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I’m Sélim Benayat, co-founder of Bento. Ask me anything! 😻❤️🔥🍱
Hey Product Hunt ✌🏻
I’m Sélim, and I’m currently working on Bento - a personal page to share everything you are, create and sell. Think link in bio, but rich and beautiful ✨.
I’m a serial builder and entrepreneur, founding companies for 10 years by now. I’ve launched on Product Hunt twice before, love this place and super happy to be able to do an AMA here!
Previously, I founded RosieReality, an augmented-reality company. After five years, we got acquired in 2020. The first employee at RosieReality - Mugeeb - is now my co-founder at Bento. I feel very lucky to be building products with him for the past eight years. 🥰
For Bento, we have raised a pre-seed from Sequoia - you can read all about it at Bento.me/2022. Our cold start, the first iterations, the pivot, and now our successful launch in December last year.
All of it resulted in a huge, and for us, unexpected storm of love! Eight weeks later, there is a global community showcasing themselves and their work on Bento.
Ask me anything about building startups, product- and community-led growth, going the VC-backed route, or getting into the Sequoia Arc program! 🕺🏻🪄
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Maciek Chmura
Hi Sélim 😀
I would like to ask about the tech stack of Bento.
Beautiful and fast.
How is is done? 😄
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@maciek_chmura hey Maciek! Thanks for the kind words. It's important to us that there is a big moment of delight every time users touch the product 🪄
NextJS + Tailwind
NestJS/Express
Postgres DB using Prisma
Typescript
🧙
Hi Sélim!
Can you please talk a bit about some of the lessons you learned from your first startup and how you’re applying them to Bento. Also, what is the Sequoia Arc program like?
@sai_kambampati Sai - thanks for the question! Happy to talk about the learnings as they fundamentally shape how we operate at Bento today. 🕺🏻
Some of the key learnings 📝😊
Management lessons 🎯
Output over input
Focus on strengths, not lack of weakness
Winning as a team defines culture. No white board exercises
Be very demanding and very supportive
Constantly remind people why it matters
Product 🚀
Keep the main thing, the main thing
Just Keep Shipping. JKS!
Be a user advocate. Keep them top of mind.
Demos win over write-ups or talk
Write-ups win over talk
Rather try, than not F* up
Sequoia Arc 🎊
It changed the trajectory of Bento by showing us the transformational value of setting truly audacious goals, persistently executing toward them, and staying humble enough to regularly seek support from a peer group.
@amayustak Hey Akihito - love that question! The reason why we started Bento was to give a home to a community we care about and feel part of. In that sense it was a product we built for us.
We want to make sure that we - the community of Designers, Engineers, Makers - have a place to get inspired and start building more awesome stuff. If we can make money with that - even better!
Hey Sélim, how do you go about finding and selecting the first people in the team?
@fspaini Flavio - thanks for the insightful question! I’ll answer with the context of an early stage company.
One of the guiding principles I apply while hiring during the early days is that I believe people fit two different buckets. One archetype is comfortable executing in highly ambiguous and chaotic environments. The other archetype is comfortable executing in unambiguous and organized environments.
Take the person for the wrong environment and they’ll underperform - not because they are “bad” but because the environment is not a fit.
In early days I strongly optimize for the person comfortable with the unknown.
Hey Sélim!
2 questions:
1. How did you go about securing funding, more specifically, what are investors looking for?
2. What do you do for marketing for your startups?
Thanks!
@richard_gao2 Hey Richard - thanks for the questions!
1. Investors and funding
Tricky question as it is so multi-facetted. I will try to answer for early stage funding in 2023.
There are not many proof points - so investors try to look for reliable proxies that indicate toward world class execution (intention & speed), grit & tenacity in breaking through barriers, and timing in the market.
So in summary: (1) the founder team, (2) speed and quality of execution, and (3) the timing “why now”. Best at that stage would be to have an MVP and be very close to customers.
2. Marketing Activity
Bento is an interesting case since we are launching into our own community there is/was not a lot of marketing in the traditional sense. We are simply sharing our product development and content we believe to be of value. It is pretty much just externalising our own discussions and interests to the community :)
@drmanhatta Thanks for all the helpful advice! We're definitely early stage right now at evoke-app.com so that was the perfect answer.
I’ve raised money before, but never dealt with Sequoia.
The groups I’ve dealt with that have money know almost nothing about technology. How is Sequoia on understanding core tech?
On a separate note, what has been your biggest tool(s) for initial launch/sales/growth?
We are ramping up for launch after a long build for a big product…any tips would be appreciated.
@happhi Hey Eric - I hear you. Not finding the relevant investor for the product that you're building is frustrating.
Sequoia is 15/10 in understanding founders, technologies, and markets. No joke. The experience they have in investing into category defining companies is unparalleled.
Honestly, for us the biggest tool to accelerate growth was Twitter. All of our users came, and are still coming, from Twitter :) The reason is that we feel part of that community and simply started sharing content and insights that we would have loved reading or seeing.
@drmanhatta Thanks for sharing. I’m on Twitter but not “on Twitter” (just post through Buffer to all social media). I will start using the tool more and will follow you today.
Not surprised to hear that about Sequoia. That’s why they are elite. The money men I’ve dealt with previously had absolutely no interest in the tech itself (STACK to scalability etc)…always found that odd.
It was once explained to me that “we would not be having this meeting if you had not proven the technology could scale already”
I always found that to be similar to a Nascar sponsor who didn’t want to voidire the mechanical team before a large investment.
Anyway tons of good fortune your way. If you’re even dealing with Sequoia you’re doing a lot right.
Cheers to continued success.
Hi there Sélim! First of all, big fan here of how delightful the product is. And I thought the team also really rock in community marketing, getting a lot of early adopters/influencers, and with them sharing to their communities respectively. Curious to know what are the steps you took to build the relationships + seed the product?
Thanks @drmanhatta!
@valerie_kramer, looking forward to hearing your experiences 🙌
p.s. Huge congrats on scoring #1 Product of the Day!
@valerie_kramer Of course, Valerie! Will take the lead to follow up in a week in case I don’t hear back from you. And again, huge congratulations on the launch! You guys are all rockstars 🚀
Hi Sélim,
Bento looks clean and slick!
1. Which stage were you with Bento upon joining the Sequoia Arc program?
2. Do you think you'd be here without the program?
3. What is one lesson that you've learned from the program that you could share with us?
@ieraj Eraj - thanks for your questions! Happy to try and answer!
1. Mugeeb and I were very early in our journey. So early in fact, that the product had a different name and look/feel. There was an MVP we could play with - but not too many users.
2. Definitely not - just due to the fact that Eike and Valerie joined us because they discovered Bento on the Sequoia site.
3. It's rather simple - but powerful. You have to keep growing as a founder, to be able to grow a company. Keep improving your ways of working to keep improving your company.
Hey Sélim, Joe Here!
Thanks for taking some questions.
Wanted to know how you got connected to the Sequoia Arc program, and what the journey there was from exiting RosieReality.
...also are you Berlin based?
@joseph_natoli Joe - thanks for the questions 👋
My connection the the Sequoia team was rather serendipitous - I was talking to a friend of mine while grabbing coffee who then told me about what Arc was about and that I should reach out 🙏🏻
My journey at Arc was nothing short of transformational - as mentioned in another comment. Sequoia did a brilliant job brining together a driven group of founders and help us better understand our own ambitions and how to get there. They made sure to show us “greatness” and how we too could get there. 🪄
And yes - Berlin!!! Hence the cheeky reference in our product image on TechCrunch hahah 🤫
https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/1...
@drmanhatta Thanks for sharing Selim, seems to be that rather serendipitous moments are how most good things happen. 😅
Ahh, glad to hear you are based in Berlin. I am down in Leipzig. Would love to connect in an email and try to grab a coffee sometime when I am back in Germany in a few weeks. Just send a note on Linkedin.
Hey Sélim/ I love how smooth the link creation is compared to other link in bio platforms! You guys are amazing! I have 4 questions 😅
1. Does Bento plan to help creators monetise their followers in any way?
2.Did you have an MVP before engaging your first VC about fundraising for Bento or did you build the MVP after being funded?
3. Would Bento be what it is today without Sequoia's investment? In other words would you have been able to Bootstrap all the way to where the product is?
4. With so many use cases for Bento and other link in bio tools, how did you target your first 100 users?
@emmakapella Hey hey :) Let me try to give some background!
1. Yes - currently we are thinking through different models that would allows creators on Bento monetize their audience more efficiently than it is possible today.
2. We did have a small MVP you could play with - but we did not have too many users that were using it. It was more to show technical feasibility :)
3. Hmm good question - we would have been able to bootstrap it yes. But I think we would not be where we are today with Sequoia. The network supercharged our ambition and help us through tremendous professional and personal support. It truly is a world class team you are joining.
4. Love that question. For us it was "let's give it to people that are like us. That like to ship products and enjoy design". In that sense, we built it for ourselves
Hi Sélim, first of all, congratulations to the successful launch!
I have three questions:
1) Who has been your greatest inspiration?
2) Can you describe/outline your typical day?
3) Where do you want to be in, let's say, 20 years? What do want to have done/achieved/experienced? What's the bigger meaning behind life for you?
@andrin_renz1 Wow three big questions - not sure if I have the answers... Let me try.
1. Who has been your greatest inspiration?
This has to be my dad! To this day he is always working and pushing his own projects. Always has been. Seeing this drive to create things was very inspiring!
1. Can you describe/outline your typical day
Honestly, currently rather repetitive - trying to build a company is not something to share on Instagram .. most of the time. I get up around 6:30, hit the gym, get to the office and try to get as much stuff done before the day comes to a close haha Dinner time often is around 9pm, followed by emails until it's lights out :) hahaha Of course there is the traveling and all, but the typical day is rather busy.
1. Where do you want to be in, let's say, 20 years? What do want to have done/achieved/experienced? What's the bigger meaning behind life for you?
This my friend - I honestly can’t answer right now haha I hope to have answers over time :)
Congratulations on the successful launch! Product of the day, woohooo!
What do you think one thing that worked out so well for your team for your PH success?
Hi Sélim,
I have a few questions:
1. If I may know, why did you decide to build "link-in-bio" kind of product when the market seems to be full of competitors?
2. How did you acquire your first few customers? I'm curious because there are a lot of similar products out there.
