#139 - Jay Reno

About this episode

<p><a href="https://twitter.com/jayjreno">Jay Reno</a> is the CEO and founder of <a href="https://www.livefeather.com/">Feather</a>. Feather is a furniture subscription service. They were in the Summer 2017 batch of YC.<br><br>You can check out their furniture at <a href="https://www.livefeather.com/">LiveFeather.com</a> and if you live in LA, SF, or New York you can try out the service.<br><br>Jay is on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/jayjreno">@jayjreno</a>.<br><br>The YC podcast is hosted by <a href="https://twitter.com/CraigCannon">Craig Cannon</a>.<br><br>Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.<br><br>Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/</a><a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/"></a><br><br>***<br><br><b>Topics<br></b><br>00:00 - Intro<br><br>00:49 - Opting out of owning furniture<br><br>6:29 - Feather's prototype<br><br>9:19 - How much did he make from his MVP?<br><br>9:59 - How many products did they have?<br><br>12:14 - Legacy competitors <br><br>14:04 - Changing branding from RentFeather.com to LiveFeather.com<br><br>15:59 - Customer interviews and learnings<br><br>18:29 - Scaling a company with physical products<br><br>21:29 - Why expand to other markets vs focus on one?<br><br>23:59 - Who to hire and when in a logistics-heavy business<br><br>26:09 - Unexpected learnings from scaling Feather<br><br>27:54 - Feeling his role change over time<br><br>29:44 - Counterintuitive advice<br><br>35:19 - Advice for YC founders after Demo Day<br></p>