Humanly’s Y Combinator Journey: 3 Critical Pivot Decisions That Shaped Their Success

Y Combinator’s influence on startup strategy is well documented, but translating YC wisdom into actionable decisions is where most founders struggle. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Humanly founder Prem Kumar revealed how three critical pivot decisions during their 2020 YC batch fundamentally shaped their approach to building in HR tech.

Decision #1: From Broad Vision to Focused Solution

The first major pivot came from YC’s core philosophy of starting small. “Don’t start by boiling the ocean,” Prem recalls. “Build something that a small group of people love and hopefully that small group of people is representative of a larger market.”

This advice led Humanly to narrow their focus from general HR tech to high-volume recruiting specifically. “We’re very much focused on these high volume, entry level roles where there’s pain points around having to do seven phone screens a day and write seven sets of follow up emails,” Prem explains.

Decision #2: Systematic User Research

Rather than building based on assumptions, YC pushed Humanly to implement rigorous user research. “I have a spreadsheet that kind of broke them out by industry, by type of demographic, by pain points,” Prem shares. This methodical approach yielded unexpected insights: “Even the candidates that didn’t get the job rated it very strongly, which was a surprise.”

The research wasn’t just about gathering feedback – it became a powerful sales tool. “Some of them actually turned into customers later. I can come back three months later and say, ‘hey, that thing you said you really wanted, we’ve actually built now.'”

Decision #3: Listening Without Ego

Perhaps the most transformative pivot came from YC’s emphasis on ego-free customer listening. “Having a structure to it. So instead of just saying, hey, I’m going to talk to 50 people, what are the outputs you’re looking to get out of it? What are you trying to ascertain? What thesis do you have going in?” Prem explains.

This approach required a fundamental shift in mindset. “Getting rid of ego is important. It was very easy to push them down certain way. So basic user research but even though people know they need to do that, unfortunately I don’t see that always happening.”

Converting YC Principles into Strategy

These pivotal decisions led to concrete strategic changes:

1. Focusing specifically on high-volume recruiting rather than trying to solve all hiring challenges
2. Building a data-driven foundation: “I consider ourselves and I wouldn’t say we’re not the only one in the world doing this, but we’re definitely consider ourselves a data company”
3. Measuring impact alongside traditional metrics: “These are numbers we share with our investors, the impact metrics as well, not just the financial ones”

Building for Scale

The focused approach is paying off. “We’ve passed a million candidates that we’ve engaged with and the average rating they have of the experience is about 4.8 out of five,” Prem notes. Looking ahead, the goal is to scale this impact: “Can we turn that to a million [conversations] a month?”

For founders entering YC or similar accelerator programs, Humanly’s experience offers valuable lessons about turning high-level advice into concrete decisions. The key isn’t just hearing the advice – it’s about making specific, sometimes difficult pivots that align with those principles while staying true to your mission.