I’m Matthew Busel, co-founder of Whalesync. Ask me anything! 🙋

@highgroundio Hey Mark! Re: YC, my answer is absolutely yes. I was blown away by how helpful they have and continue to be. The advice, network, and brand has been nothing short of huge for Whalesync. Re: VC vs. bootstrap, I used to feel strongly in one direction over the other, but now I really do feel it's just a matter of what you want to optimize for. Bootstrap Pros: - Total freedom from outside pressure (e.g. investors) - More positive outcomes that are not totally hit or miss (e.g. building a business that makes $500k/yr) Bootstrap Cons: - 1-5 years of an absolute grind with very few resources - Lower chances of a "big win" and building a large company VC Pros: - Quickly get your idea out there and learn what works about it and what doesn't - Work on ambitious ideas with top talent who want to build something special - Chance to quickly impact hundreds or thousands of people VC Cons: - Constant need to grow quickly - Dependent upon external forces like investors Overall, I'm a huge fan of the VC route because the thing I want to optimize for is working on an exciting problem with ambitious people, but can definitely see reasons to go the other way.

@mbusel thanks for the open response, i've always wanted to do YC. As for funding i share the same opinions. I've built my currrnt business so approx $2.6m in revenue but its taken 12 years! i aint getting those years back, but that said the lessons i've learnt are invaluable

@highgroundio @mbusel Have you gone through any other program that was not YC and how did the two compare? Additionally, outside of the YC network (which I think is their true value add) was just having the YC stamp on your name helpful in attracting investors for future projects?

@highgroundio @joseph_natoli I went thru an accelerator called Pioneer run by Daniel Gross that I might consider "YC-lite" https://pioneer.app/. Overall it was awesome and would definitely recommend. Other than Pioneer/YC I haven't gone thru another accelerator. That being said, I've spoken with close friends who have done both Techstars and YC. They've described YC as being just an immensely different experience. The YC brand definitely was helpful when we raised our last round of funding. Prior to YC we were going thru our network to get connected to investors. During YC investors were reaching out to us asking to meet. So overall, I can't really speak to all other accelerators out there, but have nothing but the highest praise for YC!

@kkumarkg Thanks Krishna! Still learning from each one, but two of the big ones: 1. It's useful to think of Product Hunt as an amplifier. If you have something solid that is working, it is a great way to get your product in front of more people. If something isn't working when you try to sell it on your own, launching on PH won't be the magic bullet. 2. The steps in the PH launch guide are great. Putting effort into those steps makes a meaningful difference in launch success. The launches where I just kind of threw it up didn't do nearly as well as ones where I took my time.

@ubervero Thanks Veronica! Edlur Studio looks awesome btw. If you ever have questions about Whalesync feel free to shoot me a note :) matthew@whalesync.com I've been incredibly impressed with the evolution of no-code as a whole. I started using no-code tools back in 2015 using things like WordPress, Wix, Weebly. Now there is just an seemingly endless number of amazing tools from Webflow to Airtable or Retool. I expect no-code to continue to grow and become more and more "mainstream" within both large companies and smaller businesses. While a few giants may emerge, I don't see any reason why there couldn't be many successful smaller no-code tools serving specific use cases. In fact, part of the thesis around Whalesync is that we believe there will be continue to be growth in the number of SaaS apps that startups use (which is already 50+ on average).

@elly_cho Hi Elly! YC doesn't give us any specific feedback about why they chose us, so I can't speak for them, but can make some conjectures. At the time we got into YC, we had just started the company and had a barely working MVP, so there wasn't a ton to go on. Some of the criteria they may have been using to make the decision: - Strong founder/market fit (both of us had background in no-code and product development) - An insight from talking to customers (we had done something like 100 user interviews) - Proof that we could build something quickly (we built the first MVP in 3 weeks) - A growing space (no-code as an industry) Hope some of that helps!

@happhi good question! we started Whalesync after doing hundreds of user interviews with no-coders. While no-code tools like the ones I mentioned are amazing, we kept seeing people struggle to connect them together. We realized this was a problem that wasn't limited to no-code. The average startup uses 50+ SaaS tools and managing data cross all of them is often a nightmare. While we've started with no-code tools (and Postgres), later this year we'll be adding CRMs (Salesforce), E-Commerce (Shopify), and Finance (Stripe).

@mbusel Very interesting. This may work in conjunction with what we are building. Part of HapPhi is a suite of microservices which can be i-framed into other apps (CRMs etc) and the other part allows for other products to be pulled into the White Label HapPhi UI. Let’s definitely keep in touch.

@jaymi_tripp Thanks so much Jaymi! We actually just launched publicly on Product Hunt yesterday :). Here's a quick video that demos the programmatic SEO use case: If you ever want a demo just let me know -> matthew@whalesync.com

@carmela_padasas We were highly focused on product at the very beginning of the company, so definitely still learning a ton on the marketing side. Something that worked well: - Content marketing/SEO... no secret sauce. Just taking the time to try to produce helpful content and applying basic SEO principles. Something that didn't work as well: - Launches, funny enough. While launching on TechCrunch or Product Hunt or wherever else has brought us many benefits (and I highly, highly recommending launching on PH) it's definitely not a be-all-end-all for most companies.

@ajay_yadav13 I really didn't do much planning at all for the first one 😅. That launch didn't really help much haha. It was a great learning experience though.