Today Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan sits down with one of the best founders of a generation, Tracy Young. She cofounded Plangrid which sold to Autodesk for $875M, and is back with her new startup called Tigereye. But since it’s AAPI heritage month, we’re talking about a different kind of origin story. The daughter of Vietnamese refugees, Tracy Young's story will change how you think about what's possible. Despite facing immense hardships, Tracy persevered to build PlanGrid into one of Silicon Valley's biggest success stories. Her raw, honest advice is for anyone trying to overcome obstacles and achieve bold dreams. Tracy's Predictable Growth newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7018963257554046976/ Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/MainFunction-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/MainFunction-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Immigrants - We get the job done 00:43 - Coming to America 02:48 - Strangers in a strange land 06:03 - Starting up 11:12 - Outro
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/ *** 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
Tracy Young speaks at Y Combinator Female Founders Conference 2015. Tracy is a former construction engineer who cofounded PlanGrid, a company that makes beautiful software for the construction industry. She once worked for one construction superintendent and now she works for thousands of superintendents. Tracy is obsessed with building beautiful, effective things and providing great customer success. Nothing makes her more happy than fairness, hard work and a simple reliable app. She is also a vegetarian who believes her spirit animal is the beaver.