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Creating a Popular Product and Selling It to Governments with Tiffany and Danny of Remix

Episode #052

When the founders of Remix released a side project that unexpectedly went viral, they put their heads together and decided to turn it into a startup. Co-founders Tiffany Chu and Danny Whalen share how they were able to build instantly popular software, the mistakes they made and lessons they learned selling it to the governments who needed it, and how they grew from 4 founders and no customers to a 55-person team serving 275 cities and transit agencies across the world.

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    I like seeing the original artifacts from the early days.

    Here is the website - https://www.remix.com/

    Link to the Gizmodo article - https://gizmodo.com/wile-away-your-friday-by-designing-your-own-fantasy-tra-1593813740

    Code For America original article - https://www.codeforamerica.org/blog/2014/07/07/transitmix-design-your-perfect-bus-system/

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    My Main Takeaways:

    • Their startup, Remix has 4 co-founders

    • Tiffany, Danny, and their 2 other co-founders worked on a previous project together for a year, before starting "Remix" together.

    • Tiffany describes herself as extraverted, so she naturally enjoyed talking to customers.

    • When they launched their prototype for Remix, it went "viral", but they didn't know why, so they started asking the people who were raving about it, and it was through these conversations that they got their first few customers.

    • It was only after their initial round of research that they realised what Product Market Fit meant, and they strove to take advantage of that momentum

    • Tiffany says that she think they went viral because they were presenting a mid-fellowship update at Code for America, and then Code for America tweeted about it, and it went viral.

    • When selling to governments there is a lot of beauracracy when it comes to making payments, everyone has a certain threshold of money that they can spend on something before having to get a "higher-up" to sign off on larger amounts.

    • After their fellowship in Code for America, they got into Y Combinator and got funding.

    • They said no to their first couple of customers because they didn't feel that those customers were the right ones to work with based on the company goals. (They avoided working with organisations in the private sector, and instead worked with organisations in the public sector).

    • The four of them were aligned in terms of values.

    • A lot of people will want to work with you, but saying no is an important part of staying focused.

    • One early mistake they made was working with a company that was too big for them (Translink), they were unable to deliver, so this company churned after 9 months.

    • Their vision is a vision of impact. And it took them a long time to articulate their vision in detail.

    • Tiffany says that they are aiming for controversy in their vision, because if people aren't against your vision then it's not significant enough and you are "aiming for the most common denominator set of beliefs".

    • Tiffany has always wanted to work in the intersection of: technology, design, and cities.

    • Advice for selling software for governments: Start off solving a small and clear problem. Also consider working for a local government to get a feel for what's going on inside. Speak to people who work for the government.

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    I really loved this podcast! I studied town planning now work as a developer, but one day I would love to fuse the town professions together!

    I'd be very interested to know of any other software companies / startups out there doing similar sorts of collaborations with local city councils?

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    So many YC companies...

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      Partly a result of YC having funded a massive number of tech companies, and partly a result of who I know and where I live. 😇

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        Yeah, I was guessing it was a function of network and I wouldn't be surprised if you knew a ton of ex-MIT founders, too.

        As an eternal outsider, fundraising + YC mentorship does seem like a magical thing that's impossible to relate to, especially after seeing... well nvm. It is what it is, but it's hard to tell what parts of stories told by people with such powerful backing are applicable to the rest of us.

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          In my experience: The YC program gets you funding and a decent press article at launch, the funding really accelerates your ability to hire, and the network is, well, a network. So those are probably the least applicable things and where I'd draw the line. Beyond that, the other challenges are largely the same as they are for everyone else, and thus the lessons on this side of the line should be portable.

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            It's hard to believe YC affiliation doesn't have a huge affect when it comes to selling to risk-adverse enterprise or government customers.

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              You'd have to talk to their sales teams, but I'd be surprised if any would say it's played a huge role. Based on my experience, most people and businesses don't know what YC is, let alone the risk-averse ones. Additionally, a great many YC companies flame out, making "went through YC" a poor signal of a company's staying power. I think a lot of entrepreneurs overestimate the popularity of the YC name and what it can do for startups, because it dominates our bubble so much.

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                That's a useful perspective. Thanks.