1st time founder completely pivots after YC—then grows 30x in a year to $2.2M ARR. | Pablo Palafox, Founder of HappyRobot

A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

Pablo is the first guest that has the same name as me-- so you KNOW this episode will be great. Pablo hustled for months just to get to $70K in ARR. He got rejected from YC, re-applied, and finally got in.
But after months in YC, he realized his first product was not going to work. He had some traction, but not nearly enough customer pull. So he shut it down. He went back to square one. He did customer discovery in a totally different space and leveraged the latest in Gen AI. He then built AI agents that automate calls in the logistics space.
Just a year after shutting down his first product, he'd grown to $2.2M in ARR. In December, he raised $15.6M from a16z.
Here's how it happened.
Why you should listen:

• Why you should be careful of "free" money from grants.
• Why YC changed the trajectory of Pablo's startup.
• How a big pivot is often necessary-- even when you have customer traction.
• Why the key is to find a true, no-brainer pain point.
• Meeting customers where they are can lead to smoother adoption of new technologies.
• How to build a product that provides clear ROI is essential for customer buy-in.
• Continuous exploration and adaptation are key to finding the right market fit.

Keywords
Happy Robot, startup journey, product market fit, early stage funding, co-founders, computer vision, YC, venture capital, entrepreneurship, business development, funding, European founders, Y Combinator, customer acquisition, pivoting, logistics, AI agents, startup growth, Series A, market research

Send me a message to let me know what you think!

Capitole

1. 1st time founder completely pivots after YC—then grows 30x in a year to $2.2M ARR. | Pablo Palafox, Founder of HappyRobot (00:00:00)

2. How it all started (00:02:24)

3. Getting Rejected by YC (00:08:29)

4. Why grants are often a huge distraction (00:15:09)

5. Raising a Seed Round (00:21:02)

6. Getting into YC & Pivoting on Demo Day (00:29:15)

7. Starting Over (00:39:02)

8. Growing from 0 to 2 Million in a Year (00:51:06)

9. Piece of Advice (00:53:00)