I had a demo with this company that I completely forgot about so right before the meeting I looked them up. Anytime I look at a website now my brain automatically kicks into analysis mode and it seemed interesting. I toyed with the idea of dipping because I felt bad that I might be wasting their time but it’s a good learning experience for both of us. Like honestly I hate pitching but when I’m in a space that I can just do it on the fly I’ll do it. Every chance I get to speak in front of someone is practice and I figure it’s the same for them too.

The CEO was at an actual conference but still got on a call and I could see the people walking around in the back and everything. I love that, like damn dude talk about dedication. Their sales rep and their engineer were on too. I actually super enjoyed speaking with them, there were some technical issues at the conference but they answered all my questions and were super honest about everything, even if it wasn’t flattering which I SUPER LOVE. Honestly dude, like I talk to a lot of founders and just like, the faster you can get to whatever the issue is, the faster we can figure out a solution. If you’re not the right solution for me don’t you want to know that as fast as possible too? But I get it, rejection is scary and sucks.

The CEO remembered me somehow and was like “We met at RSA, I did your survey and you said something about YC websites and I was looking at them and thinking about ours” and I thought OMG holy shit, someone actually is really listening to that shit, which was awesome no lie, but also lowkey made me feel even worse because I didn’t remember even meeting him and he remembered a lot more than I expected T_T.

Talking to them was like watching my own team, they had their engineer and the sales person and the CEO. FUN I’m telling you, early stage company energy and comradery is the best. Everyone seemed happy and chill and I’m sure they have their panic days just like everyone else but team harmony is a big deal. From a buyer / investor perspective there’s a lot of good things about dynamics like this and less friction in these environments means cognitive load and energy can be used on building instead of team dynamics. I told them I would send them a website analysis since honestly I already did it, I just have to write it. There’s a lot of friction on the page and honestly had me stressed.

It sucks too because I know they’re new but the market doesn’t care about new, it cares about risk reduction, and new companies aren’t risk reduction, especially in a vertical of professional skeptics. Cybersecurity is already hard and its extra hypey right now because of agentics so it’s extra noisy.

I wonder what the call was like for them on that end. But the fact that the CEO took my advice and actually looked at sites is really cool, that means he’s open to learning and the logic makes sense anyway. YC has really high vetting standards so you would expect the sites to reflect a similar feel, and they do. It’s really cool, I look at so many websites now that you can actually see the design progress over time. LOL did I really geek out over website evolution yes I did.

ANYWAY.

Even though I really believe in the things I study and research and all the patterns I’m seeing, it’s still a trip when I find out someone took me seriously enough to do something about it. I was talking to someone else about their website and when I looked them up they had changed it and I was like whoa cool they thought about it and did something. But today was the first time someone I didn’t remember came back after actual WEEKS and said, “Hey you said this so I looked at this.” I don’t know, I think I’m still processing it.

Surreal Life Dreams I am Living Right Now: 1