---
id: ins_there-were-plenty-lessons-too
operator: Vedant Agarwala
operator_role: 'Building | ex-YC founder (W23) | Early employee in unicorn companies | Angel Investor | 1x acqui-hired | 18k+ reputation on Stack Overflow.'
source_url: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7351340994010734592/
source_type: thread
source_title: 'We’re shutting down CodeParrot 💔'
source_date: 2026-04-10
captured_date: 2026-05-02
domain: [growth-demand, marketing, hiring]
lifecycle: [growth-loops, hiring-team-design]
maturity: frontier
artifact_class: framework
score: { originality: 3, specificity: 5, evidence: 3, transferability: 4, source: 4 }
tier: A
related: []
raw_ref: raw/linkedin/reactions/linkedin-reactions-2026-04-10.md
---

# There were plenty of lessons too. Startups are brutally hard, and pivot hell is the wo
## Claim
Two and a half years ago, Royal Jain and I were just two cofounders with an idea and a shared dream. We got into Y Combinator with only the founding team and an idea we scrapped within weeks. We left India, went to Singapore to sort out our US visas, and spent three magical months in San Francisco, surrounded by people who made us believe we could build something meaningful.

## Mechanism
Right now, I'm on a short sabbatical, but my conviction in AI and LLMs has only grown. I know there's so much more to build in this space. I'm already exploring new ideas and looking for a cofounder to take the next plunge with. The YC community is an incredible place to find both inspiration and partners.

## Conditions
Holds when: the operating context matches the post's stated frame (team shape, stage, tooling, buyer type).
Fails when: the practice is lifted into a different stage or buyer context without reworking the underlying mechanism.

## Evidence
> "There were plenty of lessons too. Startups are brutally hard — and pivot hell is the worst part by far."

· Vedant Agarwala, LinkedIn, 2026-04-10

## Signals
- Getting into YC.
- Seeing our first real revenue hit our Stripe account.
- The team treats the practice as default rather than exception.

## Counter-evidence
No opposing view in current corpus.

## Cross-references
- (none in current corpus)