About this episode
Harry Zhang is the cofounder of Lob . Lob makes it possible for enterprises to programmatically send physical mail. They were in the Summer 2013 batch of YC. Kevin Hale is a Partner at YC. Harry is on Twitter @harryzhang and Kevin is @ilikevests . The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon . *** Topics 00:00 - Intro 00:31 - Harry's intro 00:41 - What did Lob have when they applied to YC? 2:01 - Documentation as an API company 3:16 - Where did the insight to create Lob come from? 4:26 - Lob's first version and first customer 7:26 - Closing their first big customer then signing others 12:31 - Did Harry always know Lob would be an API company? 14:01 - How long did it take to work up to enterprise customers? 15:31 - Pricing 19:46 - Creating a product roadmap 21:26 - Tradeoffs when building product 22:21 - Competing for top engineers as an API company 24:31 - Options vs RSUs 28:01 - Sales mistakes 32:21 - Building out features for enterprise clients 34:16 - Why did Lob choose to not vertically integrate? 39:31 - How has Harry had to change as a founder over the life of Lob?