Got kicked out of YC, then got reinstated, and now doing it a second time, AMA! 🧡
Hey Product Hunt community 👋
I’m Mahyad one of the co-founders at Okibi - a web app to build agents using simple prompts, you can think of it as Lovable but for agents.
And we just launched it today, check us out! 🥳
Okibi is actually my second YC company, back in 2021 I got into YC the browser I built called SigmaOS. As the title of this post already says, the first time I got into YC I got kicked out after couple weeks, and had to become a permanent resident of Paraguay to get reinstated 😂
Even with the craziness of getting kicked out and having to figure out so many things to get reinstated, the last time we did YC was such an incredible experience. I learned so many important lessons from the YC partners that when it came time to work on Okibi, there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to do YC again.
Ask me anything about YC, building startups, going the VC-backed route, or launching on Product Hunt! 🕺
Replies
I’d love to hear more about what changed between SigmaOS and Okibi in terms of approach. I’m building my first product now, and hearing your lessons from round one would really help me avoid early stumbles.
Okibi
@ruth_funmilayo the biggest thing for me was focus way more on customers vs what is happening externally like twitter etc.
And the other thing was always find an excuse to launch
Wild journey, Mahyad! 🚀 Checked out Okibi super cool concept. What’s the biggest lesson you carried into your second YC run?
Okibi
@anya_ivanova1 I think the biggest lesson was focus and narrowing down scopes carries you a long way
Triforce Todos
Wow, that’s an incredible journey! Getting kicked out and then coming back stronger must have taught you so much. Huge respect for the perseverance and for launching Okibi today. 🎉
What was the biggest lesson you took from your first YC experience that helped this second time around?
Okibi
@abod_rehman ship and launch as fast as possible, don’t delay it for anything
What was the reason for getting kicked out of YC?
Okibi
@stepan_fau at that time I only had a permanent residency from Iran, and US export laws prohibited access to certain software services, and YC’s bookface classified as this.
Product Hunt
When did you realise it was time to leave Sigma and did that coincide with the idea for Okibi?
Okibi
@aaronoleary I think it was sometime after our last launch that I felt we had given everything and the tech for what we wanted to do wasn’t there yet. Now with all the models you get things like Comet being possible, guess we were too early.
It was actually a little bit after when we were looking back at what customers had told us they wanted SigmaOS Airis to be able to do, that started making me think about Okibi.
For me I believe there are going to be a lot of great agents built for different industries and problems, what if we enable the creation of all those agentic products? :D
Interesting story, but I'm more curious about the tech behind 't. What kind of architecture did you use to scale the browser, and how did you handle the complexities of maintaining a fast and secure browsing experience?
Okibi
@adi_singh5 one of the reasons we chose to build the browser on WebKit was to make sure security and speed, since a lot of the stuff come out of the box with webkit
Any tips on accelerating user acquisition? And how important is it (current user base) for YC?
Okibi
@hskhawaja launching your product is the best way to accelerate anything. For YC I don’t believe raw numbers matter, but how people are using your product