[7cupsoftea]

PB was the first investor in 7 Cups. I'm thankful for all of the ways that he helped us. He is very good at motivating founders. I can't all the way understand how he does it, but it is remarkable. I think a big part of it is helping people face reality directly. i.e., he alludes to this in the interview when he says most people are good at finding obstacles (i.e., excuses) and that he doesn't fund them. He is good at keeping you honest so that you do not delude yourself into making fake progress or going down wrong turns. Another way of saying this is that he helps you minimize denial. Quick story:

I had been working on 7 Cups for about a month prior to getting to YC. I had a home page up, which I was pretty excited about. The core idea of the chat/voice support wasn't yet live. I showed him the website and wanted to show him some of the segments we wanted to focus on (parents of children with disabilities, veterans etc.). He quickly asked - have you got the actual product in front of users yet? I tried to dodge the question, talk more about the site etc. He repeated the question. I had to honestly answer that no we hadn't yet released it. He was like, okay go do that and report back next week. I was stalling because, on some level, I was afraid that it wouldn't work as well as I hoped. We pushed through, launched it, and learned a ton in that next week. For example, we learned that voice was too intimate and people preferred messaging.

And that basic cycle happened over and over again. Like there might be things that sound right or are even partially right, but if they are not the most direct thing that is going to help you learn and make a product people want, then it is probably not a good use of your time.