i co-worked with 70+ YC founders, and here’s 10 dumbed down lessons from them [I will not promote]

1/ retention matters more than acquisition. getting a new customer is great, but keeping them is what builds a business. if someone seems unhappy, offer extra value, another week of free service or a free week on their subscription. talk to them and figure out whats missing. its almost always easier to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. 2/ dont scale marketing before fixing churn. spending more on ads and outbound while customers keep leaving is just filling a leaky bucket. fix the reason people leave before pouring more money into acquisition. 3/ treat churned customers like your best source of feedback. especially with SaaS and micro-SaaS, reach out to people who cancel. ask why they signed up, what disappointed them and what made them leave. take their feedback almost like gospel. one person might have an isolated issue, but if several churned customers mention the same problem, pay attention. those conversations can tell you what to build or fix next. 4/ study your best customers and find more like them. some customers stick around longer, get more value and barely need support. figure out what makes them different and use that to improve your targeting. 5/ stop chasing customers who aren't a good fit. its tempting to take every deal, but bad-fit customers can demand endless custom work and still churn. more revenue isnt always better if it comes with a ton of headaches. 6/ understand customers beyond their job titles. knowing someone is a founder or marketing manager tells you very little about what they actually need. look at their problems, what they're trying to achieve and what they're already doing. even conversations on Reddit, LinkedIn and X can reveal things a polished LinkedIn profile wont. 7/ solve recurring problems people will keep paying for. a problem that happens once might get you a one-time sale. a problem customers face every week gives them a reason to keep paying. build something that consistently solves an important problem. 8/ stop wasting money on channels that dont convert. track where customers actually come from, what it costs to acquire them and whether they stick around. dont run ads or send thousands of cold emails just because everyone else says you should. you need better leads, not more leads. 9/ understand why customers buy, stay and leave. these are three different questions. talk to customers at every stage, not just when you're trying to close a deal. what makes someone buy might be completely different from what makes them stay. 10/ systemize everything that doesn't need you. if you're good at finding leads, focus on that. train a VA to qualify them, give them clear SOPs, and let them handle the pipeline. your time is better spent doing what you're best at. writing these lessons out has honestly made me realize there are a few things i need to change in my own business too lol. funny how sometimes you know what needs to be done, but putting it into words makes you realize you haven't actually done it yet. do any of these apply to you?