Notion

Inside Gusto's Founding Story | Co-Founder & CTO Eddie Kim

Jun 6, 2026 · 54:31

Eddie Kim, co-founder and CTO of Gusto, reveals how the company grew from a 2012 YC startup called ZenPayroll to $1B in annual revenue and 500,000 customers by cracking the small business market against investor skepticism. He credits the 15-year co-founder relationship with Josh Reeves and Tomer London to shared values and radical directness, arguing that packaging feedback undermines trust. Kim describes building Gusto Co-Founder, an AI agent that automates back-office tasks via chat, with a team of five in eight weeks using Claude Code, embodying how the distinction between engineer and designer disappears. He calls the blank canvas problem AI's main barrier to mainstream adoption and predicts solopreneurs will thrive as AI enables anyone to become a builder.

Inside the $11M YC Startups That Took Over 2025

Oct 19, 2025 · 1:27:39

This episode profiles six YC Summer 25 startups: Frizzle (AI grading for math teachers, saving 10+ hours/week with 98.9% accuracy), Floot (vibe-coding tool for non-coders, 20,000 users in three months, acquired via Reddit competitor subreddits), Sagekit (chat-based automation platform replacing Zapier, building integrations at 5–10 per week, targeting solopreneurs and SMBs), April (voice AI executive assistant for email and calendar, priced at $15/month, initially launched without free trial then corrected), Cacao (dollar app for Brazil using stablecoins, moving hundreds of thousands in volume, focused on remote workers and freelancers), and Flywheel (retrofit remote control for excavators to improve safety, with two Singapore and three US customers, aiming to reduce ~1,000 annual US construction deaths). Each founder shares early mistakes—Frizzle’s underestimating K-12 sales cycles, Floot’s free pricing delaying feedback, April’s no-trial launch, Cacao’s need for regulatory navigation, and Flywheel’s productization challenges—and explains their go-to-market strategies.

300 Million Downloads (Matt Rouif, Photoroom)

Aug 16, 2025 · 48:07

Matt Rouif, co-founder of Photoroom, explains how the photo editing app grew from a two-week prototype in 2019 to 300 million downloads and $20 million in annual revenue on only $2 million raised, becoming the largest AI image editing tool globally. He details early tactics like localizing in 10 languages and conducting customer interviews at McDonald's. COVID accelerated adoption as sellers moved online, and Photoroom's focus on trust—avoiding AI hallucinations in product shots—set it apart for e-commerce. Rouif shares plans for a video editing beta and personalized advertising at scale, where infinite marketing assets are tailored per user. He identifies trends: specialized AI models for mobile speed and trust, AI video maturing in 2025-2026, and personalized advertising that creates unique imagery for each segment.