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.
https://twitter.com/Tracy_Young
https://www.plangrid.com/
Kat Manalac is a Partner at YC.
https://twitter.com/KatManalac
The YC Podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.
https://twitter.com/craigcannon
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
00:15 – How Tracy got into the construction industry
2:20 – What convinced Tracy and her cofounders to build PlanGrid?
3:00 – Finding a technical cofounder
5:55 – Tracy still sees herself as an engineer
6:45 – PlanGrid’s MVP and their first customers
11:25 – Their sales process
13:15 – Product breakthroughs
16:50 – Not firing fast enough
20:00 – What does she look for when hiring someone?
25:30 – Tim Cook’s closing statement at WWDC
28:15 – Fredi Fernández asks – Does Tracy track wellness levels of the team?
28:55 – At what point did Tracy hire an office manager?
29:50 – How does Tracy take care of herself?
31:15 – Founding a company with a partner
33:00 – Managing a company as a new parent
35:15 – Seyed Rasoul Jabari asks – What’s your big plan to go from 1.5 to 10 million projects?
36:15 – Holly asks – What has been your single largest influence in helping you scale?
37:35 – Why do some executives not work out?
38:25 – What skills did Tracy have to work on when scaling?
42:10 – What do a lot of startups get wrong?
45:50 – Tracy’s recommended books
47:30 – What Tracy wishes she knew when she started out
