Ilya Sukhar
CEO of Parse, part-time partner at Y Combinator
Discussion
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
Hi. I'm Ilya. Excited to be doing this.
I started a platform company called Parse because I thought mobile development was way too painful. I sold it to Facebook in 2013 and ran it there along with a bunch of other platform-related projects for a couple of years. At this point Parse enables hundreds of thousands of developers to build apps that reach hundreds of millions of devices per month.
I left Parse/Facebook recently to spend some time exploring and figuring out what to do next. I'm also a casual angel investor and part-time partner at Y Combinator. In general, I really like helping other people build things and have been directing my energy that way for some time.
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Kasperi Apell
@kasperiapell
Hi Ilya! Thanks for doing this. What book has had most profound impact on you and why?
Jennifer Barthe
@jenniferbarthe
@kasperiapell Thanks for asking this question. I was wondering the same thing.
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
@kasperiapell Let me think about it and get back to you!
Sydney Liu
@sydney_liu_sl · Co-Founder of Commaful
@ilyasu
Hey Ilya!
How's the chess going? ;) Hope things are going awesome and thanks for doing this AMA!
What are your top 3 hacks that you have learned from running Parse? These can be productivity hacks, meeting hacks, email hacks, growth hacks, product hacks, etc.
Thanks a bunch!
Sydney
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
@sydney_liu_sl Hey man, good to see you here. My chess is improving pretty quickly but I still have a long way to go. I just lost two games this morning :(
I’m not sure what qualifies as a hack these days but I’ll give this a shot.
1. Productivity — I found it hard to focus on important and non-urgent things amidst all the non-important and/or urgent things that inevitably happen in a startup. So I got in the habit of making an index card every night before bed with the 3 things I wanted to get done the next day. I don’t like to have much in my pockets so carrying it around was a good constant reminder if I needed to refocus.
2. Email — I created a filter that took all emails that were not specifically addressed to me (i.e. I wasn’t on the To: line) out of my inbox. I then naturally checked those emails with much less frequency and often the threads would resolve without my input when I’d otherwise feel compelled to jump in.
3. Product — In the earlier days of Parse we had a system whereby we’d record every time a person asked for a particular feature or bug request, no matter how they made the request. So we had a tally and a list of emails for just about anything it was reasonable to build. It helped a ton in prioritizing our roadmap but, more importantly,it let us email people personally whenever we built something they’d asked for. The delight and loyalty inspired by a personal email from a founder about a feature request someone made in an offhanded manner at some conference 8 months ago is priceless. It’s hard to scale and we eventually dropped this practice but I’m going to do it again if possible.
Zach Cmiel
@zach_cmiel · CEO, PoKoBros
Hi! When you were bought by Facebook, how was the transition to working under them? Were you able to control your product as much?
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
@zach_cmiel It was pretty good and product control was especially straightforward (and remains so, I think). Some other things were harder -- for example, transitioning our recruiting and hiring practices to theirs. And figuring out how to work across organizations inside the company was trickier. Overall, though, they kept their promises and didn't tell us what to do that much.
Cuan-Chai Megghross
@iamcuan · Angel Investor, Brainyloft
@ilyasu What was the reasoning behind selling your start up to Facebook versus selling it to another company?
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
@iamcuan We weren't really evaluating a bunch of acquirers all at the same time. We had spoken to other companies at various times but they were all pretty different propositions. We were actually about to sign a Series B term sheet when the Facebook conversations really kicked into high gear. So the alternative was continuing at it on our own rather than another acquirer.
Cuan-Chai Megghross
@iamcuan · Angel Investor, Brainyloft
@ilyasu In what industries do you see the most growth on Parse?
Junius
@juniusfree
hi @ilyasu
My question is related to product development. How will you spend your time if you've got one hour to solve a user problem/need?
Thanks!
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
@juniusfree Most impactful things take longer than an hour. But, if I had just one hour, I’d talk to a user in depth about their problems.
Rich Allen
@rich_allen · Co-Founder of Streamly
Hi Ilya
How would you best recommend networking with people in the valley so that when you try to get investment and mentors you have a network? Especially if your based in the UK at current?
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
@rich_allen Build something cool. Then show it to people over email, Twitter, HN, whatever.
Ben Tossell
@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt
@ilyasu What are your favourite questions to ask founders?
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
@bentossell
"Why is this better than what exists today? Would you use this yourself?"
"How are you going to get people to use it? How many? How long will that take? And how much will each of them pay you?"
"Why are you starting a company?"
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
@ilyasu what is the main piece of advice you would offer to an entrepreneur or founder looking for an angel investor? Is there a phrase or piece of wisdom you find yourself often repeating?
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Ilya Sukhar
@ilyasu · CEO, Parse
@ems_hodge Beyond what I mentioned in other answers already, I think it's a major 🔑to be deliberate about the timing and purpose of fundraising when at the angel stage. Why are you raising now? Do you really need the money or are you just doing it because everyone else is too? If you can't pay rent, is my check really going to save you or are you going to be in the same position three months from now? I find myself asking founders these questions a lot.