Jehad Affoneh

The smartest YC founders I know are NOT raising VC money. Here are FIVE unique things they're doing instead: 1) Firing their least technical co-founder. 2) Importing/exporting used Herman Miller chairs. 3) Selling their YC office hours on Craigslist. 4) Auctioning screenshots of their Stripe dashboard as art. 5) Using Central to eliminate nonsense HR/finance work and focusing on profitability - centralhq.com What else am I missing?

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The hottest role in AI startups right now isn’t Forward Deployed Engineers. It isn't GTM Engineers. It’s Deployment Strategists. Decagon calls it an “Agent Product Manager.” Harvey calls it a “Solutions Architect.” Palantir Technologies has had versions of this role for years. And the salaries are climbing fast: - Decagon: $200k–$285k - Palantir Technologies: $120k–$200k - Figma: $150k–$260k - Ramp: $100k–$180k - Harvey: $190k–$260k So who are these people? They are usually pseudo-technical -- CS or engineering majors, or folks with technical work experience. Many come from 2 years in consulting, IB, or PE, then jump into startups to get their hands dirty. They are young, hungry, polished, and comfortable being in front of customers. What do they actually do? They make sure enterprise AI deployments succeed. A $100k+ deal does not survive on a nice pitch or a self-serve onboarding flow. It survives if the customer sees value in the pilot. That means: - Embedding directly with the customer - Designing prompt logic for specific workflows - Working with engineering to align integrations and data flow - Helping exec teams define their AI roadmap - Running feedback loops into product and GTM Why does this role matter so much? Because enterprise AI is messy. Integrations, data transfer, and adoption make or break a deal. Most buyers are using AI for the first time, and each has unique workflows. Deployment Strategists bridge that gap. They own the outcome. They are accountable for making pilots successful, which often means millions in revenue down the line. At Conversion, Sam Bochner has been leading this work for us. We are now thinking about scaling it into a full team. Because a few successful pilots can fund an entire department, and the cost of failed deployments is too high to ignore. Is this just a rebrand of customer success? Not really. Success is about answering tickets and renewals. Deployment Strategy is about going deep with a few enterprise accounts, extracting maximum value, and ensuring the pilot closes into a multi-year contract. Call it Agent PM, Solutions Architect, or Deployment Strategist. Whatever the title, this is becoming one of the most important roles in AI SaaS.

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YC has quietly built a parallel tech ecosystem. Not just a network - an entire operating system for startups. Think about it: A YC founder can build their entire stack using only YC companies. Infrastructure, analytics, payment processing, marketing tools - it's all there. At friend-and-family prices. When you launch a product to the YC network, you get something priceless: A group of technical founders who actually understand what you're building. They become your first users, your debuggers, your evangelists. This is why PostHog is now used by 65% of new YC companies. This is why Brex dominated fintech... and why each YC batch makes the next one stronger. A true compounding advantage.

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YC-Market Fit Everyone loves to talk about product market fit, especially YC founders. They rush to show quick jumps in revenue, get internal YC hype, and call it PMF. In most cases, it is only an illusion. The YC network is powerful. Hundreds of alumni buy from each other, promote each other’s products, and sometimes even acquire one another. This creates a loop of fake traction. A few big logos, a short burst of usage, and some friendly contracts do not mean you have truly solved a market problem. Real product market fit is not about early growth spikes. It is about fixing a pain so deep that users keep coming back, even when the hype is gone. Most YC startups still announce PMF after only a few weeks because it helps with fundraising and visibility. Investors love it, founders feel validated, and everyone claps. Meanwhile churn is ignored, retention is weak, and true product obsession is missing. PMF was never meant to be a marketing slogan. It should be a signal from users, not a headline in a pitch deck. Ask yourself: if you stopped pushing your product today, would users even notice? Would they beg you to return? If the answer is no, you might have YC market fit, not product market fit. 🤔

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