The Lobster Talks Podcast by Lobster Capital

Bain Capital just bet $5.6 billion on legacy EdTech. Noah and the Scout team are betting on its extinction. Most founders are told to avoid the Student Information System (SIS) market because it's "too sticky" and dominated by giants like PowerSchool. In this episode, Noah (Founder of Scout, YC W25) explains how they are using AI-native compliance to wedge into the "School OS" market and why the future of education looks nothing like the traditional classroom. What you’ll learn: - Why Private Equity buying your competitor is a massive "Buy" signal for your startup. - The "Wedge" Strategy: Why Scout chose online hybrid schools in California. - How to overcome intense Imposter Syndrome during the first week of Y Combinator. - The Sneaker Bot Origin: Why YC loves founders who "hacked" systems as kids. - Managing the "Post-YC Slump" and building a 20-year sustainable business. 📌 Watch now and subscribe for more smart, fast, founder-first interviews. Chapters: 00:00 YC Investor Boost 00:49 Free YC Roaster Plug 01:34 EdTech Market Shakeup 02:16 What Scout Builds 03:05 PowerSchool Deal Timing 03:48 From Wedge to SIS 06:56 Beating Switching Costs 09:52 Niche Beachhead Strategy 11:00 First Real Customer Signal 13:41 Future of Schooling Bet 16:31 Why Based in New York 19:50 NYC Talent Network Edge 22:11 Sneaker Bot Origins 24:33 Building the Supreme Bot 25:38 Hacking Systems Mindset 26:30 Spotting System Hacks 27:24 Waffles and Tooth Bonds 28:59 Getting Into YC 30:31 Imposter Syndrome Reset 34:23 YC Lessons That Stick 34:50 Going Big in EdTech 39:37 The Post YC Slump 42:54 From Demo Day to Customers 45:42 YC Stamp for Investors 47:21 Rapid Fire and Wrap 🎧 Listen on the go: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm My other YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap This Lobster Talks episode is brought to you by YC Roaster, a free tool helping founders improve their YC applications. 🔗 https://ycroaster.com

The YC Winter 2026 batch just broke every record in the book. We’re seeing valuations hit $100M before founders even finish their slide decks. Is this a peak or just the new baseline? In this episode of The Lobster Talks, we debrief the W26 Demo Day. We go behind the scenes on the "Agentic" boom, why hardware is suddenly the hottest play in the valley, and the real math behind why YC startups are worth 4x more than their peers. What you’ll learn: Why 10+ companies in this batch raised at $100M+ valuations.The truth about the "1% acceptance rate" (and how to skip the line).How a consumer hardware startup hit $27M ARR during the batch.Why "Open Claw" changed the game for AI agent startups.The blurring lines between Seed and Series A rounds. 📌 Watch now and subscribe for more smart, fast, founder-first interviews. Chapters: 00:00 Faster Exits Thesis 00:30 YC Roaster Plug 01:14 Winter 2026 Debrief 01:59 Record Growth Metrics 03:17 Revenue And Acceptance 06:44 Why YC Still Pays 07:42 100M Valuation Surge 11:23 Seed Series A Blur 14:49 Skipping Series A 19:47 AI Agents Narrative 22:35 Why YC Still Wins 23:22 Post Claude Demo Day Shift 24:43 Seed FOMO And Valuation Surge 25:40 Why Exits Keep Getting Bigger 27:33 Big Tech Acquisition Logic 34:10 Talent Scarcity Drives M&A 36:37 Breaking Down 27M ARR 38:50 Consumer AI Notetaker Bet 43:00 Wrap Up And Where To Follow 🎧 Listen on the go: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm My other YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap This Lobster Talks episode is brought to you by YC Roaster, a free tool helping founders improve their YC applications. 🔗 https://ycroaster.com

He did YC in 2016 from France with a Slack bot nobody had heard of. 9 years later, he came back… second company, second batch, $10M seed closed in 3 days. Dalton told him: "Don't overlearn." Quang is the founder of Vybe, a YC W25 company building the internal app layer for the AI era. Before that: Plato, a mentorship platform for engineers he grew to 70 people, raised $22M for, and sold to Coda, where he worked as a GM before quitting to start over. In this conversation, we go deep on what it actually means to be a second-time YC founder: the overcorrections, the traps, and what's genuinely different about YC today vs. 2016. In this episode, you'll learn: → Why hiring zero people after raising $10M was the wrong overcorrection, and when Quang finally figured that out → How selling before the product was ready backfired, and what First Round's Liz told him to do instead → YC's self-fulfilling prophecy: how the program became a distribution machine, and why seed rounds that took 3 weeks in 2016 now close in 3 days → Why Vybe is quietly pivoting from "build internal apps" to "agents that use those apps", and what inspired it → The three-component PMF framework First Round runs with every portfolio company (and where most founders skip straight to step 3) Chapters: 00:00 Raising First 150K 00:30 YC Roaster Sponsor 01:14 Meet Quang Twice YC 02:03 Discovering YC In France 05:37 Slack Bot Breakthrough 06:34 Product Hunt To YC Interview 07:49 Silicon Valley Network Effect 13:47 Why Expense Reports Question 15:59 Getting The Acceptance Call 17:02 Moving To Mountain View 18:46 Building Bots In YC 20:31 Pivot To Plato Mentorship 22:02 Acquired By Coda 22:49 Coda Vs Retool Pain 26:37 Replit Agent Sparks Vibe 27:33 Internal Apps Are Still Hard 28:52 Quitting Coda For Vibe 29:00 Co Founder Wealthfront Pain 30:07 Back To Y Combinator 30:26 Avoiding Overcorrection Traps 31:48 Hiring Lessons And Rebound 34:33 Selling Too Early Too Hard 37:39 Five Customers Before Scale 39:17 Product Market Fit Framework 42:08 Claude Code Threat Or Tailwind 44:52 Open Claude And Apps Disappear 46:46 Vibe Agents And Integrations 49:10 YC Then Vs Now 55:49 Wrap Up And Subscribe — 🦞 Lobster Talks is the YC insider podcast for investors. New episodes weekly. Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss the next one. Listen on the go: 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP 🎧 Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm More from Lobster Capital: 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap 🌐 Website: https://lobstercap.com This Lobster Talks episode is brought to you by YC Roaster, a free tool helping founders improve their YC applications. 🔗 https://ycroaster.com

The recovery market is broken, and most VCs are too scared to touch it. Koby Conrad (CEO of Sunflower) joins the show to discuss why he’s betting his career on solving addiction using AI. After a successful exit at Rupa Health, Koby moved to Buenos Aires with nothing but a backpack to "vibe code" the future of sobriety. In this episode, we dive into the "no-meeting" SAFE phenomenon, why SaaS moats are dying, and how Sunflower reached $1M ARR in record time. What you will learn: Why the "Wellness" category is a trap for serious founders.How to raise capital in "emotionally difficult" or stigmatized markets.The strategy behind giving away software for free to monetize physical "atoms."Inside the YC Fall 25 batch: What has changed since 2019.Why AI sponsors are actually more effective for lonely users than human ones. 📌 Watch now and subscribe for more smart, fast, founder-first interviews. Chapters: 00:00 Choosing Mission Over Money 00:30 YC Roaster Sponsor Break 01:14 Why Addiction Is Underserved 02:08 What Sunflower Builds 03:24 Fundraising In A Stigmatized Market 05:14 Why Not A Wellness App 08:00 Stigma Parallels And Founder Backstory 10:37 YC Twice And The Compounding Effect 13:59 No Meeting SAFEs And Investor Alpha 18:31 Limits Of AI In Recovery 22:06 From Subscriptions To Clinics 28:14 Distribution Moats And Community 30:27 Community Network Moats 31:21 Software Is Not The Moat 31:57 B2B Pilots And Revenue Paths 33:18 Finding Product Model Fit 34:56 Why Start Over For Addiction 37:01 Backpack Minimalism Reset 39:24 Garry Tan As Group Partner 43:04 Rapid Fire AI Predictions 43:45 Gambling Addiction Rabbit Hole 46:34 AI Across Healthcare And Ash 50:59 Smarter Than The Robot 51:53 Where To Find Sunflower 🎧 Listen on the go: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm My other YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap This Lobster Talks episode is brought to you by YC Roaster, a free tool helping founders improve their YC applications. 🔗 https://ycroaster.com

The US government spends $2.7 trillion a year on everything from water bottles to fighter jets, yet the entire process is held together by Microsoft Word and tribal knowledge. In this episode, we sit down with August Chen, founder of Hazel (YC W24), to discuss why he left Palantir to tackle the antiquated world of government procurement. We dive into the "missionary vs. mercenary" mindset, the reality of the 1% acceptance rate at YC, and why the "death of the paper-pusher" is the greatest opportunity in VC today. What you’ll learn: Why 50% of small businesses have abandoned government contracts.The Palantir playbook: How to "deploy yourself" into a customer's workflow.Why selling to the Government requires a "hierarchy of needs" approach.The pivot from B2B2G to direct B2G: When the mission stays, but the product moves.How AI is turning months of RFP paperwork into seconds of work.Predictions for the "DOGE" era and the future of civil servant tech stacks. 📌 Watch now and subscribe for more smart, fast, founder-first interviews. Chapters: 00:00 Million Dollar Toilet Problem 00:39 YC Roaster Ad Break 01:22 Why Gov Procurement Lags 02:50 Broken Systems Examples 04:05 Inside Procurement Tech Stack 05:30 Palantir Lessons On Procurement 07:29 YC Pivot To B2G 11:36 Selling To Government Reality 17:22 Scaling A Small Sales Team 21:29 AI For Deterministic Compliance 25:15 Workflow First AI Second 26:00 Vendor Search Enrichment 26:18 Drafting Requirements Fast 26:36 Evaluation Notes Assistant 27:04 Safety and Tesla Analogy 28:35 Scope Review Guardrails 30:29 Palantir Patience Lessons 32:36 Hair on Fire Problems 33:57 Fast Pilots and Features 36:07 Overcoming Trust Deficit 39:04 Why the Name Hazel 41:50 Predictions Rapid Fire 43:58 Procurement Jobs Future 45:32 Investor Takeaway and Wra “🎧 Listen on the go: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm My other YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap This Lobster Talks episode is brought to you by YC Roaster, a free tool helping founders improve their YC applications. 🔗 https://ycroaster.com

The most successful YC companies aren't always the loudest. They're the ones that survive the "Valley of Death" to become indispensable infrastructure. In this episode, I sit down with Grant Shaddick, founder of Tella (YC W20), the video tool that has quietly taken over the YC ecosystem. We dive into the grit required to build a category leader, why they chose to stay lean while others over-raised, and how AI is finally killing the "video editing" bottleneck. What you’ll learn: Why "boring" infrastructure often outperforms "hype" AI startups.The reality of the startup "Valley of Death" and how to survive it.Why a high valuation can actually be a founder's biggest trap.The future of agentic video editing: from tools to outcomes.The secret behind Tella’s viral adoption among YC founders. 📌 Watch now and subscribe for more smart, fast, founder-first interviews. Chapters: 00:00 The Big Vision: Make Video Creation Effortless 00:35 Sponsor Break: YC Roaster — Free YC Application Feedback 01:19 Podcast Intro: Why Tella Is a Quiet YC Power Tool 02:28 What Tella Is: The All‑in‑One Screen Recorder 04:38 From “Loom Competitor” to Polished Production Value 07:43 Why YC Founders Keep Choosing Tella 10:51 Async Video vs Meetings: The Future of Work? 15:23 Beyond Loom: One Tool for Every Company Video 18:25 AI + Video: Auto Layouts and Editing Without Editing 24:21 How Close Are We to Fully Autonomous Video Editing? 25:58 Why Video Is So Unforgiving: Trust Dies When Recordings Break 27:50 AI Can’t Save a Broken Capture (Yet): The Gap vs Text Generation 29:12 Generative AI as a “Bandage”: Fixing Mistakes After the Fact 30:21 Desktop/Web Video Creators Are Underserved (and AI Changes That) 31:24 From Whisper Dictation to “Fix My Delivery”: The Future of AI Video 32:20 YC 2020 to PMF: Staying Lean, Scrappy, and Not Getting Ahead of Yourself 36:26 How to Not Quit: Stubbornness, Small Wins, and Solving Hard Problems 39:16 The Rendering-Bug Breakthrough: Quality Fixes That Unlocked Growth 42:01 Fundraising Discipline: Valuation Pressure vs Runway and Focus 47:30 Wrap-Up: Try Tella + Where to Find the Team 🎧 Listen on the go: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm My other YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap This Lobster Talks episode is brought to you by YC Roaster, a free tool helping founders improve their YC applications. 🔗 https://ycroaster.com

YC just added one question that quietly changes what it means to be a founder. And it’s not about your TAM. It’s not about your pitch. It’s about how you use AI to build. In this episode of Lobster Talks, we break down YC’s newest application change, the rise of coding agents like Claude Code, and what this signals about where startup building, and venture capital is heading next. We also go deep on YC Roaster, Lobster Capital’s new initiative helping founders improve their YC applications using AI + YC alumni review. Here’s what you’ll learn: - Why YC’s new “coding agent session” question is a founder filter - How vibe coding is becoming table stakes in 2026 - What 20,000 YC applications really signal about global founders - Why traction keeps rising as the YC acceptance bar - How smart VCs are building internal tools and why most aren’t - Why the best founders and funds pivot fast This is a behind-the-scenes look at how YC evaluates builders today. 📌 Watch now and subscribe for more smart, fast, founder-first interviews. Chapters: 00:00 Claude Code Is Addictive: Why Everyone’s Vibe Coding Now 00:44 Sponsor Break: YC Roaster - Free, Brutally Honest YC Application Feedback 01:27 Welcome to Lobster Talks: What’s New in the YC World 02:00 How YC Roaster Was Built (Fast) + How the AI→Alumni Review Flow Works 03:37 Launch Results: Hundreds of Apps, MVP Bugs, and the V2 Relaunch Plan 06:23 What Applicants Look Like: Quality Spread, Global Submissions, and Reviewer Time Sinks 11:29 Why Build YC Roaster: Lobster’s “Helpful Fund” Flywheel + VCs Who Ship 14:20 YC’s New Application Question: Submit a Coding Agent Session You’re Proud Of 15:06 What YC Is Really Testing: Technical Bar, AI Fluency, and Advanced Agent Workflows 22:42 Founder vs Idea: Pivot Culture, Proof-of-Work, and How AI Changes Evaluation 27:06 VCs Need Tools Too: Internal Engineering, Interactive Marketing, and Fund Differentiation 29:28 YC Request for Startups: 2026 Themes - Agents, Stablecoins, GovTech, Spatial/Robotics 31:33 Wrap-Up: Subscribe, Reviews, and Next Week’s YC Founder 🎧 Listen on the go: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm My other YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap

Most people treat their bodies like a car they only fix after it crashes. Max Berthelot and Lucis are rewriting that script by turning longitudinal blood data into a high-margin, preventive software play. In this episode, we sit down with Max Berthelot, founder of Lucis (YC S25), to discuss why "Function Health for Europe" is one of the most compelling arbitrage opportunities in the venture world. We dive into the cultural shift of paying for health in Europe, the technical challenge of scaling doctor-supervised AI, and the relentless execution required to expand across five countries in record time. What you’ll learn: - Why blood data is the "Gold Rush" of the next decade. - The YC strategy for conquering fragmented European markets. - How to maintain "San Francisco Velocity" while based in Paris. - Why AI + Wearables are currently overhyped (and what's missing). - The 5-day fundraising sprint: How Lucis closed their round during YC. 📌 Watch now and subscribe for more smart, fast, founder-first interviews. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction to Preventive Health and Function Health 00:45 Welcome to Lobster Talks Podcast 01:32 Meet Max Berthelot and Lucis 02:23 The Importance of Longitudinal Health Tracking 05:02 Challenges and Opportunities in European Healthcare 09:14 The YC Experience and Decision to Stay in Europe 12:54 Maintaining YC Culture in Europe 18:13 The Role of AI in Healthcare 22:14 Expansion Across Europe 23:00 International Expansion Playbook 23:53 Challenges in European Market 25:35 Relentless Execution and Metrics 28:35 Trends in YC Healthcare Startups 32:22 Fundraising Journey and AI Impact 36:11 Overhyped Trends in Health Tech 39:20 Conclusion and Final Thoughts 🎧 Listen on the go: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm My other YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap

Factories don’t buy hype. They buy uptime. In this episode, YC-backed Cerrion CEO Karim Saleh explains why industrial computer vision is one of YC’s most underrated AI wedges, and why it can beat flashier “copilot” markets on sheer dollar-weight and defensibility. Karim breaks down how Cerrion deploys camera-based AI agents to detect production issues in real time, why manufacturing is a $20T opportunity, and what most investors get wrong about selling into factories. If you’re building “real-world AI,” this is the playbook… from five paid pilots before code to scaling via workflows, not dashboards. What you’ll learn: Why YC keeps funding industrial computer vision (even across hype cycles)The technical truth: every factory is different… and why VLMs change the gameThe go-to-market wedge that wins: small scope → fast ROI → expansion (NRR)How Cerrion embeds into daily factory workflows (shift meetings, handovers, owners)The biggest investor myth about manufacturing sales cycles, and the real unlockWhy competition-heavy AI markets are a trap (and what to build instead) 📌 Watch now and subscribe for more smart, fast, founder-first interviews. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction to the Manufacturing Market Opportunity 00:38 Welcome to Lobster Talks 01:11 Introducing Karim Saleh and Cerrion 02:16 The Evolution of AI in Manufacturing 03:47 Challenges and Solutions in Industrial AI 05:40 The Impact of US Reindustrialization 08:44 Customer Success and Expansion Strategies 15:44 Fundraising and Market Trends 26:07 Future of Industrial AI and YC Insights 36:07 Conclusion and Final Thoughts 🎧 Listen on the go: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1u1JyRKH8JYFjhBkvTUOAP Apple: https://apple.co/4cZ8RMm My other YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lobstercap