Replit Co-Founders, Amjad Masad & Haya Odeh

I'm Jessica Livingston and Carolyn Levy and I are the social radars. In this podcast, we talked to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it. Carolyn and I have been working together to help thousands of startups at Y Combinator for almost 20 years. Come be a fly on the wall as we talk to founders and learn their true stories. Carolyn, I'm really excited today. We have Haya O'Day and Amjad Masad, who are the founders of Repplet. Repplet went through YC in 2018 and it's basically programming and hosting at the click of a button environment. But first of all, welcome you to and I would like you to describe to our listeners what Repplet does. Thank you so much for having us. This is great. So, yeah, what Repplet is, I mean, your description is great. Actually, I might start using it as this one liner. It's basically, historically, programming has just been very difficult to start with. You have to install loads of software, gigabytes of software to even write it like a single line of code. And that made it really hard to learn, which is why people go to like five-year CS and engineering school to actually become programmers. It wasn't always that way. And PG talks a lot about Lisp and kind of those days were actually easier because they could just like start one program Lisp and they can just start coding immediately. But things have gotten more complicated over the years through the 90s and 2000s. So programming has actually gotten harder to get started with. So, Repplet is a lot of ways like a return to the path where you can just go to a website and the website presents you with a console where you can just type your code and in seconds you're programming. And then we took the same mindset to every aspect of the software development lifecycle, which is like, what if you want to collaborate with someone? And typically do it via Git and that's also very complicated. With Repplet, it's sort of like Google Docs. I'll send you a link and you'll hop into my environment and I'll see your cursor. That's really fun. And then what if you want to host something? Well, that's also fairly complicated. You want to go to AWS and they're going to present you with a lot of crap to be honest. And so we made that part easier. And so we're taking the same approach across the stack and that's been very successful. Well, for us non-technical people, Carolyn, me, I have you filed in my brain as easy programming. So that's why I'm glad to bet you that you just described it. But I did look at your original application and I did see your mission was to make programming more accessible and you sort of dreamed of rather than creating unique sort of programming environments every time you wanted to program. You just want to open a tab. And so that's what Repplet's done. I love that. I was surprised to see you had applied to a Y-commonator before doing an educational teaching for teachers. Tell us the story of how Repplet came to be. Yes. Repplet has a very long history and sort of backstory. It started in college. I was going to school back in Jordan where I and I have from and I didn't have a laptop at the time. And I was running into all the problem we just talked about, which is every time I want to learn a new program in language, I have to do the same song and dance. And it was pretty difficult. So I was like, why isn't there like a website you can go to on the right code? And there wasn't. And that was very surprising. So that was like 2008, 2009. And it was profoundly surprising to me because you would expect like a good idea like that to have people working on it. And I thought like how hard could it be? So I started working on it. And I had a bit of an immediate success in terms of like I put a few toy program in language and browser. I was reading PGSs of the TANSAs and I was reading about Lisp and getting excited about that read and hacking news. And so I put Lisp there because Lisp is kind of easy to make Lisp. And my friends liked it. They really, really liked it on the first try. And I thought, OK, this idea has lags. And so, OK, let me go add a real programming language like Python. I think Paul might be a little offended, a real programming language. Were you? Were you a Lisp hacker? No, I would say I was into scheme a little more than Lisp. I just found it to be like a bit more pure. I was into it as sort of a toy language. I was never into it as like I'm going to build things with Lisp. It was, it's a great sort of sandbox to play with ideas around languages. But to me, it's not being practical for a long time. Don't tell Lisp. But don't worry. Don't worry. I'll listen to this podcast. Oh, no. So then the difficulty started and actually took a few years before I had any breakthrough to make the application more useful. To add Python, I had to compile the Python interpreter from C to JavaScript so that it runs in the browser. And we were the first to do that. And so, and I opened source all of that and put on hacker news in 2011. And it went viral. It was on top of hacker news for a few days. And everyone there in the internet was super excited about it and tweeting about it and all of that. Oh, wow. That's when I sort of recruited Haya, Haya and I were working together and then dating at the time. So we don't use dating and Jordan. We're friends. Okay. We're all now. So it's fine. But let's tell you, tell her side of the story. But you know, I just need design because I was just like making this thing that wasn't, that wasn't very attractive or interesting. And so that's how Haya got involved. Because Haya, you are a graphic designer by training, right? Okay. So tell your side of things now. I like to design school, yes. But when I graduated, I didn't know what I'm supposed to do. We barely switched the surface of what its design means. So there's like art, there's like video, there's marketing, there's sales, there's a lot going on there. So when I graduated, I explored a little bit of branding, a little bit of press. The only thing that resonated with me is web design. And I did not have the language for it. Back then I just, this doesn't make any sense. Like what are they saying here? Does not match whether they want. So the language and the understanding of, oh, well, they're not matching. They're like, they're value prop. Like, or what is the narrative here? Or what are they selling? What are they trying? So all of this language, we didn't know it. We didn't have it. And I didn't know that there was something called information architecture or like UI. The only thing I knew it was like, that's a bunch of text on a website. And I can make it look and feel a lot better. When I shared this problem with Amjad, he told me, well, I think you would love a book called Don't Make Me Think. And that was his first recommendation to get into web design. And I started digging more into web design and loving redesigning websites on my own time just to practice. And that's like, that's pretty nerdy. Okay, you must have loved it. Okay. Yeah. And that's in my job. I finished what I need to do and I just dabble around with this. And I got really bored in my job. I just finished what I need to know one year. And then I quit my job because I loved what Amjad gave me to nerd out on. He gave me everything. It's like, you know, take a logo, take a brand, take the UI and think about this thing. So it was fun. It was fun project and yeah. So you quit your job, but how did you guys get over to America? Like, when did that happen in the timeline? YC actually was part of that. I don't know if you know that Jessica. I thought you worked at Facebook and before that company. Yes. So cook academy my first job. Zach and Ryan were just doing the YC. And they started using the software I wrote, the open source software I wrote for Repplet. No way. Yes. Yes. And as you as you might know, cook academy's idea came from Fenn Paul, right? Paul was was. I do. From our. a brainstorming session in our kitchen in Palo Alto, I think. Right? - Yeah. - Okay. - Something like that. And I think it's very interesting, 'cause this whole story is intertwined with the YC and Paul, right? And so they reach out to me, and they're like, "Hey, like really cool stuff that you're working on. We're working on this thing to actually commercialize a lot of the ideas I had. And I thought education is a great use case and market for this. But I wanted to start my own company, and I told them, you know, basically, F off, I'm not joining you, I want to start my own thing. - We're aggressive. (laughing) - But we're good friends now. But, you know, they actually, Zach, to his credit, Zach Sims, flew all the way to Jordan. - Wow. - And hung out with me and Hyah for a week, and you know, tried to convince me to join them. I took him to the Dead Sea and we went out, and I showed him Jordan and all of that. But the offer wasn't attractive to me. I was like, "I kind of want to be a founder or a co-founder or something close to that." So he kept ramping up the offer on the way that I was driving in the airport. I was basically just still, no. And just before I dropped him off, he opted off or like doubled it or something like that. And I signed the offer letter in the car. - Wow. - No. - So he scratched numbers, you know, put the right numbers, let's sign the offer letter in the car. And I called Hyah, I was like, "Hey, we're, you know, "I'm going to New York and Hyah will tell you what she said." - Well, I'm John, when he put the, when he put the open source project, he started receiving projects and work offers from all over the place. - Yeah. - South Africa, Seattle, everywhere. But then when he got the offer in New York, we sat and thought about it. And then we decided to go to New York. And when Zach came and he did sign the offer, he was like, "Oh, we're going to New York." I'm like, "You're not going to New York or you propose." - No. - No one. - No one is leaving. - New York. - Oh, not playing here. - Wait, we're just friends. You're just friends. - No. - So wait, I really need, I really need to dig into this. Does he call you on his way back from the airport to say, "I've just signed this deal or did he wait to tell you in person?" - No, he did not, I think, wait, unperson. I think he called me. - And so you said, "No one's going to New York without a proposal." - No one's going to New York without a proposal. - Yes. - And what do you say, I'm just. - I was shocked. Because I was like, I was 23. Like, I didn't plan to get married any time soon. No, I wasn't 25. You were 25. You were 25. Yeah, I was 23. And. - Shouldn't be laughing. - Yeah, it's sort of made sense. Like, I wasn't planning to break up or anything like that. I was like, "Okay, I guess it was like a very rational decision." It wasn't like in those romantic kind of things and proposals. And eventually we got romantic. But New York was a very romantic place to be. But at the time, I was like, "Okay, I guess we're getting married." I touched and laughed at the time. I thought you were going to say, "Will you marry me?" I'd be so honored. But like, "I guess we'll get married." Or. But then did you do a redo? Did you have a formal proposal? - There was no redo. There was a formal proposal by meeting my family and my dad and my mom and my brother. And they need to accept him. - I was a whole ordeal because I was unemployed. - Why? - And. - You want more letter? - You weren't really unemployed. - You didn't want more letter. - Yeah, that's true. - They didn't have an income or a job. So that's very important. - You had an offer letter from two kids in New York. - Was the offer letter mostly for equity? Or what was it that you were trying to increase? The cash or that? - Yeah, the equity. I didn't care about the cash. One bit. And that's like a consistent theme in my life is that I just always was focused on kind of building wealth and a lot of what Paul talks about in his essays around getting rich and all of that. I just thought like salary, cash, money, it's just like, "Yes, whatever. That's what you need to live." And actually, Zach did pay me very low. It was very painful. Like it was like. - In New York. - $80,000. - Yeah, $80,000. - This was like 2011, 2012. - So you talked about it from 12th and said? - Yeah. - Yeah, I wasn't like. - Not that long ago. - I lived in a studio with a roommate. Like, that's how bad it was. - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - Yeah, we have some questions here. - Yeah. - Why were you with a roommate? I thought you guys, wait, go first of all, I need to find out just quickly because I know we have a lot to get through. The parents. I need to find out what your parents thought. If they're sort of shocked, he has no income. But you'd been together for a while, right? - Yeah, we're talking to each other. So. - They didn't know that. - That we were together. - No, no, no. They know that I talked to him, like as a colleague, because we worked together in a startup. - They had. - That's how we met. - Okay. - So they had to know who he was. - Okay. - Yes. And they knew that he was an engineer. He worked with my mom and him, and liked his behavior. So I think, you know, my family, and where we come from, we try to focus on values and ethics. Money comes and goes. There are things that doesn't come and go, which is a passion, honesty, and how someone would treat their mom. Or their dad. And this is like a projection of how would they treat their family like later on, like their wife and their kids. And this is what we loved about Amjad. And, you know, he doesn't have a job today. He'll eventually have a job. He'll eventually have money. And I am with him with the long run. So this is what my dad saw, and with my brother saw it, my mom. And we just love the family. - Okay. All right. So that worked out. So then, Amjad, do you move to New York and you have a roommate? - Yeah. So to get married, you know, yes, all this, you know, talk about money and all that is all lies. But ultimately, like, you know, weddings in Jordan are expensive. You know, it's sort of an honor culture. And so you have to show face. And my father was in the government. And he had a reputation to keep and all that. So we had to pay for the wedding. And so I had to save quite a bit of money. So I went to the States. And I just wanted to save a big part of my salary so that I can go back and pay for a big wedding. And it was a big wedding. It was a huge wedding. And so to do that, I had a friend who was going to NYU. And so I called them and I said, hey, like, I'm coming to New York. Like, you know, where do you live? Like, should we, should we room together? I was like, yeah, what could do that? So we started looking for apartments. And I had an exiles sheet for like how much money I needed to save and all that. And just like, it didn't work any way to have like a two bedroom apartment or anything like that. And we had a, in the upper west side, actually, the area was not too bad. But yeah, it was, it was just like one room. We had two beds next to each other, one bathroom. And we lived together there. But it was interesting because he had this college life. And he was going out with his friends and all that. And I was friends with them. So I got to see that. But he would play World of Warcraft all night. And I'm trying to sleep. I have work at like 9 a.m. and I hear mouse clicks. I, this is not where I thought this interview was going to go. I'm a little, it's so fascinating. I, you stayed back in Jordan. Did you have like a web design job at this point where you consulting? Like, what did you do during this time? I was learning how to cook. Oh, because not what I thought you were going to say. I did not have a job. I just got engaged. So I, I expect my significant other to, you know, take care of me now. And, and I'm going to learn how to cook, which is a skill like I'm not practicing now. But I still have my book with me. But yeah, yeah. Okay. She took, she took an intensive cooking course with, with her mom, who's, who's a master, who's a master cook. And she has the black book that she breaks out once every two, three years. So like, cook something. I, I need to do that. I don't cook very much. So then walk me through how much time passed before you got my book. married and then Amjad, you went to Facebook. What quickly bring us up to speed on that? Because I have to fill in these blanks. Yeah. So, you know, everything happened super quick. Like it was actually dizzying speed. I remember telling high after everything was said and done. I was like, wow, I feel like I compressed 10 years of my life into like one or two. So basically like I went to the States two months. Actually, only way to the States. I got an old one visa. Peter Roberts, whose wife sees like favorite lawyer, gummy and old one visa. And old one visa is the alien of extraordinary ability. Just based on my open source work and all of that. Only way to the airport actually they didn't know what an old one visa was. I had saved $700 and $100. And they made me pay for a ticket back because they didn't think it was an immigrant visa. They thought it was a visitor visa. And so I would I landed in New York. I was so broke. Wow. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, I started building up some savings of all that went back got the engagement party in April. And when it straight back to work for another six months. And then in September that year, went back, got married, went to Thailand for like a couple weeks for the honeymoon and the New York back to work. And then worked at a code canary for another year and a half, I think at the time. Late 2013, I just wanted to to do something more technical to be honest. My job at code canary just became sort of like, you know, leading and hiring and doing all this kind of stuff that like early employees do. And the company had grown. I was like 30, 40 people and I just felt like I wanted a new challenge. So I went to a Facebook was doing really exciting work at the time. I was inspired by Zuck's vision around internet.org, which was supposed to connect everyone in the world. He was talking a lot about like, you know, the internet is this this amazing thing is going to lift people out of poverty. A lot of people are going to get introduced to computers. And you know, my life story just showed me like the power of the internet and the power of software and the power of things like open source. And how democratized it's going to get. And the idea that like people can really fundamentally change the lives. If they learned skill or two online. And so I was inspired by that mission, I joined Facebook. And quickly at Facebook got attracted back into developer tools. Because I tried to like write job application for their Android for their Android kind of platform. And it was so slow. The whole process was slow. I was, I was, you know, it was just like, it was like, how come the tools are so bad even at a big company like that. And so there was a project at the time there that was trying to bring web development to mobile. It's called the react native. So it's trying to bring react to to mobile. And I was one of the founding engineers. I was on, you know, team of team of three. And now this is the top cross platform applications of the world. This court is written in Airbnb, you know, a bunch of, a bunch of apps. And, and it was really fun. It was kind of a startup within a big company because we built this thing that reached, you know, millions of developers and billions of people because a lot of people were using these applications. And it wasn't only, it was until like 2016 that I started getting the edge to do to do something new. And at the time, and I'll let's hi, I kind of take over from here because she kind of revived the idea of Repplet and the project that is Repplet. Okay. Hi, how'd you revive this? Because I feel like Paul, Paul had said I talked to him briefly this morning about this interview. And one of the things he said was like, Repplet is the exact opposite of a pivot. This has been sort of cooking and percolating for years. It's for years. It was like Omjod's life's work kind of thing. And so, hi, how did you reinvigorate the idea? So I joined Omjod in New York. So, you know, I thought that I would get it right now. Are you married now? Okay. So you then joined him in New York. I just had to get closer on the timing. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And then I thought, you know, just chasing the American dream, I'm in New York, I'm a designer. This is the best city to be a designer. And I thought if I would apply to a designer job, I'll get like a job immediately. But it was like pulling teeth like very soon. I realized I am competing with the best designers in the world like designers from Stanford, Harvard, like you name it. What makes me would stand out. And I didn't know. And then I started looking at different portfolios. And I felt super discouraged with my work. So by talking to Omjod's friends and the designers in co-cademy and talking to Omjod, their recommendation was like keep practicing. So I kept practicing and practicing and finding different gigs. And then I stumbled on this like niche, which is internationalization design. Like finding gigs that has to do with the mean Norwegian like companies and products that try to focus on the Middle East and North Africa, where they need cultural design or different design for their websites because the language is from right to left. So mirroring the design does not work. It needs to be an experience like a different experience. It comes from like ergonomically and like how it function or the feel of it or the direction or the narrative, even like the color of the models or the pictures on the website. Where that was like okay like dream coming to working nice gigs on the biggest agencies in New York. I hated it. I was like okay checkbox is done now. I just like hey being a brand designer. I remember she used to tell me about how people will check out at like a 1pm and Friday that we can start right after lunch. She's like oh my god like these people don't work hard of all. That's like this drinking on lunch and Fridays. Yeah. And it would have this blame culture like if the work does not you know happen. They just like have a whole chain of email of like why whom whom whom and then I told her and I'm like this is not working for me. I don't like it. So okay. I started to think like maybe I need to go back to school and do masters or what should I do and then back in the day it was like up and coming these like bookhands like book and for UX book and for engineering. In general assembly one one of the hottest ones and then I'm just told me like I have my friend working at this book and maybe you just go and check it out intro to so like yeah it's not and we did not have the money to go back to school. So I went I went to the intro to UX UI and for the first time in my life like it's just like like all the things that have been building towards all the things that have been talking to all the things that I don't have language for it's just made sense and then I came back home super pumped and told I'm just like hey I want it but we don't have the money. So I asked my parents to lend me the money because I really wanted to be on this 10 weeks course. So I did the course finished it and then like soon later on you know in tandem with working and I'm just on fun project site project that did not you know stop. I soon realized that in the 10 week course we barely scratched the surface of every single topic and it's on me to deepen my knowledge with every single area. In the book came they you know they prep you to a job where most of my batch they found a job I couldn't find a job. I for the first time I'm landing in an interview but I'm not getting an offer. So it was super frustrating experience and very disarming. We come in with confidence and you start to feel you know less confidence and questioning your talent. So I'm just asked me to stop researching for a job for a whole year and we did the research together that I remember very well he was at the time in Facebook. What is it take to be a designer in Facebook? Because Facebook at the time was hiring best designers. So from the research we found that they they're like you know they're fully in they're like blog they are photographers they have site project they like all in design like it's up their lifestyle this is not something they do for a job. So he's like, listen, I really need you to stop looking for a job and work on a site project and it will help you all the way. Like just think of any idea that you have. And we started brainstorming like, should we do a fitness app? Should we do a lifestyle app? Should we? And then I'm like, what happened to Replet? You know, I see you sometimes maintaining the project on weekends. How about we we work in it? Like, are you serious? What do you want to do with the Replet? It has users, yeah. And he's like, yeah, well, I want to talk to these users. I want to I want to start from somewhere. This is what I learned from school. Like talk to users, do interviews, survey, understand. It was like, okay, do it. So started like working with Amjad and bringing like the users and doing surveys. And then I was so shocked of how much there was love for this one page on the internet that didn't even have any counts that didn't even have like, it's just one page. And I started like thinking with Amjad, what do we do with it? What is the direction? And it could have gone so many ways. It could have gone like nonprofit. It could have gone like a startup. And I started living and breathing this thing for like a whole year. And I like, I was so into it that I forgot like that this is becoming a thing. And when I started going to interviews and I'm pointing at my work at Replet, it was an eye opener in one interview where they say, it looks like you have something working here. Do you really want this job? I know someone said that to you in the interview. Yes. Yeah. And I it was in a piffini moment that it was like an eye opener. I left the offices just looking at the office. I looked like, I don't want to work here. And I went back home and asked Amjad, I think I really, really like working on Replet. So what do we do now? Okay. Yeah. And so were you sort of ready mentally, Amjad, to make the leap? No, you know, I saw what Zach and Ryan went through as founders. Like it was, it was hard. It was really hard. And I had an empathy because I was, you know, so early. And I think it was hard on me as an early employee. I would like multiply that by 10 to 100 for the founder versus the early employee in terms of stress and how much you have in the line and your reputation, all of that. Ben Harbett says it gets intertwined with your nervous system and the attacks on your stomach because you know, almost, it's a recipe for all sorts of disasters. So I thought I didn't feel like I want to do it. I was feeling good the time. I got healthy as I work out and I was eating healthy because because I, you know, for a long time, it's working really hard and neglecting my health. And I was like, I don't know if I want to do it. So we try to make it a project at Facebook, actually. I went to my manager. I was like, Hey, I kind of want to work on this. But I think it could have a great impact on the world and make programming easier with like, you know, it would like unlock opportunities across the globe. And they were interested in trying to exploring that, but I just never, never pened out, never felt like I'm going to lose ownership of this thing and I'm going to have a boss and all of that. But these offered me a job in Facebook. And it was eventually. So we got really okay. Yeah. They're, I think it's a fantastic company. And so I decided to finally like to, after a lot of deep, deep thinking, the thing that really high and I kind of felt like we care about is the mission. Until this day is like, you know, making programming more accessible to more people is changing lives. You know, as we speak, you know, a lot of people are replete. I've fundamentally changed their lives because they learned the skill. And so we, we took the, we took the plunge and I wrote a master plan. So the master plan I was, I was inspired by Elon at the time of this Tesla master plan. And the master plan, uh, actually have it up on the website somewhere. But basically, like the first step is we're going to make this tool. It's not going to be that powerful. So the, the best use case for is to learn the program. And we're going to sell it to schools. That's how we're going to monetize and in teachers and students are going to use it. Then the second step is like, we're going to improve it tremendously and make it so that you can like, um, you know, do more things with it. We're going to have a lot of data. We're going to train an AI and AI is going to help you to code. And that way it's going to make programming even more accessible. In mind you, this is like 2015, 16, right? I'm writing this thing. And AI was, was not like, you know, was not what it is today. I kind of saw that it was going to come, uh, and it's going to have an impact on coding. And the third step was like, Oh, Repplet's going to become a one stop shop to build any sorts of software. Uh, you're going to be able to host the applications. You're going to be able to, um, deploy them and scale them and get able to build an entire business on it. And so that's where we are today. You know, so, um, so kind of that, you know, what what Paul said exactly is like it was always kind of that vision was always the case. Uh, you know, so when we applied to, I see the first time, we're like, Oh, we're kind of an education company. We, we have all these teachers and students. We're going to sell to them. We got rejected. Um, but, uh, you know, we started bootstrapping essentially because we started getting in some revenue. Eventually we raised some money from Bloomberg beta, from Roy Behaat, who was also invested at, uh, at codecat, I mean, you know, from those days that reached out to him. Uh, but still wasn't a lot. We raised like half a million dollars. And so we were kind of bootstrapping for a long time. And we actually had a profitable month or two at some point until I get this DM from, from Sam Altman, uh, in late, uh, 2017. So Sam sends me a DM and he's like, Hey, I run away. See, I know who you are. Come on. And he's like, we've been looking at Repplet and we think it's super interesting. I was like, if it's super interesting, why didn't you accept us, the like, the gazillion times, you get a question. Yeah. And, uh, and he's like, why don't you come, come see me at opening eyes, opening eye? What, what is that? And so I go, I go to the mission. And I, I, I, I see you at opening eye. And he starts talking and he's like, what you're building is, is, is, uh, super exciting. Actually, uh, Paul found you in Hacker News. Hacker News at the time loved us. And we're Hacker News every other week. Uh, and, and you should talk to him. Uh, before you decide you want to do it or not. So PGA and I started a email relationship because at the time, I think late 2017, he was very committed to, to the retirement idea. And I think he was getting on phone calls or, or, and we had moved, moved to England. Well, he doesn't get on phone calls. Every is right. So, and we're in England. Okay. So, but I knew he met you first and he, and he, oh, he has always loved this idea. In fact, he tried to build it. Carolyn, if you remember in the, the, uh, episode with PGA, remember he tried to start his own company that was like a combination of like, Repplet, Haroko, and a programming language. And he bailed. Yeah. Um, you remember that. But, and just did the programming language. But he's, this is always one of his pet ideas. So I think when he met you or talked to you, he was super excited and funded you, right? Uh, not yet. So he, okay. We talked, we talked for three months over email. And I think, I think I could like print out a book of the S, he sent me like, we, it was really great because for the first time, I, uh, someone got Repplet, like got it, you know, on a gut level. And, um, and we talked about all the things that are broken in the world of programming today and how, how we're going to be able to fix them. Um, and, and towards the end, it was like, you know, there's a new YC, uh, uh, uh, new YC batch starting. You should consider it. That was, those, those the only thing that he's had. Um, and so I, I went to Sam and I was like, um, you know, well, actually, I went to hire first and I was like, Hey, like we have a business and do we want to give seven percent to, to YC because we were already off kind of off to the races. It wasn't actually that big. Uh, uh, and so the reason we decided to do YC is, is Paul because we felt like his advice was so on point. It was, it felt like talking to, to, to, to a profit and, and some ways because he could see the future so clearly. And I'm, you know, I think, uh, I actually think, you know, Paul has a, has a big reputation. I actually after interacting with him personally and hearing his ideas is, he's probably underrated, I would say. Um, uh, and in terms of like how clearly he can see things. And a lot of founders who still meet with him today for, for off-sauvers and all of that, uh, you know, he can drop one insight and that could like really change the trajectory of, of your business. Yeah, I've seen that happen before. And I think we're going to forgive you for the list comments if he hears all this. So, yeah, definitely. And so Sam sends me, I tell Sam, "Hey, Paul asks us to do what I see." It's like, "That's a great idea." "Hey, this is just a formality. Do this application." I'm like, "Oh, god damn, I don't want to do this application again." Is that why there was a freaking Rick Roll in the video? Yes. Is that what you were leading up to? Okay, I wasn't on my list of questions, but now it makes sense. I was looking at this application. I was like, "Why is there a Rick Roll in here?" I was so confused. Yeah, because we've done it so many times. Like, how many times did you apply to YC? I thought just once. And now for that. There was another couple, maybe different emails, something like that. No, okay. We applied it at least three times. Yeah. Okay. So, I wanted to get back at you all for. (laughs) That's funny. That's funny. Okay, so you went through the interview process, though. Yeah, and Michael was livid. He hated the fact that we were called on the application. And then we became friends. And he's like, "We're now. " "Really? Why not just to cheeky?" He was like, "That's not how you get into YC." And then, you know, you know, my phone is. Yeah. Yeah, when he's like, when he's mad, he's mad, right? Yeah, I was nervous. I thought we're not gonna get in. But yeah, we got in. Oh, I'm glad you did. Well, what was YC useful? Having finally gotten in. Tell us any highlights. I remember when we joined the speech that Sam gave to the batch at dinner. He said something that stuck in my head forever. If you ever thought that you worked hard in your life, you're wrong, the next eight weeks will be the hardest times of your life. You're gonna work so hard. You're gonna love it. And then you're gonna look back when you're done and you'll be so proud of yourself. Like I always bring it in. You know, we're ready. And he was looking at us while he was also giving the speech. Are you sure? Are you sure? I'm sure. I'm looking at him. I'm looking at him. I'm sure. And I'm sure he was looking at me. I was like, "Why is he looking at us?" And. Yes. Like, we're up to the dinner. I remember I'm not. Yeah. I'm not. Yeah. But when you were in YC though, you had a product. You had been making some money. So what was the big thing that you focused on during those intensive three months? Yeah. Jessica, the thing is, we wanted to evolve the product. Like we never wanted to just be an education product. Like, you know, learning to code is great. And that's one of the reasons I kind of left Code Academy was that I just want to build a programming platform. The fact that it makes it easy to learn is great. But I just want people to build. I want people to make things. I want people to, you know, again, change their lives. And YC gave us license to go big, to finally go really big. And during YC, the main project we had on our mind is, "Okay, now we want people to build web applications. We want people to be able to host applications." So that was a big thing. Okay. Okay. You have to understand when we got into YC, Repplet was basically one file editor and a console terminal output. And you could do, you know, you could even do games. Like you could do text-based games and things like that, which kids found really fun. But we didn't have multiple files. We didn't have a way to import libraries or projects. It wasn't just powerful. I think in the eight weeks that we're working on at during YC, we evolved the product by leaves and bounce. By the time we were done with YC, we had hundreds of thousands of websites hosted on Repplet because people were making especially young hackers, like 14, 15-year-old kids were making a lot of websites. And for the first time in their lives, they could actually, they were empowered to make these things. And we also discovered that we had an amazing community. So when they were building these websites and apps, a lot of them were social. So Repplet started having social features, chats, and users were connecting with each other. They started working with each other. So we started running hackathons, started doing meetups and things like that. So the product evolved in those eight weeks like more than what have taken us a couple of years. Did you guys have help or was it just that our employees meaning or was it just a two-view working on this? The thing is with Amjad and I, the thing that we talked a lot about, that we did not even start from zero. We start from minus. Like we don't even have connections. We don't like most of the companies at the time when we were interviewing like people to join us, most of the other companies, they would, they would compare us to other companies that are doing less than us. So the prestige that we gained with YC was huge for recruiting and hiring. And even just like having our name, like joining YC was really a big validation for recruiting and raising. And when Sam gave that speech, we came back like super pumped and he's like, "Ir, everyone you know, it feels like we're going to war or something, bring all your friends or your family, literally anyone who can help you." You said that, I don't remember you said that. Yeah, he said that. And then we came back to the office and we started thinking it was the three of us. Like I'm John, me and our first engineer. And we started. And we started. And we were going to continue our old runaway from home kid. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah. Not really runaway. You know, it's awesome. He's a millionaire now. He's one of the smartest engineers. He's like a 25 probably now. Hi, you've made me think of two things while you're describing this that are related. When you're saying you had no connections, I feel like the round you raised after YC was like the most inside of a Silicon Valley group of investors you could put together. I mean, total opposite of like, Theranos investors. There's in the second thing was, did you try to recruit some of like the best replete users that you knew? Is that something you guys did? So that 18 year old kid was a replete user. And that was a first employee. And then when we got into I see like Hayas said, we really needed as many people as possible. So I flew my brother from Jordan, who's still at the company. He never went back. Yeah. He runs our ID team, our editor team. That's amazing. All right. Yeah. And we literally started to think about every designer, every person. And I'm just like thinking with Omjad, the people who worked with him, you know, would you work with this person? Would you work with this person? Say, we put together a great team really quickly in a few days. And we were on the war path. And we're really excited. I think the main thing, Jessica, that like I think YC does to founders in my opinion is that just the energy it gives you. It's that, you know, just the entire aesthetic and the orange room and the way people talk and the way, you just feel like you're doing something important that you're surrounded by a group of super smart people. You're kind of competing against them in terms of like who's going to work hardest is going to get the most progress week over week. And that was like the really that the most exciting thing about doing the YC. Sort of kicks things up a couple notches. One thing I was again, I was talking with Paul about that he pointed out to me that I don't think I consciously thought about. He said, "Replet has large amounts of system software like, you know, AWS or whatever, but is aimed at consumers, which is unusual. What's it like doing a startup that sort of has that unique element to it?" And sort of what was the hardest like technological problem that you've had to overcome? Yeah, I mean, we are building a lot of the, we're building an entire stack, an entire programming stack from scratch. It's like it's all these layers like, you know, it has an operating system layer and it has a sort of programming interface layer, it has like a package management layer and all of this comes together in a very neat UI. that hides all the complexity away. And so yeah, we have amazing talent today, amazing infrastructure talents. And the thing about the cool thing about my relationship with Haya is that, I'm very infrastructure minded. I can understand what good design is, but she's the designer, right? And the company always was this marriage of infrastructure and design. - Yes, which Paul also mentioned was very unusual as well for a super, you know, system software type of company to have style. And that's you, Haya brings the graphic design style. No offense, I'm sure. - No, that's totally true. (laughing) - I feel like understanding, like, you know, as you, as you be in the beginning of the call, we're not technical. And it's very important to, you know, to think about everyone. Like people are non-technical, the people are technical, people are kind of technical. And we talk a lot about like simple design. Like simple design is the hardest thing possible to do. And something that also like, you know, Paul talk about like, if a five year old understand it, then a seven year old understand it, then you get everyone in the middle. So sometimes, you know, when engineers have like a common language, a common understanding of concept, they agree all of it. So, but how can we have non-engineers also understand it? So it can be like really simple and, and get the success of, hey, this is a lot easier than the other tools that you were using. Because the ease of use is, what makes users want to use you versus like other products in competition. - I just want to answer, you had a question about what's difficult about it, technologically. There are a lot of things around scalability. But I want to point out one which is security. Now, many people think about a rep that, when they think about security. But when you're giving computers to random people on the internet, you're opening yourself massively, right? You know, it's like, - It's fraud. - To fraud, to hacking, to also some malicious behavior. - Yeah. - And the thing I didn't know, I mean, there's this famous Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech where he talks about connecting dots backwards. And like the things you've worked on, somehow kind of influence your kind of future career. And the thing I didn't expect is that I had a bit of a security background. I did a security set. I was a hacker kid. I used to love hacking into websites and things like that. And so, I applied that sort of knowledge and one of the things, we started getting competitors around the time we got, we got into, I see we actually got a huge, competitor in New York. It's called Litch, now they got acquired a Joel Spolsky, started a company that's kind of like Repplet. And they got $30 million of funding. They were like 80 people, 'cause it was like a spin-off from Faw Creek, a software, their existing software company. And the thing that really made Repplet stand out from a lot of the competition is that we, we were able to manage that security risk quite well. And so a lot of the competition were like either down all the time or closing down their systems or not adding a lot of program languages or features because of the security issues. - I love hearing that because one of the comments I have written down was sort of that Y Combinator is like that in that it looks easy and makes people want to copy it, but they don't quite understand what makes it so special. It's just so interesting that the whole security stuff, people don't realize what a threat it is and you knew. I also need to ask 'cause it's very rare that we have a husband and wife team, startup co-founders. I wanna know what it's like managing a startup with kids. How do you guys pull it off? - I think in many ways doing a startup with your spouse is probably easier than doing a startup on your own while married because it's super hard for your spouse to like understand how emotionally draining the endeavor is. And I think it ends up straining relationships quite a bit. There are challenges to it obviously. Like one challenge is, you know, it's really hard. You know, now we do better, but like in the early days, like let's say on the weekend, I wanna stop worrying about whatever we're worrying about. Then high as worrying about it, she wants to talk about it. So it ping pongs and we're always worried and it sort of goes into a loop. So it's kind of, it's really hard to get any distance from the company. I think VCs have a bias against, or at least used to be. I think we've heard a lot that like they didn't like that. Where our husband, I don't know if you and Paul had that. - I hate that so much because actually I'm notting my head this whole time because I totally agree with you. When Paul and I started, why commentator was and worked together for many years, it was so nice because we each understood what was going on in the other person's lives. And Carolyn, you and John too, I'm sure. And that's really nice. And actually a lot of the successful startups in history have been husband and wife teams. And so it's baloney when the VCs like discriminate against married couples, like give me a break. - I think it's so weird too, I totally agree with you. I just think I don't get it. - Yeah. I feel when we join YC part of joining YC is also that Paul and UHS are marrying, it's like a role model. And for the first time, I can reach out to someone who can understand me and ask you a question when I feel confused. Because we did have challenges with hiring people asking us questions like, do you make decisions at home? What if I want to be part of that decision? So it was challenging to understand what is normal, what is not. And I think it's also like a second marriage to work in a startup together and be like co-found. Like are you in it? Are you gonna leave if things go really, really Ross? And I see this happening a lot like co-founders leaving each other because it's a competition. It starts to become a competition who has the more. - It can with a lot of people. - Yeah, yeah. They're just like want more power or like, well something that it gives here. If my other startup is the house and the kids and I'm gonna be less involved in decision making and in the company and it should be okay because we have limited energy and we need to be, okay with where our energy go. - I think the kids part is interesting too. We, during the pandemic, we had our first kid and it was a crazy time for us. We were scaling like crazy. And we actually have pictures where we, times when we didn't have access to childcare, it was pretty rough in the pandemic. We would bring our kid to work. And actually we, Chad Friedman, who's our partner at YC and I was talking to him yesterday, he asked me, can I share the story by the Repplet House? So our first office was a house and we spent a lot of time together. We cooked together, essentially lived together. Played video games and poker and all that stuff together. And so when we had our kid, it was like kind of okay because we're kind of living together that we had our kids as part of the company and all of that. So we integrated our lives and the company in a way that just sort of made it work. And I think over time as we got a little comfortable financially, that helps a ton. That really helps a lot. I think that the toughest period was when we were, the company was growing really fast and we were still broke. Yeah. That was tough. Yeah, a lot of different pressure happening all at the same time. You're right. All right, let's do one last question. Do people make money from Repplet and who are they? Yeah, so we have a ton of people who, I mean, especially the kind of people who want to be entrepreneurs who didn't have the skill of coding and either learned it with Repplet or because of AI made it easier, they kind of dove deep. One person, for example, Steve Marco who last time I checked was on his way to a millionaire R. I think he's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars all hosted on Repplet. He runs this platform called, called data. And he's a, I think, a photographer by background. And that's the coolest thing about Rapplet is that a lot of the people that are making money or starting businesses, we have another story of a woman, her name is Priya. She was a PM at Microsoft and she had a lot of ideas and she wanted Microsoft to build those ideas. One of those ideas was, can you generate a presentation from a document? Can you make it in a document and then just generate a presentation using AI and she wanted to kill PowerPoint. That was her mission. She's doing that. >> Okay. Worthy. That's a worthy cause. >> Yeah. She couldn't get that done because she didn't get engineering resources at Microsoft. And so she started using Rapplet and she built it and then she quit her job, raised the seed round and she's off to the races. >> Love that story. >> Oh, I love it. That's a great place to end then. I love you're empowering so many people to change their lives. And I love your mission. My 15 year old as a Rapplet account, I think he probably hopes that he can make some money off of it someday. >> My almost 3-year-old also has a Rapplet account. >> That's very close. >> That's awesome. Thank you both for taking the time to come on today. It was really fun. >> You're really good to know. >> You're our pleasure. Happy to come back anytime and talk more about more recent things in the company because I know we spent a while on the history. >> Yes, we did. I've got so fascinated by that. So thanks again. Hopefully we'll see you this summer. >> Yes. Yes. >> All right. Great to see you. >> Take care. Bye. >> Bye. >> Thank you so much. Bye. >> Bye. >> Well, that was really interesting, Carolyn. >> It was fascinating and we spent so much time because their personal life is really, and their history together is so interesting. And I feel like we could have done so much longer. >> I know I had so much longer. >> We could have gone for so much longer. I have so many questions about their personal lives. We were like 40 minutes into it. And we're like, okay, so you just start YC. >> You said, oh no, we're running out of time. >> Now you know what we can do. >> Oh. >> People back for a part too. >> Yeah. And Replicit's a great company. And like our kids use it. And I also, you know what question I thought of? I was like, when he said he couldn't believe that this idea hadn't happened yet. And I thought, well, is that gatekeeping? Like, do programmers not want other people to learn their craft? And it's like, it doesn't sound like it's that at all. It was more like no one had just really gotten around to doing it. Someone had to and ended up being him. And everyone loves it. Everyone. >> And by the way, it's really hard. >> Yeah. >> It's one of those things they make this easy user interface to make it easy for everyone. They're hiding all of the really hard stuff, which, you know, is incredible that they built all of this. And I wanted to ask Kay about the community, because that's a really important element of Replicit. >> Yeah. >> And I also just think the fact that she brings this whole super deeply thought out design aspect to it just must make it leap some bounds ahead of competitors. >> Because she's totally so deep, right? And she wants, she cares so much about that element of it. And she has so much expertise. And I think that's pretty special. >> Yeah. And I loved learning more about it because I have to admit, this is the company I know that we've interviewed that I know the least about their background. Because of course, I was living in England when we funded them and they went through a YC. So I was learning a lot. That might have been the problem why we got so, you know, we had to learn all the details leading up to the company. >> Right. >> Because I didn't know a lot of it. It was fascinating. >> Yeah, very, very fascinating. >> Oh, well, I loved catching up with them and I'm so excited for how well Replicit's doing. >> Yeah. >> I wish them the best. >> It's awesome. >> It's awesome. >> And lastly, your hair looks really good today, C. Levy. >> So it's because there's no humidity. >> I'm at altitude and there's zero humidity. And so it's just flat and shiny. Thank you for noticing. >> Well, it looks glorious. So, >> Thank you so much. >> Too bad the podcast listeners won't be able to see. >> I'm just assuming we're going to edit that right out of there. >> No! >> All right, Carolyn. >> All right. I'll catch you on the flip side. >> Have a great weekend. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]