It was April 2021. With just one week to go before my Y Combinator interview, I found myself sitting in my doctor’s office, facing an unexpected crisis. The doctor told me that I had a severe leak in my heart and needed open-heart surgery immediately. The estimated recovery period was two months—one month for preparation and another for recovery. That was almost the entire duration of the YC program. If I got accepted, I would spend that time in a hospital rather than participating in the program. This situation was particularly daunting since I was the sole developer in my startup. My co-founder, already overwhelmed with support, couldn’t suddenly take over coding and bug fixing during my hospitalization.




I was in touch with Eric Migicovsky, a YC partner who had provided feedback on my startup. His feedback encouraged me to pursue what most people considered an add-on rather than a serious product. It quickly grew to over 1,000 paying customers, but our churn was high. I applied to YC, hoping to get their advice on solving churn rather than continuing to pester Eric. But with surgery looming, I reached out to him and asked if I should inform YC about my condition. He advised me not to worry about it now and to tell them after the interview. That only made me more anxious. Despite our best efforts, we were rejected due to the high churn and dependence on Google. I was disappointed, but I had bigger concerns—namely, the surgery and ensuring someone could manage the product in my absence.


Impact on Our Startup

A couple of weeks later, I was admitted to the hospital for a pre-surgery heart checkup. The results revealed that my heart was not dilating despite the severe leak. The doctor advised me to return after six months for reassessment. I took this as a sign that I had six months to build a team that could function in my absence. However, I despised the idea of large teams. Even before AI, I believed we could scale big while staying small using serverless computing. Now, with the launch of GPT-3, I could see that a single person could run an entire product in the future.
But I had an immediate challenge—the "hit by a bus" scenario in the form of surgery. So, I decided to do both: hire someone like me who could build and manage an entire product instead of assembling a large team. I looked for engineers who would feel underutilized in a big company and who launched side projects in their spare time. I reached out to every contact, asking them for the best engineer they knew. I researched those candidates to find out if they had independently launched any apps. Then, I reached out to them to convince them to join our startup. Finally, I found two engineers who could run an entire product on their own. Today, we have four products and four engineers—solving both the "hit by a bus" scenario and my goal of a single person running an entire product.


Impact on My Life

When I returned to the hospital six months later, my heart dilation was still stable. The doctor advised me to return immediately if I experienced breathlessness or palpitations. Now, it was time to figure out how to avoid surgery altogether. I read every piece of medical literature I could find about heart dilation and came to a simple conclusion: I couldn’t stop the leak, but I could strengthen my heart muscles to prevent further dilation. The heart, like any other muscle, can be strengthened in two ways:
  1. Avoid inflammatory foods like sugar and unhealthy fats (saturated and trans fats), which narrow blood vessels and increase the heart’s workload.
  2. Engage in moderate exercise that strengthens the muscles without aggravating the leak. Excessive exertion could rupture the valve, leading to further dilation and heart failure.
So, I avoided sugar and unhealthy fat like plague and ran 3 km daily as if my life depended on it—literally. Four years later, I’m still surgery-free.


Impact on Our Product

Over the last four years, we built two more products—Neartail (for eCommerce) and Formesign (for eSignature). Initially, we developed them based on customer feedback. However, as I went through this ordeal, I narrowed their scope:
  • We transitioned Neartail from a generic eCommerce product into a solution for food businesses that serve healthy food. Now, we building a search engine to find healthy food.
  • We repositioned Formesign from a generic eSignature tool into a healthcare compliance tool that simplifies patient admission in hospitals.
Essentially, we are building a wellness platform—partly due to natural demand from customers and partly influenced by my own journey with health. This has reduced churn, but more importantly, I feel like I have finally found a mission that truly resonates with me.


Lessons I Learned

I learned three lessons from this experience:
  1. I used to dismiss the "hit by a bus" scenario as a boogeyman for large, inefficient teams. But as I get older, I realize the inevitability of health crises and the possibility of death. While I no longer dismiss the risks, I also don’t want to give up on my dream of "staying small and scaling big" out of fear. We can acknowledge our fears and still keep our dreams afloat.
  2. Many founders start with a mission—a problem they believe is worthy enough to dedicate their lives to solving. My journey was the reverse. I built the products first and discovered my mission later. So, if you haven’t found your life’s purpose yet, there’s still time to find one.
  3. Going through this experience was terrifying at the time, and I still go for checkups every year to ensure my heart doesn’t dilate beyond acceptable limit. But these days, it feels like a victory lap—a proof that my fitness regimen is working and that I have been able to overcome a scary period in my life.
When we look back at our startup journey, the hardships and ordeals are often what make success feel even more worthwhile. So, if you’re out there facing struggles in your startup journey, this one is for you. I hope that when you achieve success, you will reflect on the challenges you are going through right now and feel vindicated. As the saying goes, the best missions are forged in fire.