Raphael Schaad

Y Combinator

@raphaelschaad

General Partner @ycombinator, helping founders build iconic startups. Swiss designer, MIT engineer, founder Cron (acq by Notion). I run through forests.

raphaelschaad.com Joined July 2008

1.1K Following 30K Followers 21K Posts

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Raphael Schaad @raphaelschaad Oct 1

Life update: dropping the "Visiting" — I'm joining @ycombinator as a General Partner 🤩

YC was my first choice as a founder in 2019. Seven years later, I'm choosing it again.

This past year, I got to come full circle: working with founders through the W26 and S26 batches, helping them turn early ideas into products people love.

I'm incredibly excited to keep finding founders and helping them build the iconic companies of this generation 🔥

Raphael Schaad @raphaelschaad 6d

Easy now … too much midwit in the bell curve meme energy 🙈

Raphael Schaad Verified account @raphaelschaad 6d

How I ran sub315 at yesterday’s NYC Marathon while commuting NY–SF every ~3 days for YC all summer and as a dad of a 1yo+3yo with a surgeon wife:

(All to say that running was like my priority #7 …)

The answer? I had AI analyze the heck out of my constant stream of data and via messaging had a highly-specialized coach in my pocket :–D

For training, it had my calendar, sleep, workout, heart rate — just about everything.

For the race, every mile I knew exactly what pace to run (see chart), what gel to take, and how much salt my body needed based on weather forecast.

Then the day off, I could just lock-in and have fun. Software for n=1 is incredible.

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Raphael Schaad @raphaelschaad 6d

Calendars apps are incredibly hard to get right. So, with limited resources, in 2021 we had built Cron mobile app for iPhone and Android with React Native. We used custom Metal to get perf and it allowed us to re-use all the time zone math, grid mechanics, etc. from desktop via a shared TypeScript library.

Today, the @NotionHQ team unveils @NotionCalendar built natively from the ground up (at least I assume it’s today given this cute bunny greeted me on prod 🐰). It carries forward much of the Cron UI, like edge-swipe to add multiple time zones, event deduping, etc.

Been testing this for a few months and it has become my daily driver. Upgrade your calendar app today!

0:22

Raphael Schaad @raphaelschaad 6d

How I ran sub315 at yesterday’s NYC Marathon while commuting NY–SF every ~3 days for YC all summer and as a dad of a 1yo+3yo with a surgeon wife:

(All to say that running was like my priority #7 …)

The answer? I had AI analyze the heck out of my constant stream of data and via messaging had a highly-specialized coach in my pocket :–D

For training, it had my calendar, sleep, workout, heart rate — just about everything.

For the race, every mile I knew exactly what pace to run (see chart), what gel to take, and how much salt my body needed based on weather forecast.

Then the day off, I could just lock-in and have fun. Software for n=1 is incredible.

Raphael Schaad @raphaelschaad Nov 2

Raphael Schaad Verified account @raphaelschaad Nov 1

kit's laid out 😴
see ya out there tomorrow ✌️

#NYCMarathon

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