🌐 How to build a high-growth startup: Reflections from YC & beyond

Issue #6, December 12, 2023

Author

Sahil from Dots
December 12, 2023

Welcome to the Payouts Club! 💸

Payouts Club is a bi-weekly newsletter about everything payout-related featuring guides, written content, interviews with founders, case studies, and collective thoughts from fintech leaders and creators.

Each week we’ll cover the most relevant topics from for anyone who works with payouts on the daily which includes:

  • Companies paying out contractors like freelancers and gig workers

  • Contracted freelancers, creatives, gig workers

🌐 How to build a high-growth startup: Reflections from YC & beyond  

With this being our last newsletter of 2023, this week is something a little different. It’s been a reflective time here at Dots being almost 3 years since our co-founders Sahil and Kartikye built and launched the company. 

While so many things change day-to-day at an early stage fintech startup like Dots, the lessons and values that Dots was built upon in the 2021 Spring Y Combinator batch still ring true.

We’re sharing these three lessons that have been guiding Sahil and the rest of our team, in addition to other strategies and tips to achieve high-growth at an early stage B2B startup. 

In today’s newsletter, we’ll explore:

  • 🗒️ 3 lessons every startup should apply  

  • 💸 Working with contractors to scale your startup 

  • 📊 The value of case studies and customer interviews   

  • ✅ The importance of compliance at an early stage startup 

📚 Gentle Guides:

Lesson #1 of 3: you only hear the good news. You never hear about the behind-the-scenes failures that startups go through on a day to day basis. Given how things are looking in the startup and fintech world, these lessons are more applicable than ever.

💡 Growth Pro-tip - The value of case studies & customer interviews:

There’s nothing more valuable than taking the time to sit down with your customers over zoom to learn about their experience with your product and team. Beyond building long-lasting relationships with existing customers and getting referrals to their founder friends, here are some other benefits to sharing customer case studies:

  1. Content for sales: sharing industry-specific case studies with data about conversion rates and reduced time spent on payout processing have effectively pushed over deals

  2. Social re-sharing: allows you to tap into their social network as many founders and team members are willing to reshare content featuring their company and quotes 

  3. New feature ideas: listening to specific details of a customer’s day-to-day with your product helps you better locate pain points and build features directly correlated to feedback

  4. Inspiring roadmaps: case studies can act as inspiration for startups in the same vertical to leverage products and features that other companies are seeing great value from 

Here are some of our favorite case studies from 2023: 

Table22 decided to work with Dots to create a seamless and exceptional payout experience for both the Table22 team and their contracted drivers, the heart of their business.

Dots was a game changer on both the creator and technical side for the rapidly growing creator marketplace, helping Collabstr meet creators where they were with instant payments and streamlined marketplace flows by separating pay-in and payout.

Vantage Sports partnered with Dots to create a flexible and frictionless payout experience for Gen-Z college athletes, so they can focus on their next match, instead of a delayed payment.

Working with contractors is an effective way to boost productivity and creativity for your fast-growing startup, but you need to make sure you follow 1099 regulations. Ensuring compliance, in addition to security and privacy, is extremely important for the longevity of your startup. 

🔎 Fresh Finds: Startup Growth Edition  

Our weekly pick for the best posts, articles, and other content from the community about high-growth and early stage startups. 

The importance of doing things that don’t scale and turning down customers is just two of Michael’s unconventional pieces of advice that he shares freely on the YC blog. 

By: Michael Seibel 

Brady Flynn, the founder of Primer, a marketing platform and service that has helped companies like Microsoft and hims shares his tried and tested growth strategies for early startups. 

By: Anna Savina via The Entrepreneur on Medium 

I personally think this is one of the best comprehensive collections of advice for an early-stage startup. Check it out!

By: Ed Luo

💬 Talks & Tweets:

I hope you’re not this person. (But I get it, it’s hard to not do what everyone else is doing!)

Remember, not taking action is also an action. Launch new features, keep testing, and you’ll succeed, or learn something new. 

Funding is often the first thing founders think about, but at the end of the day, money comes naturally if you build well. It’s often more about who you get money from, over how much.

TL;DR: This edition being our last newsletter of this year, we’re sharing the evergreen lessons we learned from Dalton and batchmates during YCombinator and other advice from top founders of early stage startups to take with you into the new year. Drop me a message here if you have any topics you’d like me to cover in the next edition or if you have any questions about YC!

See you next year folks! Happy holidays.

Looking to stay up-to-date with everything payouts and connect with other payouts people just like yourself? Tune into Payouts Club for bi-weekly newsletters in your inbox. 

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