Qasar Younis, Founder and CEO of Applied Intuition, shares insights on building successful businesses and why creating customer-oriented company cultures is crucial. He discusses his journey from mechanical engineer to entrepreneur, failures and lessons learned, Y Combinator, analyzing the retail market for TalkBin, and the importance of customer-centric cultures in dismantling engineering-oriented mindsets.
55:47
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Do Sales Yourself To Build Empathy For GTM
Spend time in sales early to build empathy and understand quota-driven pressures.
Qasar learned vernacular like OTE and quota while selling for Talkbin, which shaped Applied Intuition's balanced culture.
insights INSIGHT
Center The Company On Customers Not Functions
Make customers the center of your company, not engineers or sales.
At Applied Intuition 85% of staff are engineers, yet Qasar insists customers drive product direction to keep the company healthy.
insights INSIGHT
Market Risk Beats Money And Talent
Market risk is the hardest risk money can't fix.
Qasar echoes John Doerr: technical, team, and financial risks can be helped with money, but only the market (customer willingness) proves product viability.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
When it comes to building a company from the ground up, Qasar Younis has done it all.
A mechanical engineer by trade and entrepreneur at heart, Qasar transitioned from working on cars to building startups, eventually selling his second business venture TalkBin to Google in 2011. Qasar has also helped fund and advise early-stage companies as a partner at Y Combinator. Now, Qasar is the founder and CEO of Applied Intuition, a company valued at $1.25 billion that develops simulation software that engineers use to create self-driving systems.
In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Qasar discuss what patterns Qasar has noticed about go-to-market strategies while working in startups and how he’s built two massively successful businesses.
In this episode, we cover:
Why Qasar decided to enroll in Harvard Business School after working as a mechanical engineer. (4:20)
How one of Qasar’s early startups, Camessa, failed — and what Qasar learned from this failure. (8:50)
What Y Combinator does and how it has grown in scale. (11:11)
How Qasar and others analyzed the retail market and the emergence of new technology to come up with the idea for TalkBin. (12:15)
How Qasar’s “boots-on-the-ground” sales experience helps create a more balanced environment at Applied Intuition and how he learned about developing early sales motions while working at Y Combinator. (15:39)
Qasar’s take on why centering a company around the customer can dismantle engineering-oriented cultures and unite a business around a common goal. (18:58)
The divide between engineers and business people and why leaders need to have a diversity of skills. (21:40)
‘Market risk’: Why cultivating a deep understanding of the market and its demands can make or break a business. (24:43)
Reasons why some businesses fail to listen to its customers. (30:53)
What Qasar’s current business, Applied Intuition, does. (32:15)
The present and future of autonomous cars. (34:21)
How Applied Intuition penetrated the autonomous car market by creating software that manufacturers want. (37:50)
Why Applied Intuition doesn’t only focus on selling to car manufacturers — and how its technology can save a business money. (45:24)
Qasar’s thoughts on how long it will take for autonomous driving features to come standard in cars. (47:52)
The cultural challenges of taking a company international and the importance of focusing on hiring the right people who can carry company values. (49:10)
Grit 