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Sélim Benayat

I’m Sélim Benayat, co-founder of Bento. Ask me anything! 😻❤️‍🔥🍱

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Letters
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Hey Product Hunt ✌🏻 I’m Sélim, and I’m currently working on Bento - a personal page to share everything you are, create and sell. Think link in bio, but rich and beautiful ✨. I’m a serial builder and entrepreneur, founding companies for 10 years by now. I’ve launched on Product Hunt twice before, love this place and super happy to be able to do an AMA here! Previously, I founded RosieReality, an augmented-reality company. After five years, we got acquired in 2020. The first employee at RosieReality - Mugeeb - is now my co-founder at Bento. I feel very lucky to be building products with him for the past eight years. 🥰 For Bento, we have raised a pre-seed from Sequoia - you can read all about it at Bento.me/2022. Our cold start, the first iterations, the pivot, and now our successful launch in December last year. All of it resulted in a huge, and for us, unexpected storm of love! Eight weeks later, there is a global community showcasing themselves and their work on Bento. Ask me anything about building startups, product- and community-led growth, going the VC-backed route, or getting into the Sequoia Arc program! 🕺🏻🪄
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Maciek Chmura
Hi Sélim 😀 I would like to ask about the tech stack of Bento. Beautiful and fast. How is is done? 😄
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@maciek_chmura hey Maciek! Thanks for the kind words. It's important to us that there is a big moment of delight every time users touch the product 🪄 NextJS + Tailwind NestJS/Express Postgres DB using Prisma Typescript 🧙
Maciek Chmura
@drmanhatta Thank you for sharing with us. This is my favorite stack also 😁
Sai Kambampati
Sai Kambampati
Hi Sélim! Can you please talk a bit about some of the lessons you learned from your first startup and how you’re applying them to Bento. Also, what is the Sequoia Arc program like?
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@sai_kambampati Sai - thanks for the question! Happy to talk about the learnings as they fundamentally shape how we operate at Bento today. 🕺🏻 Some of the key learnings 📝😊 
Management lessons 🎯 Output over input Focus on strengths, not lack of weakness Winning as a team defines culture. No white board exercises Be very demanding and very supportive Constantly remind people why it matters Product 🚀 Keep the main thing, the main thing Just Keep Shipping. JKS! Be a user advocate. Keep them top of mind. Demos win over write-ups or talk Write-ups win over talk Rather try, than not F* up Sequoia Arc 🎊 It changed the trajectory of Bento by showing us the transformational value of setting truly audacious goals, persistently executing toward them, and staying humble enough to regularly seek support from a peer group.
Sai Kambampati
Sai Kambampati
@drmanhatta Awesome! Thanks!
akihito
Hey Sélim! I have a question! I see startups come and go. What is your goal in building a startup as a business?
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@amayustak Hey Akihito - love that question! The reason why we started Bento was to give a home to a community we care about and feel part of. In that sense it was a product we built for us. We want to make sure that we - the community of Designers, Engineers, Makers - have a place to get inspired and start building more awesome stuff. If we can make money with that - even better!
akihito
@drmanhatta thanks Sélim! Btw, nice handle! 😁
Flavio Spaini
Hey Sélim, how do you go about finding and selecting the first people in the team?
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@fspaini Flavio - thanks for the insightful question! I’ll answer with the context of an early stage company. One of the guiding principles I apply while hiring during the early days is that I believe people fit two different buckets. One archetype is comfortable executing in highly ambiguous and chaotic environments. The other archetype is comfortable executing in unambiguous and organized environments. Take the person for the wrong environment and they’ll underperform - not because they are “bad” but because the environment is not a fit. In early days I strongly optimize for the person comfortable with the unknown.
Richard Gao
Evoke
Hey Sélim! 2 questions: 1. How did you go about securing funding, more specifically, what are investors looking for? 2. What do you do for marketing for your startups? Thanks!
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@richard_gao2 Hey Richard - thanks for the questions! 1. Investors and funding Tricky question as it is so multi-facetted. I will try to answer for early stage funding in 2023. There are not many proof points - so investors try to look for reliable proxies that indicate toward world class execution (intention & speed), grit & tenacity in breaking through barriers, and timing in the market. So in summary: (1) the founder team, (2) speed and quality of execution, and (3) the timing “why now”. Best at that stage would be to have an MVP and be very close to customers. 2. Marketing Activity Bento is an interesting case since we are launching into our own community there is/was not a lot of marketing in the traditional sense. We are simply sharing our product development and content we believe to be of value. It is pretty much just externalising our own discussions and interests to the community :)
Richard Gao
Evoke
@drmanhatta Thanks for all the helpful advice! We're definitely early stage right now at evoke-app.com so that was the perfect answer.
Eric Beans
I’ve raised money before, but never dealt with Sequoia. The groups I’ve dealt with that have money know almost nothing about technology. How is Sequoia on understanding core tech? On a separate note, what has been your biggest tool(s) for initial launch/sales/growth? We are ramping up for launch after a long build for a big product…any tips would be appreciated.
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@happhi Hey Eric - I hear you. Not finding the relevant investor for the product that you're building is frustrating. Sequoia is 15/10 in understanding founders, technologies, and markets. No joke. The experience they have in investing into category defining companies is unparalleled. Honestly, for us the biggest tool to accelerate growth was Twitter. All of our users came, and are still coming, from Twitter :) The reason is that we feel part of that community and simply started sharing content and insights that we would have loved reading or seeing.
Eric Beans
@drmanhatta Thanks for sharing. I’m on Twitter but not “on Twitter” (just post through Buffer to all social media). I will start using the tool more and will follow you today. Not surprised to hear that about Sequoia. That’s why they are elite. The money men I’ve dealt with previously had absolutely no interest in the tech itself (STACK to scalability etc)…always found that odd. It was once explained to me that “we would not be having this meeting if you had not proven the technology could scale already” I always found that to be similar to a Nascar sponsor who didn’t want to voidire the mechanical team before a large investment. Anyway tons of good fortune your way. If you’re even dealing with Sequoia you’re doing a lot right. Cheers to continued success.
Karim Saif
Invoice Dashboard by Notion and Figma
WOW, Wonderful Bento here No questions, you're doing very cool💛⭐
Valerie Krämer
@karimsaif thank you so much, Karim! 💜
Kelvin H.
STUDIO
Hi there Sélim! First of all, big fan here of how delightful the product is. And I thought the team also really rock in community marketing, getting a lot of early adopters/influencers, and with them sharing to their communities respectively. Curious to know what are the steps you took to build the relationships + seed the product?
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@kelvinh For sure , we're happy to talk about it - and I'll let @valerie_kramer take that one! 😊
Kelvin H.
STUDIO
Thanks @drmanhatta! @valerie_kramer, looking forward to hearing your experiences 🙌 p.s. Huge congrats on scoring #1 Product of the Day!
Valerie Krämer
@drmanhatta @kelvinh will share with a fresh mind after this crazy launch day if ok 🥰
Kelvin H.
STUDIO
@valerie_kramer Of course, Valerie! Will take the lead to follow up in a week in case I don’t hear back from you. And again, huge congratulations on the launch! You guys are all rockstars 🚀
Selim
I don't have a question but you have a really nice name :)
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@efeselim hahah, Selim saaaame!! 👋
Valerie Krämer
@efeselim @drmanhatta hahaha love it!
Eraj Ismatulloev
Hi Sélim, Bento looks clean and slick! 1. Which stage were you with Bento upon joining the Sequoia Arc program? 2. Do you think you'd be here without the program? 3. What is one lesson that you've learned from the program that you could share with us?
Sélim Benayat
Letters
@ieraj Eraj - thanks for your questions! Happy to try and answer! 1. Mugeeb and I were very early in our journey. So early in fact, that the product had a different name and look/feel. There was an MVP we could play with - but not too many users. 2. Definitely not - just due to the fact that Eike and Valerie joined us because they discovered Bento on the Sequoia site. 3. It's rather simple - but powerful. You have to keep growing as a founder, to be able to grow a company. Keep improving your ways of working to keep improving your company.
Eraj Ismatulloev
@drmanhatta Awesome, thanks for the insights!
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