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Welcome to Founded On Purpose, the podcast where business meets impact. Hosted by Kt McBratney of Renew VC, each episode features founders, investors, and ecosystem builders answering the same set of questions. While the questions stay the same, the insights and conversations are always unique and thought-provoking. Join us to explore how these innovators are aligning profit with purpose.
FoP S2: Yana Welinder
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[00:00:04] Kt: Welcome to Founded On Purpose. I'm Kt Mc Bratney and season two we're all about after the exit. Today I'm joined with Yana Weller, founder and CEO of Kraft Full, which was just acquired by Amplitude. She's using her product chops and customer focus to help teams turn customer voice into product clarity, which is what K Craft full's been doing since almost day one.
[00:00:25] Kt: Yana, welcome to the show.
[00:00:29] Yana Welinder: [00:00:30] To be here.
[00:00:31] Kt: I mean, there's so many places we could start in your Kraft full and founder journey. Let's begin. Can you give us like the one minute pre craft full arc, because you've had quite an interesting journey going from being a professor at Stanford teaching, uh, tech law all the way through YC to today, right?
[00:00:53] Kt: Post acquisition. Give us the quick rundown of, of then to now and how you got here.
[00:00:58] Yana Welinder: Yeah. [00:01:00] Um, yeah, so as, as, as you mentioned, I got started in law, I jumped around in law quite a bit, uh, ended up doing a lot of in AC in academia. And I think I realized that the reason I was doing that was because I was sort of looking to build, uh, and. not necessarily kind of apply legal frameworks, but actually come up with legal frameworks.
[00:01:22] Yana Welinder: And then ultimately I ended up, uh, getting to do a lot of product work and realized that actually I'm looking to build in other ways, [00:01:30] not, not not the legal frameworks. And, uh, and ended up becoming a product manager. Um, then for most of my career I was, I was, uh, everything comes sort of, uh, PM number two at a software and unicorn to then ultimately leading products with millions of users.
[00:01:46] Yana Welinder: And so I really had a lot of pain points that I. Uh, um, but I experienced, and I joke about kind of thinking back to my time just right before starting Kraft full, [00:02:00] I would spend a lot of my Friday nights with like a good glass of wine curled up in the sofa, reading app store reviews, because I really wanted to know like what, what our users were saying about our product.
[00:02:11] Yana Welinder: And I couldn't get that qualitatively in any other way. Um, and what ultimately then led to what Kraftfull was. Before the acquisition, which is, uh, this way to gather user feedback from all the different sources and learn from that in a really fast and way, [00:02:30] and actually be able to act on it.
[00:02:31] Kt: let's touch a couple more points on the beginning of that journey because you got into Y Combinator with a last minute pitch.
[00:02:39] Yana Welinder: Yes,
[00:02:40] Kt: And initially Kraftful Crel was focused on being amplitude for iot. A little bit of foreshadowing there, but yeah, tell us about that, that last minute shot, and then what changed during yc.
[00:02:54] Yana Welinder: My job prior to Kraft full, I led product at If, [00:03:00] most of our customers, in fact, we just were, what the market was doing at the time was that there was so much connected hardware and all of that connected hardware was getting interconnected so that you'd be able to do. You know, have your fridge activate your light bulb or, you know,
[00:03:17] Kt: Yeah.
[00:03:17] Yana Welinder: is not the use case, but and we, if we're powering all of that. So my job ended up being and sort of as, as a, as a, uh, head of product, I ended up. Traveling a lot with us, [00:03:30] our sales team and meeting, um, you know, kind of heads of products, CPLC, VPs of product at various tech companies that were primarily. Hardware first, and we're connecting, uh, their products now connected. And, um, a lot of the pain points that I learned about were very similar across those experiences. So that's what actually led me. The first, the first idea was web flow t That's, that's what what we got into, uh, YC with. [00:04:00] And then. And then Kraft ultimately became Amplitude for iot, uh, and then dropped I OT altogether. I would say the sort of the one thread throughout all of this was we're always serving product teams, but what kind of product teams was very different. And, um, we were, I was fortunate to be one of the, like, first people to experiment with large language models when it was sort of just very early on and got to play with like. GPT, three way [00:04:30] before chat, GPT. And we built, uh, our GPT powered feature and we, uh, launched, I sort of prototyped very early on, but we ultimately launched it as part of that broader analytics solution back in 2021. Um, and we saw a clear pull towards that one feature that was analyzing Apple use alongside, um, the kind of the broader analytics suite. And kept seeing more and more evidence of people wanted to use that outside of the iot [00:05:00] space. People wanted to use that. And so eventually we're sort of like this, we should just go all in on this, uh, and make that into a complete solution. And that's what what ultimately became what Kraft full, um, is, is today.
[00:05:13] Kt: The pandemic played a bit of a role in that, right? Because you know, thinking back in time, that's when. That was forcing things in the IOT world to slow down a bit. You were noticing these signals that made the pivot seem pretty obvious, right? And you actually coded [00:05:30] the first LLM yourself. Is that right?
[00:05:32] Yana Welinder: Yeah. The first solution I did with, uh, with, with the, I didn't, I didn't make the L-M-I-I-I used, uh, but I, but I made the first prototype using GPT-3.
[00:05:43] Kt: So you're getting these signals of, of product market fit, right? You've got this use case you can zero in on. You've already already been like just very, very focused on product leaders, right? And product teams and serving them. We're fast forwarding a little bit, right? So you've got some traction. You're [00:06:00] out of yc.
[00:06:01] Kt: A lot of people have a product hunt launch on their kind of like mental vision board for, or their strategy for how they're gonna really gain meaningful traction. However, not everyone does it or succeeds in doing it, but you did. So talk us through that. Like how did you know that that would be a, a key strategy for you versus, you know, somebody who's doing a more B2C consumer tech [00:06:30] or something completely different And what did you do to make that channel actually work?
[00:06:36] Kt: Instead of posting up a page and asking your friends to, to upvote it and sitting there with a couple dozen.
[00:06:42] Yana Welinder: Yeah. Yeah. So we, uh, product Hunt, you're right. Product Hunt became one of our most critical, uh, paths, uh, for go to market. Um, we really, we, you know, we grew in like in the two years, uh, that we did what craft is. Now, [00:07:00] uh, we grew to over 60,000 users, 100% organically, uh, mostly through social media, but Product Hunt was a piece of that. Um, and the very first product Hunt launch, uh, was quite successful, but then we kind of kept getting better and better and better, and ultimately kind of got these like product of the day and product of the week awards, um, and, and things like that. But the reason. The reason I ended up doing it was we did the very first launch and we did, there's a few things we did to make it [00:07:30] successful. Um, and then when I started having some enterprise conversations. The piece I heard was that we, we learned about craft full from product hunt. In fact, we sit on product, like product teams, spend a lot of time on product hunt looking for the next big thing. Um, and that's when I realized, okay, we gotta, we gotta maxim maximize on, on this channel and really go all in. Um, in the end, some, some things we did was, uh, to make sure that we had, we activated our entire audience around. [00:08:00] Um, product hunt and made sure that we really got uploaded as much as possible. We would actually send our entire, um, user and customer base, uh, emails around that time to get them to come and support us there and talk about their experience.
[00:08:14] Yana Welinder: And, um, that was really helpful. And then obviously that kind of then got amplified and, uh, uh, we got more traffic as a result of that product can launch. And then next time round we could, we could an even bigger presence and so forth.
[00:08:27] Kt: You, you created waves of it and. [00:08:30] Who loves product led and community led growth. You, you knew who your community was and you went where they were,
[00:08:37] Kt: And you, you started with the fundamentals and really pinned it down. 60,000 inbound, right? Like you had organic growth, you've got product market fit. And of course like every founder who is growing quickly, rapidly aiming for this exit, you had to fundraise, right? Or you chose to fundraise depending on how you wanna position it.
[00:08:59] Kt: And you [00:09:00] raised three rounds, right? So like NI, or I think it was 2019 and 2020. 2021. And then again in 2023
[00:09:07] Yana Welinder: that's right.
[00:09:08] Kt: as the founder. Across those raises. What did you optimize for? Knowing what you knew about your product market fit and product teams.
[00:09:18] Yana Welinder: Yeah, there's a few different things I optimized for. One was I ex, I, I optimized for speed because I was a solo founder. Um, and so there's like this, uh, [00:09:30] going through yc, we got this very clear like direction, like you divide and conquer, you know, sort of like, well, I can't divide and conquer it is just me. So, um, so that was definitely, I remember this. Particularly with the last 2023, uh, uh, race because there I went, went to fundraise right after our launch of like that pivoted, uh, uh, LLM powered product. Um, [00:10:00] and I was thinking I was actually gonna do a longer fundraise and I stepped away the, in the first week.
[00:10:09] Yana Welinder: So many things from a product perspective. Started falling apart, but I was just like, okay, regroup. This needs to be much quicker fundraise than, than I had I imagined previously. Uh, I, I need to wrap this up and I think I did, I think I wrapped, wrapped up that that race in like. A couple of weeks, like a few [00:10:30] weeks, um, and, and went back to building just because it was so critical for me to be, be there building, uh, and talking with customers and making sure our product was doing what, what it needed to do.
[00:10:41] Yana Welinder: So that was, that was the most critical, I would say in, in previous races, I did a little bit more optimization around, like, I wanted to make sure that we had diverse founders, uh, that diverse, um. Investors in our, uh, cap table and things like that. And so I spent a little bit more time, but I would say that that was kind of the most critical where I was just like, [00:11:00] is all that matters.
[00:11:02] Yana Welinder: I need to do this quickly and I need to get back to building. Uh, and, and I'm, I, I'm glad I I did it that way because that ended up, those few months ended up being critical for us and our growth and, um, a lot of things that were sort of really determined the destiny of Kraftful.
[00:11:19] Kt: , and also doing this, you know, one of the ways we first connected was through venture backed moms, uh, VC backed moms. And you have other jobs outside of work, right? Like you have a full life, you have family, [00:11:30] you have all these things. So speed being of the essence so that you aren't trying to multitask all the things that deserve, you're you single tasking, including building.
[00:11:40] Yana Welinder: Exactly. Absolutely. Yeah. No, the, the, like I think, I think being a parent really makes you. Uh, such a great like prioritizer where you, like you are, get such a clear sense of like, what do I need to do and how do I need to do it? Right? And this, and, and then you can look at certain tasks and be like, Nope, this does [00:12:00] not deserve my time.
[00:12:01] Yana Welinder: There's some other way. This is not the way, I'm not doing it
[00:12:04] Kt: Absolutely. Like I hear like a mom founder and I'm like, that person knows how to prioritize, how to delegate and how what needs to be, know, knows deeply like what needs to be done and which balls like they, you know the metaphor about if you're gonna drop a ball, make sure it's one that's rubber, not the glass ones.
[00:12:23] Kt: And I think, you know, for better or for worse. Mom, founders have [00:12:30] that and it's an advantage. It's a unique advantage. Alright, so things are going well. You've raised, you're growing, the pace is where you want to be. At what point did acquisition become something that was a serious consideration?
[00:12:45] Yana Welinder: so, uh, we got approached by actually a number of companies over. Like a period of time. Um, and of those, uh, were not necessarily super interesting and, [00:13:00] um, and also came at different times when I didn't think that it was a good idea for me to step away and start thinking about that. But there was a particular moment when we got an offer, uh, or I should say we didn't get an offer, but we got interest from a company that, that had a really clear strategic, um, uh, interest. Um, and that's when I sort of evaluated, okay, is this, is this the right time? Is this the right type of strategic, fit? [00:13:30] And is this, I ha do I feel like that, like I can invest time in this, right? Because most acquisitions fall through. Um, and so you have to kind of be very mindful of like. if everything goes smoothly here, chances are by the very end, it fall falls, it all falls apart and I'll have invested this time.
[00:13:49] Yana Welinder: So like, how do I do this? How do I structure this in a way so that it, like it's meaningful? Um, and that's, and then, and then I ran a whole process. I ended up reaching out to like 25, [00:14:00] uh, companies like the, the, the C-suite, like the C-E-O-C-P-O-C-T-O, connecting with over 10 of them that were actually like really interested in and ran a process with. companies, um, and, um, and ultimately got to where, where we are today acquired.
[00:14:16] Kt: I wanna get to kind of the step by step about the m and a process in a in a minute. Before we get there, though, you are in a different position being courted by companies versus some acquisitions [00:14:30] where the founder is looking to sell.
[00:14:32] Yana Welinder: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:34] Kt: How do you think that that positioned you? For the conversations that you ultimately had and the, and the negotiations that you went into with Amplitude, eventually.
[00:14:43] Yana Welinder: I mean, I, I think it's huge. I, I, I've heard, I've heard the saying, um, companies are. Sold. Uh, yeah. Companies are sold, not bought, um, sorry. Companies are bought, not sold rather. Um, and, and now I lived it and, and I think I, [00:15:00] and I now understand a slightly different nuance, which is that it's not that you cannot sell a company, you can, um, but I do think that you will get a slightly better outcome if it initiated from inbound. Given your circumstances, and there's gonna be companies that have incredible circumstances, and if they just like then go out and find potential buyers, they can still have a much better outcome. But I think it all depends on like, yeah, like did you get outcome, your circumstances also like the m [00:15:30] and a market, right?
[00:15:30] Yana Welinder: Like if, if for example, right now there's a ton of AI companies, uh, up for grabs, And so that makes it much harder to sell a company, um, than it was maybe like a year ago.
[00:15:42] Kt: Right, which is, it's, it's wild to think just a year ago it was a different world, but here we are and it's, uh, a train that is not stopping. You're talking to companies now, potential acquirers, some. Aren't cutting the bill. They don't make sense. You [00:16:00] know, strategically for where your time and focus need to be for the vision you see for the product.
[00:16:05] Kt: You've poured lots of heart, soul, intellect, and talent into what surprised you as you were having conversations with potential acquirers.
[00:16:15] Yana Welinder: So I think the, the, the piece that surprised me, so I, I mentioned that I had. like all, like I had a lot of conversations, right? Like I was, I was talking, talking with a lot of companies, some public companies, like Amplitude, uh, [00:16:30] some private companies, some fast growing private companies. Um, and uh, what I thought was really interesting was to see how similar, um, the conversations were. For all the folks that were really interested and they were asking, were asking similar type questions. A lot, a lot of different questions, but similar type. They were trying to, um, learn about my product usually in similar ways because we're a [00:17:00] PLG uh, uh, product where you can just sign up online for free and you can use it and you can try it.
[00:17:07] Yana Welinder: And at amplitude, literally, like when we connected, I saw the CPO, uh, Francois. He was. Using the product for like, a bit like multiple, looked like multiple hours in, in our analytics platform. And um, and I reached out to him and he was like, Hey Fran, what's up? And he was like, we should be one team. Right? So that was like a very clear, like he could, he could use our product in a evaluated [00:17:30] that way.
[00:17:30] Yana Welinder: And, and a lot of folks did. And what I, what was helpful about that was them seeing the folks who weren't serious or the folks who were actually just trying to, Like Snoop
[00:17:43] Kt: Yeah.
[00:17:44] Yana Welinder: um, and I think that that's the thing that happens a lot. Like if there's a company that's, that's in the acquisition process, then you get a lot of like competitors or competitor types that, that wanna be part of that process.
[00:17:56] Yana Welinder: Because yes, they sign an NDA, but there's very little teeth, [00:18:00] um, in that situation, right? Because ultimately you'll get acquired by someone and like, you're not gonna go after. Someone who will ultimately have learned how to build what you build, um, in that process. And so I, that, that was a very clear, like talking with lots of folks made me, made it easy for me to identify the folks who were not good faith.
[00:18:19] Kt: Yeah, and especially for you, because your team is now part of the Amplitude team, so it's not just thinking about where your products and your business are going, but it's where your customers are going. It's where your team is going. [00:18:30] It's where potentially you are going. You're going to have longer term relationships versus.
[00:18:36] Kt: A transactional only sale, right? Where there's a lot of things that stay the same. Give us the quick, like the 32nd story of fit. How did you know Amplitude was the one?
[00:18:48] Yana Welinder: So there's a few different things. I, I think like one, one thing that's, uh, with every, I think every time you're considering an acquisition and the really important thing is to step back and be like. [00:19:00] Why do I want to do this if I'm gonna do this right? Like, you always have this, like, I'm successful and, and all of that, but if, if this will happen, what's the reasons for me, uh, for this company, right?
[00:19:11] Yana Welinder: And, and in, in our case, and you have to do, like, even if in this case it was inbound, I still had to have that thinking process so that I could then like optimize for the right things. Um, and for me it was very important that my team, my investors got a good. Outcome that, um, that our products was, [00:19:30] uh, incorporated in a good way where we got to scale up and have a bigger presence and, and make sure that's the thing we created.
[00:19:38] Yana Welinder: Got to live on that. That's where like. Public company became an important factor because then you know that that's a stable situation, right? Like you, the product gets incorporated and it's gonna live on. Um, and then, uh, um, and then sort of just like culture fits, uh, will this be like a good culture fit? And with Amplitude, um, [00:20:00] obviously there's this incredible like. Uh, synergy between our products in that our product tells you what users are saying and their product tells you what they're doing. And that's, that's such an important whole holistic picture to know when you're trying to build a great product.
[00:20:16] Yana Welinder: Because oftentimes if you're just looking at the, uh, customer behavior. That's missing the point around what's their intent? Why are they doing the things they're doing? And then if you're just looking at what users are saying, well, oftentimes what people say [00:20:30] is not what they'll do. Right? So there is that, like being able to see it all is a really powerful, like we are in such a powerful position now going out as the only solution that can do both things. Um, that's that we, that will be huge. Right. Uh. So, so from a product perspective, yes. And then from a culture perspective, just like meeting the team, and particularly meeting the founders and realizing that they're very similar type founders to who I am as a founder. And that's [00:21:00] important because I'm bringing a team. To, and my team doesn't know anything about this, right? But you, you cannot bring your team into the conversation until the very end. There's another like important strategic reason for, for doing that. And so I need to find a really good fit for my team. My team, kind of always true for an early stage team, they took a bet on me.
[00:21:20] Yana Welinder: They wanted to join a company I was leading the company. And so if I can find a company that A is founder led, that's I think is [00:21:30] very important for early stage. members to also be the founder-led environment and then make sure that it's founders who have kind of similar thoughts around building companies and building products.
[00:21:43] Yana Welinder: Um, I, that was really important for me in, in, in Amplitude to check all those boxes.
[00:21:49] Kt: Okay. This is one of the rare chances we get to unpack a bit of the process of what an acquisition actually looks like. Can you talk us through the steps that you went through [00:22:00] and maybe what you were prepared for along the way and what you had to learn or figure out as you went?
[00:22:06] Yana Welinder: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so the, the kind of the general steps, uh, you know, I had all of those Then there's an LOI an IOI, uh, that is kind of the term sheets. Um. That then gets heavily negotiated, um, because. Once you have signed a term sheet, you enter this exclusivity period where you [00:22:30] cannot talk to any other companies for a period of time. Um, and you know, you can't talk with any other company for a period of time. And then when you, if you, at the end of that time, if you can start talking to. Uh, the companies again, they know that for some reason that company didn't buy you, right? So you really, it really is the end in some ways, right? So you really need to maximize for being in a really good spot when you sign that, uh, that term sheet.
[00:22:55] Yana Welinder: So that gets heavily negotiated. Uh, once you've signed the [00:23:00] term sheet, you then enter that exclusivity period. Um, I should say before, before you get to that, there's usually some early diligence that happens before the term sheet, right? Kind of for the company to learn. What you have so that they can figure out what they would wanna offer for that. Um, but then once you've signed, um, you do much, much deeper diligence. And there's, um, something called like public company diligence, which public companies do that is, that is. More diligence than private companies do. Um, [00:23:30] and, uh, in during that time, you also kind of negotiate the details of the definitive agreement, which then ends up being kind of once you sign that, that's the closing unless the transaction is above a certain amount, in which case there's also like a regulatory step. Um, so there's lots and lots of steps in that time. Window can be, uh, you know, for us it was, uh, several months. Um, I've heard of situations where it can take up to a year. Um, and [00:24:00] you know, I think we've, we've all been following the cursor story recently, and there, in their case, the, the, the final acquisition took like a weekend.
[00:24:09] Yana Welinder: Right. So, um, the, it can be, it can be anything. There's like, really
[00:24:15] Kt: Your mileage may vary.
[00:24:16] Yana Welinder: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
[00:24:18] Kt: How did it feel to be able to tell your team with a degree of, of not just confidence but certainty like this is happening? [00:24:30] We have, we, we've done it. What did that feel like to be able to go, to go from also, you know, not being able to talk about it pretty much to anyone, to sharing this, this huge news.
[00:24:41] Yana Welinder: I mean, I can tell you that after sharing the news was such a huge relief just shortly prior to sharing the news, it was just like nerve wracking. Like I, you know, we are very early stage, uh, going from early stage to public company. Like they don't know, they don't know the founders. They don't know anything.
[00:24:57] Yana Welinder: Like how, how are folks gonna react? [00:25:00] Like, will I be able to like, get them excited about this because I'm excited, but like, will they get excited? Um, so definitely. Nerveracking. Um, and then, yeah, the huge relief of finally being able to talk to the team because it is, it, it's, it's hard to describe just how hard it is to run a company. Um, as a solo founder and also be going through this process where first you're talking with a ton of companies and then you're talking with [00:25:30] company, but a lot. And on the other end, like on your side, it is just you. And on the other side there's like a whole diligence team with like lots of likes, a whole army of people, and they're all setting up meetings with you and they're all sending you like. Questionnaires and like requests for documents like every single day. Um, and um, you know, in our case we also started some of the, like the product integration conversations actually at the very beginning, shortly after short signing the [00:26:00] term sheet. So that was going on, uh, too. So just like it's a lot of time and a lot of time that you can't explain to your team.
[00:26:08] Yana Welinder: Um, well, you also like competently need to run the company until the very end, um, and. And ideally be like, making progress because things could fall apart until the very end things can fall apart. So it's really, really important to do things like, for example, we kept shipping until the very end. Our very last big product launch, uh, was [00:26:30] during the diligence process, like shortly before we signed. Um, yeah, you just have to have to keep going, which is, it's kind of an insane process. I think. I didn't quite realize what it would be until, until I was at it.
[00:26:42] Kt: And their whole diligence team has each other to talk to about it. They have you to talk to, you have a whole list of folks that you can, and you can't and shouldn't talk to about it yet. How did you, how and who did you lean on during that time knowing you couldn't share everything and with some folks you [00:27:00] couldn't share anything.
[00:27:01] Yana Welinder: , one thing that I was very happy that I did, uh, for, for this process was to spend a lot of time selecting my lawyers. And so I interviewed a lot of lawyers going into this and found, found the, the unicorn lawyer. I mean, they were all, they were all focused. They were all m and a experts.
[00:27:21] Yana Welinder: But I found the one that I felt would be just the right level of understanding the urgency. And, [00:27:30] uh, and also kind of being flexible enough and knowing enough about our situation because as one example, we are a YC company and so we raised, I've raised, all three rounds using YC safes. And um, and one thing I realized interviewing lawyers is that there's a lot of m and a lawyers that I needed to educate on how safes work. When I did in those conversations, that was a very easy way for me to disqualify them and be like, well, I can't, I can't spend the [00:28:00] acquisition process where I don't, can't trust their advice. Right. So, um, I, so I had, I had very excellent lawyers who I, uh, worked with. I would ask them things, but I would also like. Ask chat GPT for legal advice and then be able to run that legal advice by them. That's how excellent they were and that they were flexible enough to understand that I need to get answers in the moment. Um, and that is gonna be in the middle of the night when I can like open my phone and like [00:28:30] pull up research mode and, you know, and, and get an answer then, and then I will run it by them and get, get, get a kind of validation or whatever I was looking for.
[00:28:40] Kt: Which, just an aside, I'll drop a link, um, in the show notes. But the way that you've incorporated AI into your personal workflows over the years has been so fascinating and helpful as I've looked at how I'm, how I can best use ai. Um, so just a little shout out and thank you for, for doing that. Um. There's a great [00:29:00] podcast that you did where you shared kind of how, how at that point in time, AI had shifted your workload dramatically.
[00:29:06] Kt: So for anybody who wants to nerd out on that, we got you covered. Alright, so it's.
[00:29:12] Yana Welinder: on that point I'll say that, um, I thought a lot during the entire acquisition process. I thought a lot about. fortunate I am that I am selling at a time when the oh three model has launched and I just launched and I was, it was, it was so fascinating. I was like, this, I, I'm, [00:29:30] I have this one question. I need to get perspective, like, I need to research this. Let me try the latest model. Let me also try like the, the, the, the highest reasoning mode on the latest model. Let me also try an older model and just like get a sense for like, if I was selling. Three months ago, what would I be able to know? Um, and I ended up using, uh, AI a lot throughout the entire process.
[00:29:54] Yana Welinder: Sometimes for things like, know, just like asking, um. You know, the [00:30:00] CFO just told me that they're, they, they have their earnings call, so that's gonna like be a, uh, uh, limitation on his time. What exactly is that in Tia? Like what kind of limitation? When can I go, go back to him to like, ask about things?
[00:30:13] Yana Welinder: When is he, when is he expected to be done with this work? Right. So like those kind of practical questions. Um, I had a lot of them. I had lots and lots of them every single day. And being able to lean on AI for that was incredible.
[00:30:27] Kt: So cool. So cool. Okay, so it's [00:30:30] July, 2025. You've announced it. Ev the world knows craft full is becoming part of Amplitude that the product will be. Integrated into it, all of that. Your team knows you have this relief in the first 30 days after this acquisition, what changed for you? Be it in your, your calendar, your energy, even your identity as as a founder and a product leader?
[00:30:58] Yana Welinder: I mean like [00:31:00] most practically, like if I think about the day to day. So many meetings. Um, I say, you know, um, big companies have a lot of meetings and I've gotten about that. Um, and I don't think, I don't think Amplitude has exceptionally many meetings for their size, but it's just like a lot of meetings.
[00:31:17] Yana Welinder: And at Kraftful, we had really set up a culture like a, not like a no meeting culture where we didn't have a meeting unless we had something specific we needed to, to talk through. Um, so most things were handled [00:31:30] asynchronously. And then we would jump on huddles, uh, whenever there was something, but then we had a very clear agenda and then that, that conversation could be as short as just figuring out that thing. Uh, on the flip side, just having so many people to think about. How to make the thing I'm building successful is so incredible, right? Like, I've forgotten what it's like to like not be responsible for all the things myself. And I, like, I keep being reminded that by, by different people [00:32:00] on the team where it's sort of like, I'm like,
[00:32:01] Kt: Struggle.
[00:32:02] Yana Welinder: when am I supposed to do this thing?
[00:32:03] Yana Welinder: And they're like, you are not doing that thing. You know, you don't need to do that thing. There is no like, oh, right, okay. Um, and you know, it's, uh. Because my mind is always spinning, how, how do I make this successful? How do I make this successful? Like, what's the next thing I can do? Can I do this? Is there something else I'm like looking at Whenever like new models are launching, I'm always thinking like, how do we incorporate that?
[00:32:25] Yana Welinder: And you know, there's like, oh, like I'm always, as a founder, I'm always like spinning. Right? [00:32:30] Um, and, and it's just like so interesting to see. Now there's more other people that can be spinning on particular segments of, of the work too. And that's in incredibly, uh, refreshing. And then I will say the last pieces I've. I don't think I can, um, be, I can, I can un founder myself. Um, like I, I am going to be very much like focusing on getting it done and, and doing it. My like, kind of [00:33:00] doing it fast and focus. I'm like, I'm, I'm a doer. I'm not a planner. I'm not a talker, right? Like that's, that's who I am. Um, but I think that's. There's a reason this company acquired me, uh, in my company, um, and it probably is to have the impact that I was having before the acquisition, but within the company. And so I should probably shouldn't be changing too much. I should try to Going as much as [00:33:30] possible, uh, even though it is within the bigger company.
[00:33:33] Yana Welinder: And now I get to kind of figure out how, how, how, how, how is it done within the bigger company? How it doing? How is it being a founder within a bigger company? Uh, but, but it is trying to stick to my identity as much as possible.
[00:33:44] Kt: Yeah, they, they clearly saw value in you as, as a leader and in those founder traits, and it's a really good reminder to folks that. What you bring from your entrepreneurial journey into your next chapter, whatever that might be. It doesn't mean you've [00:34:00] gotta turn that founder tendency off. I'm, I'm very similar.
[00:34:03] Kt: Like I don't think I could just go plug into an extremely huge all. Uh, incredibly matrixed organization and just focus on my little piece of the little piece of the little piece. Um, I know myself too well, and there are places where that's a great asset to see a problem and immediately think about solving it and get to work.
[00:34:23] Kt: To your point,
[00:34:24] Kt: , so I'm excited to see how that plays out for you in this new role. [00:34:30] I'm curious, right. The, the podcast is called Founded on Purpose. From that first YC application all the way through to today post acquisition, what purpose has kept you focused on building this?
[00:34:47] Kt: That's still true today.
[00:34:50] Yana Welinder: this is gonna sound a bit cliche, but it is talking to users to build something people love. It's the YC mantra and I built the product around that. Right. It is. [00:35:00] Kraft full made it easy for you to talk to users and build something people love based on all that information, and it's been. Uh, it's been true for me in terms of how I build, how I, how I, how I build the company from day one. And it's true for how I continue building now. I'm very much focused on, you know, we're gonna be launching, um, the integrated experience in beta very soon. And, uh. And I'm being asked a lot of questions around like, what happens next?
[00:35:28] Yana Welinder: And there's some things I [00:35:30] already know what will happen next because we learned a lot from our users at Kraft Full. But some things I do not know because the whole piece is around this. Like we will unlock this, what users say and what users do together. And in that process we'll learn some things from these users to kind of solve that the best possible way.
[00:35:48] Yana Welinder: And I'm waiting to get it in their hands so that we can start learning from that. So super excited.
[00:35:54]
[00:35:59] Kt: If you're [00:36:00] down for it, I'd like to go into quick lightning round because season one we ask the same questions of every guests, and I have a few of those questions. I would love to hear your rapid fire response to. It.
[00:36:11] Yana Welinder: Let's do.
[00:36:13] Kt: Okay. Clearly you've done a lot of things right? You've founded a company, you've fundraised, you've done it your way without compromising who you are, how you work, the team culture you want.
[00:36:24] Kt: When was the last time you were wrong?
[00:36:27] Yana Welinder: I feel like. [00:36:30] Um, I always pivoted too late. And it's funny because everyone's sort of always just
[00:36:36] Kt: Hmm.
[00:36:36] Yana Welinder: you pivoted, pivoted so many times with such great certainty, and you just like did it and you would like just switch off your previous product and just do it. But I always felt like I pivoted too late. I think that there was always probably a moment in time that I could have known to pivot slightly earlier and do it earlier. And I always, um, yeah, that's, that's, that's my own like.[00:37:00]
[00:37:03] Kt: I think there's a theme here you like, you like urgency and speed and that that's okay. Next one. Uh, I'm trying to think of how to say this. Okay, so you're coming off of this really big win, this really big milestone, celebrated made public. It feels like this big victory lap. What feels like a win today?
[00:37:26] Kt: Coming off of that kind of big, high of a me, a major [00:37:30] announcement.
[00:37:31] Yana Welinder: Yeah, you know, one, one kind of win is I now get to hear from Kraft full customers, uh, via Amplitude sales folks, I get to hear that customer love that. I when, when I heard it directly, uh, from, from those customers, I always thought this like green of doubt in my mind that. Are they just like telling me that because it's my baby and they feel like they, [00:38:00] like, they can't really, like we did, I did so much to try to see like, oh yeah, yeah, let me just ignore all the, like the, the, the positive things you're saying, but like, well, let me focus on the negatives.
[00:38:09] Yana Welinder: Right. But now I'm not, like, there's a few conversations where I haven't been in the conversations, I'm just hearing secondhand where like they're, like, they've used craft full, they absolutely love craft full. They can't wait to get it back. In fact, when can't they get it back? and hear and hearing that, uh, it's feels like a big one.
[00:38:28] Yana Welinder: Just like hearing that there's so [00:38:30] many, so many customers who absolutely loved our product and we, we built, we built something people want, um, which is, or people love, uh, which, which feels huge.
[00:38:41] Kt: Which clearly it worked, right? You stayed, you knew the problem you wanted to solve. You stayed focused on it. You built something that solved that, and now can continue to build that. So it's almost like, you know, all of those. Hard days and multitasking and prioritizing and figuring out fundraising and [00:39:00] figuring out acquisition and finding the right team.
[00:39:04] Kt: It led to here, right? And it's still continuing. The journey's not over yet, which is so exciting. So where can people find you on the internet?
[00:39:11] Yana Welinder: Yeah, I probably still, X, I still, I still tweet maybe not, not quite as much. Um, probably just, I just need a bit of a break, I'm gonna be much more again, uh, and uh, and I. trying to pick up my LinkedIn game a little bit, [00:39:30] um, since I've primarily been been a, a Twitter gal. Um, but, but I think, uh, I am start, I'm starting to post a little bit more on the professional network, so
[00:39:40] Kt: Amazing. Amazing. And, uh, amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing this. Like, this has been so enlightening and I know a lot of founders. Are aiming to be where you're at, right? Like this is kind of the success story they wanna replicate for themselves and their company. And you sharing these stories gives them real practical advice [00:40:00] and insight onto what it looks like.
[00:40:02] Kt: So thanks for allowing us to peel back the curtain on something that's often cloaked and shadowed,
[00:40:07] Yana Welinder: Absolutely. Yeah. Excited, excited to chat about this. I loved, love joining. Thanks.
[00:40:12] Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to Founded On Purpose a Renew Venture Capital podcast. Founded on Purpose is
[00:40:17] Speaker: produced and hosted by me, Katie mc Brittney. For more conversations like this one, you can find all our episodes on Spotify, apple Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like this episode, give us a five star rating.[00:40:30]
[00:40:30] Speaker: Each one helps us reach more people who believe in changing the world through purposeful, profitable business. Until next time, be well.