Founder side Vs Investor Side - Who knows the truth !!
In a brutally honest post, a Y Combinator-backed founder revealed the behind-the-scenes struggles of building an AI startup during the hype cycle.
After getting into YC with just an idea, the duo Royal Jain and Vedant Agarwala pivoted multiple times — from their original concept to finally building an LLM-based tool that converted Figma designs to code.
Despite raising $500K and hitting $1,500 in monthly revenue, they couldn’t scale and eventually decided to shut down. The founder describes the journey as “pivot hell” — the phase of trying new ideas repeatedly without meaningful traction.
Key moments like getting into YC and earning their first revenue gave them hope, but the path remained uncertain and exhausting. The experience taught them that 70-80% of an AI product still relies on solid traditional software and that good evaluations matter more than just good prompts.
The founder is currently on a sabbatical but remains hopeful about the future of AI, already planning their next startup — this time, with stronger learnings and deeper conviction
