Y Combinator

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/

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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