Post-YC, he split with his co-founder—then grew profitably to $2M ARR with just 5 people. | Jon Yoo, Founder of Suger

Jon Yoo’s startup wasn’t working. He pivoted mid-YC, spent five brutal weeks without signing a single customer, and then—right after raising his seed round—his co-founder left. Most startups die right there.  Instead, Jon figured out how to land massive customers like FiveTran and Snowflake. He grew from $500K to $2M ARR in 6 months.  Why you should listen: •Navigating a founder breakup – What happens when co-founders split and how to handle it. •The real YC experience – What worked, what didn’t, and how they pivoted mid-program. •Landing major customers – How they got big logos like Snowflake. •Fundraising insights – What really matters to investors at the seed and Series A stages. •Why startups need forcing functions – The tactics that drove fast product development. •How to know if you have product-market fit – The signals John saw at Sugar. •Burn rate discipline – Why they raised millions but barely spent it. Keywords entrepreneurship, startups, investment banking, Salesforce, Y Combinator, founder dynamics, product market fit, scaling, cloud marketplaces, business strategy, fundraising, startup, YC demo day, customer acquisition, product-market fit, founder dynamics, early stage startup, team building, scaling, challenges Timestamps (00:00:00) Intro (00:07:55) The Origin of Suger (00:13:30) Going All In (00:19:08) The first 10 customers (00:24:20) The Hardest Pain Point (00:30:29) Becoming Profitable (00:37:05) Celebrate The Small Wins (00:39:56) Finding Product Market Fit (00:42:27) A Piece of Advice Send me a message to let me know what you think!