Asher's Blog

Y Combinator changed the way I thought about building a startup. It gave me a stronger instinct for talking to users, making something people want, moving quickly and refusing to confuse publicity with progress. It also gave me access to founders and group partners whose experience continues to be valuable long after the programme itself.

This article is therefore not a complaint about YC, nor is it an attempt to pretend that YC never discussed the subjects I am about to raise. YC has published advice about co-founders, vesting, hiring, growth and finance, and individual partners have deep experience across these areas. My reflection is more specific: I wish some of these ideas had been connected more explicitly into an operating system for founders, especially those building in Africa, where capital, purchasing power, currency, talent and market infrastructure create a different survival equation.

The YC doctrine is excellent at helping founders get close to users and discover whether a product should exist. I wish it had spent more time teaching what happens after the first evidence arrives: how to protect the company from co-founder conflict, when marketing becomes useful, how to design products that generate cash, how to hire after product-market fit, how to build a basic financial system and why an African company should consider going global much earlier than it feels necessary.

Co-founder agreements should be a standard operating requirement

YC talks about the importance of choosing a co-founder carefully, splitting equity sensibly and using vesting. That advice matters. However, I wish every co-founding team had been required, or at least strongly guided, to complete a comprehensive co-founder agreement at the beginning.

A co-founder relationship is often described as a marriage because both relationships involve trust, sacrifice, shared assets and decisions whose consequences can last for years. The comparison is useful, but it should lead to more preparation rather than romanticism. Even people who respect and love one another can later disagree about effort, money, leadership, strategy, personal circumstances or whether the business should continue.

I have seen promising companies damaged by co-founder conflict, and some have closed when the underlying commercial problem was not necessarily fatal. It would be irresponsible to claim that a simple agreement can prevent every dispute, because serious conflict sometimes arises from character, misconduct or a complete breakdown in trust. A good agreement can, however, prevent uncertainty about what happens next.

The document should address roles, time commitment, equity, vesting, intellectual-property assignment, compensation, decision rights, deadlock, additional capital, confidentiality, misconduct, disability, death and voluntary or involuntary departure. It should explain what happens to vested and unvested shares when someone leaves, who can appoint or remove leaders, and how the company continues if one founder stops participating.

The point is not to prepare for betrayal. It is to protect the business and give every founder a fair exit path if life or conviction changes. When these questions are discussed before the company becomes valuable, the conversation is difficult but manageable. When they arise during a crisis, lawyers, investors, employees and customers may all become exposed to a disagreement that should have had a process.

No accelerator can act as counsel for every company across every jurisdiction, and founders still need qualified legal advice. However, a structured checklist, required conversation and jurisdiction-appropriate referral system could make co-founder preparation as normal as incorporation, vesting and cap-table management.

“Talk to users” and “learn marketing” are not opposites

One of the strongest lessons I absorbed from YC was to talk to users and focus on the product rather than becoming distracted by marketing, press and awards. In the earliest stage, this is correct. A founder can spend money generating attention for a product that users do not retain, and a large launch can hide the fact that the company has not solved an important problem.

However, my interpretation at the time became too broad. I felt as though marketing itself was being discouraged, when the more useful lesson should have been to avoid scaling marketing before understanding the product, customer and economics.

Talking to users is a form of market learning, but it does not automatically teach a founder how to position the product, create demand, choose channels, build distribution, establish a category or measure acquisition. A good product can remain invisible if the company cannot explain why it matters and repeatedly bring the right people to it.

Meanwhile, some companies were building larger user bases and stronger Series A stories because they were investing in acquisition. Some were burning cash, and not every signup represented a valuable customer, but the experience taught me that disciplined marketing can accelerate learning and growth when the right foundations exist.

I wish the instruction had been presented as a sequence. Before product-market fit, marketing should be small, close to the founders and designed to learn. The company should test messages, customer segments and channels without mistaking paid traffic for love. Once retention and unit economics become credible, marketing can be scaled carefully, with every channel evaluated by the quality and value of customers it produces.

The relevant questions are practical. What does it cost to acquire a paying customer? Which channel produced that customer? How long does gross profit take to recover the acquisition cost? Does the customer retain after the campaign or incentive ends? Does the channel continue to work when the budget increases? What message causes the right customer to act, and what promise must the product then keep?

YC could teach this through verified case studies from companies that built durable demand, not only companies that generated rapid signups. Founders need to see how excellent businesses moved from founder-led conversations to repeatable acquisition, what they measured, which mistakes wasted money and how product, sales and marketing eventually worked as one system.

Founders need to learn how to sell

The emphasis on product can also lead technical or first-time founders to underestimate selling. A product does not generate cash merely because it works. Somebody must identify the buyer, understand the organisation, communicate the value, overcome risk, navigate procurement, negotiate terms and ask for the commitment.

Selling is especially important in Africa, where trust may take longer to establish, enterprise purchasing can be relationship-driven, and customers may use manual alternatives that appear cheaper even when they create substantial hidden costs. A founder must learn how to translate product functionality into an economic and emotional outcome the customer values.

For a B2B company, founder-led sales should be treated as a discipline. Who experiences the pain, who controls the budget, who can block the purchase and who will use the product? What event creates urgency? What proof does the customer need? What does implementation require? Why should the customer choose this company rather than continue with the existing method?

The founder should not rush to hire a sales team before answering these questions. Early salespeople cannot efficiently discover a proposition the founders themselves do not understand. But once a repeatable motion begins to appear, the company needs a way to document it, train others and improve conversion.

I would have appreciated more instruction on pricing, enterprise sales cycles, proposals, procurement, pipeline management, collections and expansion revenue. These may look like ordinary business subjects rather than startup secrets, but they determine whether product value becomes cash.

Cash flow should be designed into the product portfolio

Another subject I wish had received more attention is cash flow. Startups often talk about cash in the bank and runway, but cash flow is more valuable than a static cash balance because it represents the business’s continuing ability to replenish itself.

Cash is an asset at a particular moment. Cash flow is a pattern. It shows that customers repeatedly exchange money for value and that the company has created a mechanism capable of supporting its next period of work. A large fundraising round can create cash without creating cash flow, which is why a well-funded company may still remain economically fragile.

Founders should be taught to identify the part of the product or business model that can generate dependable cash while the larger ambition develops. At Eazipay, we have found opportunities in verification and other products that support the wider mission while producing cash. This has allowed us to continue building without making every strategic decision under immediate fundraising pressure.

Adjacent revenue should be chosen carefully. It should use capabilities, customers, data or distribution the company already possesses and should ideally strengthen the core product. A service that produces cash but consumes the entire team in unrelated bespoke work can delay the company rather than finance it. The founder needs to distinguish a bridge from a distraction.

The relevant analysis includes contribution margin, speed of collection, predictability, operational burden, customer concentration and strategic learning. A product that invoices a large amount but collects after six months may not solve an immediate cash problem. A smaller product paid in advance with healthy margins can create more useful freedom.

“Cash flow is king” is sometimes repeated so casually that it loses meaning. The practical meaning is that a business capable of generating cash has more time, more negotiating power and more freedom to choose when and from whom it raises capital. I do not want to be under pressure to raise, because desperation weakens judgement and terms. I want fundraising to accelerate an opportunity, not rescue the company from a deadline.

Hiring advice needs a second chapter after product-market fit

YC’s caution against hiring too early is sound. Before product-market fit, founders should remain close to the product and customers, and a large team can increase burn and coordination before the company knows what it is doing. I generally believe a pre-product-market-fit company should be extremely small; in many cases, it should not need more than about five people.

The missing chapter is what to do when evidence of product-market fit begins to appear. How does the founder know which role to hire first? How far ahead of revenue should the company recruit? What should remain with the founders? How should leaders be evaluated? How does the company add capacity without allowing payroll to outrun cash?

My recruitment background gave me an advantage here because my first business was in hiring, but even with that experience, scaling a startup team requires deliberate financial and organisational judgement. The cost of an employee is larger than salary, and the value of a hire depends on whether the person removes a real constraint.

The founder should define the outcome before the role. What important result is not happening because the company lacks capacity or competence? What evidence shows that a full-time hire is the right solution rather than better software, a consultant, a partner or a clearer process? What should be measurably different after ninety days?

As the company grows, founders need to learn how to hire leaders rather than only individual contributors. A good leader should own an outcome, build a capable team, make decisions and reduce the number of issues that return to the founder. Hiring impressive résumés without clear mandates simply creates an expensive layer of people waiting for direction.

Accelerators could provide more practical material on organisational stages, compensation, references, scorecards, probation, management systems, performance exits and the relationship between hiring plans and runway. Founders should see how headcount decisions change under optimistic, expected and adverse revenue scenarios.

Every startup needs a simple financial operating system

I also think YC could provide, or strongly recommend, a simple financial system for seed and Series A companies before they can justify hiring a full-time chief financial officer. A founder should not need advanced financial training to know whether the company is becoming healthier, but somebody must establish accurate records, consistent definitions and a regular reporting rhythm.

The system should show cash balance, operating cash flow, burn, runway, revenue, collections, gross and contribution margins, acquisition cost, retention, payroll, receivables, obligations and scenario forecasts. It should allow the founder to see the business by product, customer segment and currency where those distinctions matter.

It should also predict consequences. If hiring proceeds according to plan while revenue arrives two months late, what happens to runway? If the local currency depreciates against dollar-priced infrastructure, what happens to gross margin? If one enterprise customer leaves, can the company still meet payroll? If marketing spend doubles, what conversion and retention are required to justify it?

This does not have to become another complicated software product. A well-designed template, common definitions and monthly review process could protect founders from making decisions based on the bank balance alone. The important thing is to link the financial system to operating choices, so the company can see which actions extend survival and which ones create growth.

Founders also need to understand that financial control is not the same as financial caution. The purpose is not to stop ambition. It is to know what the ambition costs, what evidence supports the expenditure and when the company must change course.

African founders should consider global expansion earlier

The final lesson I wish I had received earlier is that going global is not merely an optional ambition for an African company. In many cases, it is a strategically important path.

Africa contains large and valuable markets, but founders must contend with lower purchasing power, currency depreciation, expensive capital, fragmented regulation and infrastructure that can make distribution and service more costly. A company can create tremendous local value while its revenue, translated into dollars, appears to move backwards because the currency has weakened.

Going global does not mean abandoning Africa or pretending that every Nigerian product belongs in the United States. It means asking early whether the underlying problem exists elsewhere, whether the product can be designed for multiple jurisdictions, and whether stronger-currency revenue can support the company’s wider mission.

African founders possess advantages that should not be underestimated. Building under constraint can produce efficient operations, resilient products and teams capable of solving problems with limited resources. Local costs may allow more experimentation before capital is exhausted. Founders often understand emerging-market customers whose needs are poorly served by products designed elsewhere.

However, global expansion has to be designed rather than announced. The company needs international standards for security, reliability, governance, documentation and customer experience. It must separate universal product capabilities from country-specific compliance. It must test demand with paying customers rather than rely on friendly conversations during a visit.

If I had understood this earlier, I would have treated global readiness as part of the initial architecture rather than something to consider after fully solving Nigeria. The company could still begin locally, but the product, entity structure, talent and brand would be built with a larger destination in mind.

The real curriculum is survival with ambition

YC is extremely good at compressing certain startup truths into memorable instructions: make something people want, talk to users, launch, move quickly and do things that do not scale. Those ideas have helped build extraordinary companies because they direct founders towards reality.

My suggestion is that the curriculum should continue further into the operating realities that follow. Protect the company with founder agreements. Teach marketing as a science that begins with learning and scales with retention. Teach founders to sell. Help them identify ethical, strategic sources of cash flow. Show them how to hire after product-market fit, and give them a simple financial system that connects ambition to runway. Encourage founders in constrained markets to consider global design before local conditions limit what a valuable company can become.

None of these ideas reduces the importance of product. They protect the product long enough for it to become a company.

I remain grateful for YC and for the people and principles it introduced into my journey. The ability to critique a system constructively is partly evidence that the system gave you something worth extending. My experience since the programme has taught me that product insight, financial intelligence, distribution, organisational design and governance cannot remain separate disciplines. They interact every day in the survival of the business.

Eazipay’s next stage will make some of these lessons more visible. We have spent years testing, learning and finding ways to generate the cash that allows us to pursue a much larger ambition. I believe the company will become extremely successful, but that belief is not based on a funding announcement. It is based on what we now understand about the market, the product, the economics and the strategic choices already producing results.

The best accelerator advice should help a founder create that kind of conviction: not confidence detached from evidence, but ambition supported by a company that knows how to survive, sell, learn and expand.

Further reading

• Paul Graham, “What I’ve Learned from Users,” on the depth of insight founders can gain from close contact with customers.
• Noam Wasserman, The Founder’s Dilemmas, on co-founder relationships, ownership, control and the consequences of early decisions.
• Peter Thiel with Blake Masters, Zero to One, on creating differentiated value rather than competing without advantage.
• John Mullins, The Customer-Funded Business, on models that use customer cash to reduce dependence on external capital.