About this episode
Tracy Young is a cofounder and the CEO of PlanGrid . PlanGrid makes mobile construction productivity software. They were acquired by Autodesk in 2018 and were part of YC’s Winter 2012 batch. Kat Manalac is a Partner at YC. You can find Tracy on Twitter @Tracy_Young and Kat is @KatManalac . The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon . Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year. Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/ *** Topics 00:00 - Intro 00:46 - How Tracy got into the construction industry 2:51 - What convinced Tracy and her cofounders to build PlanGrid? 3:31 - Finding a technical cofounder 6:26 - Tracy still sees herself as an engineer 7:16 - PlanGrid's MVP and their first customers 11:56 - Their sales process 13:46 - Product breakthroughs 17:21 - Not firing fast enough 20:31 - What does she look for when hiring someone? 26:01 - Tim Cook's closing statement at WWDC 28:46 - Fredi Fernández asks - Does Tracy track wellness levels of the team? 29:26 - At what point did Tracy hire an office manager? 30:16 - How does Tracy take care of herself? 31:46 - Founding a company with a partner 33:31 - Managing a company as a new parent 35:46 - Seyed Rasoul Jabari asks - What's your big plan to go from 1.5 to 10 million projects? 36:46 - Holly asks - What has been your single largest influence in helping you scale? 38:06 - Why do some executives not work out? 38:56 - What skills did Tracy have to work on when scaling? 42:41 - What do a lot of startups get wrong? 46:21 - Tracy's recommended books 48:01 - What Tracy wishes she knew when she started out