batch.<div class=\"kg-card kg-header-card kg-width-full kg-size-small kg-style-dark\" style=\"\" data-kg-background-image=\"\"><h3 class=\"kg-header-card-subheader\" id=\"em%E2%80%9Cwithout-this-we-never-would-have-met-done-yc-or-started-this-company%E2%80%9Dcurtis-fongerem\">“Without this we never would have met, done YC, or started this company.” - Curtis Fonger</h3></div>We talked with Curtis and Matthew about how they utilized the CFM platform in their co-founder search, and how each determined the other was the right person to start a company with. Their process is a great example for anyone looking for a co-founder, including best practices for laying the groundwork of a successful startup and important questions to ask early on.What brought you to YC’s Co-Founder Matching Platform?Curtis: I was at Google and had been looking for a co-founder for quite a while, mostly among people I had worked with closely in the past. They all had reasons to not do a startup. I was so determined to do a startup again though that I decided I would just do it alone. I started [going through YC's] <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://startupschool.org/">Startup School</a> – watching the videos and sharing weekly progress on ideas. When YC announced the beta launch of Co-Founder Matching, I signed up. I figured if YC was doing it, it was worth a shot. Matthew: I had been a PM for about four years and always wanted to start a company. I quit my job and went full force – experimenting with a bunch of ideas. I’d rather have a co-founder than do it alone and had a full pipeline with people from my network and other startup communities. When I saw the YC CFM beta, I signed up and was quickly impressed with the quality of talent.What was your process for evaluating co-founders?Curtis: I met a bunch of people quickly, including Matthew. I kept the initial video call casual – solely using the time to get to know the person. At the end, I’d mention [Gloria Lin's] <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://review.firstround.com/the-founder-dating-playbook-heres-the-process-i-used-to-find-my-co-founder/">50 Questions</a> and ask them to complete it offline so we could review it together on the next call.Very few people actually completed it, showing me they weren’t serious about finding a co-founder. Of those people who did complete it, I’d find we weren’t aligned on critical areas. When I met Matthew, I couldn’t believe it; it was like ‘where’ve you been all my life?!’ We got along so well, had a very similar mindset, a similar vision for where we wanted to take a company, and similar values. I was amazed.Matthew: We each filled out the 50 questions from Gloria Lin’s Founder Dating Playbook, which made it clear how aligned we were in values and desired trajectory. Some specific things we were highly aligned on were: <ul><li>Team culture: We both wanted to build a fun, collaborative, and focused culture.</li><li>Personal attitude: We were both “students of the game” who had been constantly trying to refine our skills, learning as much as possible from experts like YC. We each had builders’ mentalities and wanted to work with people who knew how to roll up their sleeves.</li><li>Who we admire: We also had similar attitudes about who we admired. We saw traits like thoughtfulness and empathy as critical and more self-centered attitudes as destructive.</li><li>Ideal exit / timeframe / commitment: Both of us were in this for the long run. The goal wasn’t to “try this out and see if it works” or quickly flip a company. We were both excited about the prospect of building something meaningful over the course of many years.</li></ul>Was it uncomfortable to ask someone who is basically a stranger all of these questions and share your answers?Curtis: The first startup I did, we didn't have this list of questions. We didn't know what topics would be critical down the road and what would be better to discuss up-front. When things like fundraising, hiring, finances, etc. came up later, it was more difficult to have those conversations because we were in the middle of stressful situations.This time around, I didn’t care how uncomfortable it was, I knew I was going to avoid that.What were some good questions to weed people out?Matthew: Equity split. Ideal company exit, which helped me determine who actually wants to build a venture-backed business. The commitment and finance pieces were important to me to be aligned on from the get-go. Curtis: How do you deal with conflict? Name a time you did it well and a time you didn’t. Logistical things like roles, compensation, and equity.What solidified your partnership with one another? Matthew: We hit it off for the same list of reasons Curtis mentioned. And we were in the same boat mentally - we were both ready to go. We started a 6-week trial project together (here’s the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://whalesync.notion.site/TEMPLATE-Cofounder-Trial-Period-cbc8b29c068c4150b9ccd71f40291f6e/">1-page doc</a> that outlines the scope of the project). During the trial, we really just tried to simulate what it would be like if we were actually working on a startup together. We didn’t come up with a fake business school-type project. Instead, we just did what we’d been taught by YC to do: talked to customers (user research) and built product (early designs/prototypes). While it was [initially set as] a 6 week trial period, after 4 weeks it was going so well that we decided to start formalizing the partnership early. As a final step, we did reference checks with people who had worked with the other person before.Other than the questionnaire and working well together, were there any other areas where you were weirdly aligned? Matthew: I really appreciated how honest he was about his weaknesses. He didn’t try to hide unpleasant traits or situations, which made me trust him immediately. I also appreciated how he approached the equity split. Based on his background, he’s more senior than me. He could have pushed for a 60/40 split, and I would have taken it. But he wanted a 50/50 equity split for the health of the business, and I loved that he was thinking about it that way.Any other best practices you’d recommend to co-founders who are on the search?Curtis: Really early on, we started a weekly [retrospective]. If anything is bothering us, we have to bring it up in the meeting. We agree to be open, honest, and understanding. So, if we don’t talk about it during that meeting, we’re breaking the rules! We rarely have anything bothering us, but if we did, we have this depressurization mechanism that we set up right from the start. Matthew: We also sat at a whiteboard and outlined all the elements of the business and who gets the final say if we find ourselves in a stalemate. We’ve never reached that point, but it’s nice to have. For example, if we ever disagreed on fundraising, Curtis gets the final say. If it’s about the product, it’s mine. Curtis: And that came directly from one of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6n-how-to-work-together/">Kevin Hale’s talks</a>! It is really good advice to do this ahead of time. Really, ALL the advice is right there in front of you in Startup School.Are there any other advantages you have as a company for having met on Co-Founder Matching?Matthew: You gain a whole new network when you meet someone outside of your community. My network grew to include Curtis’ and vice versa. All of Whalesync’s early hires came from his network.The YC batch is sometimes described as a \"pressure cooker\" for teams. You had met more recently than most teams, so how did it go? Can you share a moment where you remember working really well together?Matthew: While we met online and we’re now a fully remote company, we worked together in person during YC. This was really helpful to accelerate a lot of the early-day information sharing that is so important.Toward the end of the batch, there was a moment when it became clear we weren’t going to hit our ambitious Demo Day goal. I was pretty upset and questioning whether we needed to pivot. Curtis being the incredibly perceptive and thoughtful person he is, pulled me aside and said “let’s go grab a beer”. We sat down and talked about why we were building this product and the vision we had for the company. Despite not hitting our Demo Day goal, we realized we still had very strong conviction in what we were building and where we could take Whalesync.Going through the YC “pressure cooker” together helped produce moments like that where it became obvious we’d have each other's backs through the highs and the lows.What has your company been like since going through YC?Curtis: Things have been going really well. I can’t believe how great Matthew is. It’s weird how well we get along. I’ve worked with a bunch of people in my career, and I don't think I've gotten along with anyone as well – not that I'm a super difficult person to work with. We just don’t have a whole lot of problems.Matthew: We did YC, raised a round, and then rebuilt the product from scratch. We launched again in March 2022 and have been growing our MRR steadily since then. We’ve just tried to follow all of YC’s advice perfectly. We’re building a product that a small number of people love, and then we’ll expand to a larger total addressable market. <hr>Learn more about <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.whalesync.com//">Whalesync and how they’re helping companies create programmatic SEO pages <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXnOeyO9kOQ\%22>here, and read their step-by-step guide to find a co-founder <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.whalesync.com/blog/co-founder-matching-playbook/">here.

Looking for more on this topic? Check out our recently published list of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/10-questions-to-discuss-with-a-potential-co-founder/">10 Questions to Discuss with a Potential Co-founder</a>.","comment_id":"645a7af1b09be6000165fbb3","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/Whalesync-Featured.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-05-09T09:55:13.000-07:00","updated_at":"2023-07-21T10:37:49.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-05-10T10:30:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Whalesync's co-founders met on YC's Co-Founder Matching Platform. We interviewed them to learn how they knew they should start a company together.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71175","name":"Interview","slug":"interview","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/interview/"}],"authors":[{"id":"645a83b0b09be6000165fc15","name":"Joan DeGennaro","slug":"joan-degennaro","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/joan.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/joan-degennaro/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"645a83b0b09be6000165fc15","name":"Joan DeGennaro","slug":"joan-degennaro","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/05/joan.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/joan-degennaro/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71175","name":"Interview","slug":"interview","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/interview/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/how-to-find-a-co-founder-qa-with-whalesync/","excerpt":"Whalesync's co-founders met on YC's Co-Founder Matching Platform. We interviewed them to learn how they knew they should start a company together.","reading_time":6,"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":"Whalesync Co-Founders Matthew Busel and Curtis Fonger with the text \"How to know if It's a Good Co-founder Match\"","feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"62fa7b87ab52db0001d3b656","uuid":"c432a242-4288-4980-a6e9-d9c82359c9ad","title":"YC Founder Firesides: Gusto on building for new verticals","slug":"yc-founder-firesides-gusto-on-building-for-new-verticals","html":"<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://gusto.com//">Gusto (<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gusto/">YC W12</a>) provides growing businesses with everything to take care of their team. Today, more than 200,000 businesses use Gusto for payroll, employee benefits, talent management, and more. And with the recent addition of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://embedded.gusto.com//">Gusto Embedded</a>, developers now use Gusto’s APIs and pre-build UI flows to embed payroll, tax filing, and payments infrastructure into products. Last week, Gusto <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://gusto.com/company-news/gusto-embedded-one-year-in-fueling-smb-tech-success-at-scale-with-critical-compliance-/">announced they have dozens of new partners across verticals like laundromats, health & beauty, and construction building with Gusto Embedded. The company also announced they are making it easier for software providers to keep their payroll customers in compliance.YC’s <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/anuhariharan/status/1557784730543632384/">Anu Hariharan</a> sat down with Gusto co-founder and CPO <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/tomerlondon/">Tomer London</a> to talk about building for new customer segments and the future of embedded finance — sharing advice for startup founders and CEOs along the way. <div class=\"kg-card kg-audio-card\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/media/2022/08/Founder-Fireside---Tomer-London--Gusto-_thumb.jpg?v=1660587475243\" alt=\"audio-thumbnail\" class=\"kg-audio-thumbnail\"><div class=\"kg-audio-thumbnail placeholder kg-audio-hide\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" fill=\"none\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M7.5 15.33a.75.75 0 1 0 0 1.5.75.75 0 0 0 0-1.5Zm-2.25.75a2.25 2.25 0 1 1 4.5 0 2.25 2.25 0 0 1-4.5 0ZM15 13.83a.75.75 0 1 0 0 1.5.75.75 0 0 0 0-1.5Zm-2.25.75a2.25 2.25 0 1 1 4.5 0 2.25 2.25 0 0 1-4.5 0Z\"/><path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M14.486 6.81A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 17.25 9v5.579a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-5.58a.75.75 0 0 0-.932-.727.755.755 0 0 1-.059.013l-4.465.744a.75.75 0 0 0-.544.72v6.33a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-6.33a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 1.763-2.194l4.473-.746Z\"/><path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M3 1.5a.75.75 0 0 0-.75.75v19.5a.75.75 0 0 0 .75.75h18a.75.75 0 0 0 .75-.75V5.133a.75.75 0 0 0-.225-.535l-.002-.002-3-2.883A.75.75 0 0 0 18 1.5H3ZM1.409.659A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 3 0h15a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 1.568.637l.003.002 3 2.883a2.25 2.25 0 0 1 .679 1.61V21.75A2.25 2.25 0 0 1 21 24H3a2.25 2.25 0 0 1-2.25-2.25V2.25c0-.597.237-1.169.659-1.591Z\"/></svg></div><div class=\"kg-audio-player-container\"><audio src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/media/2022/08/Founder-Fireside---Tomer-London--Gusto-.mp3/" preload=\"metadata\"></audio><div class=\"kg-audio-title\">Founder Firesides: Gusto's Tomer London on building for new verticals</div><div class=\"kg-audio-player\"><button class=\"kg-audio-play-icon\"><svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path d=\"M23.14 10.608 2.253.164A1.559 1.559 0 0 0 0 1.557v20.887a1.558 1.558 0 0 0 2.253 1.392L23.14 13.393a1.557 1.557 0 0 0 0-2.785Z\"/></svg></button><button class=\"kg-audio-pause-icon kg-audio-hide\"><svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><rect x=\"3\" y=\"1\" width=\"7\" height=\"22\" rx=\"1.5\" ry=\"1.5\"/><rect x=\"14\" y=\"1\" width=\"7\" height=\"22\" rx=\"1.5\" ry=\"1.5\"/></svg></button>0:00<div class=\"kg-audio-time\">/118:07</div><input type=\"range\" class=\"kg-audio-seek-slider\" max=\"100\" value=\"0\"><button class=\"kg-audio-playback-rate\">1×</button><button class=\"kg-audio-unmute-icon\"><svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path d=\"M15.189 2.021a9.728 9.728 0 0 0-7.924 4.85.249.249 0 0 1-.221.133H5.25a3 3 0 0 0-3 3v2a3 3 0 0 0 3 3h1.794a.249.249 0 0 1 .221.133 9.73 9.73 0 0 0 7.924 4.85h.06a1 1 0 0 0 1-1V3.02a1 1 0 0 0-1.06-.998Z\"/></svg></button><button class=\"kg-audio-mute-icon kg-audio-hide\"><svg xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path d=\"M16.177 4.3a.248.248 0 0 0 .073-.176v-1.1a1 1 0 0 0-1.061-1 9.728 9.728 0 0 0-7.924 4.85.249.249 0 0 1-.221.133H5.25a3 3 0 0 0-3 3v2a3 3 0 0 0 3 3h.114a.251.251 0 0 0 .177-.073ZM23.707 1.706A1 1 0 0 0 22.293.292l-22 22a1 1 0 0 0 0 1.414l.009.009a1 1 0 0 0 1.405-.009l6.63-6.631A.251.251 0 0 1 8.515 17a.245.245 0 0 1 .177.075 10.081 10.081 0 0 0 6.5 2.92 1 1 0 0 0 1.061-1V9.266a.247.247 0 0 1 .073-.176Z\"/></svg></button><input type=\"range\" class=\"kg-audio-volume-slider\" max=\"100\" value=\"100\"></div></div></div>You can also listen on <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://open.spotify.com/episode/0FTnE08QzuCg6I21S4PB8e?si=ShDfsjwnRWKYH0LjwzI-rg\%22>Spotify, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/159-yc-founder-firesides-gusto-on-building-for-new/id1236907421?i=1000576161014\%22>Apple Podcasts</a>, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1dRKZldrvOzJB?s=20\%22>Twitter.

1:28 - Tomer describes Gusto Embedded and the complexities behind compliance.<ul><li>Gusto Embedded takes ten years of Gusto’s experience building payroll software and compliance and makes it available to any software company wanting to ship their own payroll product to the market. </li></ul>5:00 - Why did you decide to pursue startups as the company’s first target audience? How did you think about customer segments in that first year? Over the last ten years, Gusto has scaled to build for multiple customer segments – starting with startups, then SMBs, accountants, and now with Gusto Embedded Payroll, developers who are embedding payroll directly into their software. <ul><li>When you have a grand vision, where do you start as a founder? Choose a customer segment. Make sure you choose a segment where 1) they have an important customer problem, 2) the product you are building solves that problem, and 3) you can reach your customer. </li></ul>9:30 - Who were your competitors in the early days? <ul><li>The old, traditional payroll solutions, which were complex. With Gusto, anyone can run payroll at any time. Gusto also focuses on employees, a critical part of the system, by building a great payroll experience for them. </li></ul>11:30 - Why did you decide to build for SMBs after startups? <ul><li>Look at your current customer base and learn from customers adjacent to the market you want to expand into. When you do expand into another vertical, make sure you maintain that early customer love. </li></ul>14:45 - How did you maintain the customer love of the existing customer segment? <ul><li>Think about your long-term vision and don’t put yourself in a corner when you want to move to the next segment. </li></ul>17:00 - Most startups find it hard to tackle the SMB market. Why do you think this is the case? <ul><li>Traditionally SMBs are hard to reach and use incomplete or manual solutions. Since 2000 an entire generation of business owners had to learn to trust online financial services. Today, SMBs are online and looking for solutions.</li></ul>22:25 - What is different about serving SMBs as a customer versus startups? <ul><li>Startups come and go, and the real economics come from the big winners. Focusing on startups is a good place to start your journey, but think about how to scale with them.</li><li>There are more small businesses than startups, and they are around for a long time – but most don’t grow to thousands of employees. You need to build a business model that works with that dynamic. </li></ul>27:00 - Why did you pursue developers and how did you decide to service them? <ul><li>For many verticals, it is much better to have an all-in-one platform to run your small businesses. But payroll is really hard to build yourself. Gusto Embedded helps partners deliver a more integrated solution for customers without investing the several years and tens of millions of dollars.</li></ul>29:00 - Gusto went from directly acquiring small businesses as customers to creating an embedded solution – essentially “giving up” the relationship with the customer. How did you think about that? <ul><li>Evaluate the future of the industry and don’t ignore reality. Be the one to create that future. In this case, many payroll customers want all-in-one solutions. We can either try to meet those needs directly, or empower hundreds of partners to customize unique solutions.</li></ul>33:00 - How should founders think about who to partner with? When should founders build directly for the industry and when should they go the embedded route? <ul><li>Think about the unique insight you have in the business you’re creating and make sure you own your destiny around that insight.</li><li>For your customer, what does a successful product look like, and could you partner with a company to fulfill those needs.</li><li>Your product must be high-quality. You have to put enough resources behind whatever you own. For everything else, you must ensure you bring in the right partner. It’s all about the end-to-end experience. </li></ul>39:30 - Gusto now makes it easier for software providers to bake compliance into embedded payroll. Tomer, I think developers looking at a payroll API would assume that compliance is baked in. But there are often steps companies have to take beyond just calling APIs. Tell us if that assumption holds.<ul><li>Regulation can change every quarter and every year. This is built into the product. We protect the customer and make it easy for developers to ship something quickly that is compliant for the long term.</li><li>One third of the companies in the U.S. get fined for mistakes on payroll. </li></ul>43:00 - Compliance is the hardest part of payroll to build and ultimately has to be right. It took ten years of experience in compliance to launch this into Gusto Embedded Payroll. What advice do you have for founders who are building complicated, yet essential, components for an industry?<ul><li>Determine the parts of your product that are highly regulated and which areas are not. Build a culture that ensures quality-first in those highly-regulated areas, as well as a culture where people can iterate quickly in other areas. You can’t build a monolithic culture.</li><li>Embrace cross functional work. </li></ul>46:00 - In the early days of Gusto, what guidance did you provide to your engineers about building payroll? What areas could break and which areas could not break? 48:40 - Looking back, would you have done anything different? <ul><li>Start charging what you feel is the value you provide; fix downwards versus upwards. If you’re truly adding value, customers won’t hesitate moving forward at that price.</li><li>Have the humility to learn from the customer and how the market changes around you. </li></ul>51:45 - How should founders be thinking about embedded finance and how does this market evolve over the next 5-10 years? <ul><li>When you build a new software system for your customer, the more connected the system is for your customer, the better it is. Embedded products enable you to do that quickly and in high quality.</li><li>Bring more solutions into your product that are driven by what your customer needs. Understand your customer’s day-to-day, and figure out how to build something that solves their entire flow instead of one segment.</li><li>If you are not making money on your product, you don’t know if there's a product market fit. If you can charge and retain a customer, then there is product market fit. </li></ul>56:30 - Outside of payroll, what are you seeing product wise offered by APIs? <ul><li>This space is brand new and there’s a ton of opportunity to create a product that helps customers go through the end-to-end journey successfully and solves multiple pain points – instead of the customer needing ten years of background to create a high-quality solution.</li></ul>","comment_id":"62fa7b87ab52db0001d3b656","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/08/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--5-.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-08-15T09:59:51.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-08-15T11:48:12.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-08-15T11:32:19.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Today, more than 200,000 businesses use Gusto for payroll, employee benefits, talent management, and more. And with the recent addition of Gusto Embedded, developers now use Gusto’s APIs and pre-build UI flows to embed payroll, tax filing, and payments infrastructure into products. 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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":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71179","name":"YC Events","slug":"yc-events","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-events/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-founder-firesides-gusto-on-building-for-new-verticals/","excerpt":"Today, more than 200,000 businesses use Gusto for payroll, employee benefits, talent management, and more. And with the recent addition of Gusto Embedded, developers now use Gusto’s APIs and pre-build UI flows to embed payroll, tax filing, and payments infrastructure into products.","reading_time":5,"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":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71a89","uuid":"9dd86699-8d71-43c0-ba3f-6d198bfea3fb","title":"David Zeevi on Personalized Nutrition Based on Your Gut Microbiome","slug":"david-zeevi-on-personalized-nutrition-based-on-your-gut-microbiome","html":"<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/davezeevi/">David Zeevi</a> is a James S. McDonnell independent fellow at the Rockefeller University Center for Studies in Physics and Biology. He focuses on developing computational methods for studying microbial ecology in the human gut and in the marine environment, and its contribution to human and environmental health.\nHe was one of the authors on the paper <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26590418/">Personalized Nutrition by Prediction of Glycemic Responses</a>.\n<hr />\n<h2>Topics</h2>\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=40s\%22>00:40 – Why did David start working on personalized nutrition?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=4m10s\%22>4:10 – How did the measure the effects of food in their study?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=11m20s\%22>11:20 – How was the study standardized across people?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=15m20s\%22>15:20 – How they measured an individual’s gut microbiome.\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=16m55s\%22>16:55 – What is the gut microbiome?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=21m30s\%22>21:30 – Is there an ideal gut microbiome?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=22m45s\%22>22:45 – How do you manipulate your gut microbiome?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=24m15s\%22>24:15 – Fecal transplants.\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=26m20s\%22>26:20 – Elizabeth Iorns asks – Does post prandial glucose response regulation track with weight regulation? I.e. can they use their test to determine what individual people should eat or not eat to lose weight?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=28m\%22>28:00 – Has this research been turned into a product?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=29m\%22>29:00 – Who else worked on this research?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=30m\%22>30:00 – How was their predictive algorithm made?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=34m40s\%22>34:40 – Did they end up with any dietary suggestions?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=35m40s\%22>35:40 – <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131/">David’s bread study</a>.\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=38m20s\%22>38:20 – Has David changed his own diet?\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=38m50s\%22>38:50 – Why fat was vilified.\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=42m40s\%22>42:40 – David’s ocean microbiome and other research.\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=50m30s\%22>50:30 – Traveling and your microbiome.\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/PE0W4kEpNHo?t=56m\%22>56:00 – Trying this out yourself.\n<hr />\n<div id=\"backtracks-player\" data-bt-embed=\"https://player.backtracks.fm/ycombinator/ycombinator/m/91-david-zeevi\" data-bt-theme=\"orange\" data-bt-show-art-cover=\"true\" data-bt-show-comments=\"true\">\n</div>\n<script>(function(p,l,a,y,e,r,s){if(p[y]) return;if(p[e]) return p[e]();s=l.createElement(a);l.head.appendChild((s.async=p[y]=true,s.src=r,s))}(window,document,\"script\",\"__btL\",\"__btR\",\"https://player.backtracks.fm/embedder.js\"))</script>\n<script>\n(function(p,l,a,y,e,r,s){if(p[y]) return;\nif(p[e]) return p[e]();s=l.createElement(a);\nl.head.appendChild((s.async=p[y]=true,s.src=r,s))\n}(window,document,'script','__btL','__btR',\n'https://player.backtracks.fm/embedder.js'))\n</script>\n<script>\n!function(n,i,s,c){n[s]||(n[s]=function(i){n[s].q.push(i)}),n[s].q||(n[s].q=[]),\nc=i.createElement(\"script\"),\nc.async=1,\nc.src=\"https://c.bktrks.com/utils-1.0.0.all.min.js\",\ni.head.appendChild(c)}(window,document,\"BTUtils\");\nBTUtils(function(use) {\n var options = {\n autoplayLinks: false\n };\n use('backtracks-autolink', options).init();\n});\n</script>\n<hr />\n<h1>Subscribe</h1>\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/y-combinator/id1236907421/">iTunes
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Joan DeGennaro