50,000 teams use this founder's product because she saw the AI wave coming and timed her launch accordingly

Yana Welinder knew the pain points that product teams were facing, first hand. Seeing early potential for AI to solve these problems, she built Kraftful and released it at the peak of AI hype. Now, 50,000 teams use her product.

Here's Yana on how she did it. 👇

Scratch your own itch

I’m the founder and CEO of Kraftful, as well as a Senior Venture Partner at Pioneer Fund — a fund of Y Combinator alumni investing in YC companies — and a Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Internet & Society. In my ample spare time, I also cofounded VC-Backed Moms, a nonprofit supporting over 500 founders.

The idea for Kraftful came from my firsthand experience managing user feedback while building products. Before starting Kraftful, I led product at multiple tech companies — ranging from being PM #2 at a fast-growing unicorn to heading up product organizations for products used by millions of users.

It was always a struggle to organize insights from multiple sources and surface actionable takeaways without spending countless hours in spreadsheets. So I streamlined and simplified the feedback process with Kraftful.

I’ve started companies as side hustles in the past. But with Kraftful, I went all in almost immediately. This happened because I applied to Y Combinator and got accepted right after identifying the problem I wanted to address with Kraftful. At the time, I was Head of Product at IFTTT. I had to quit my job immediately to secure my spot in YC.

50,000 teams

At Kraftful, we’re transforming how product teams listen to user feedback to build products people love. Kraftful automatically collects feedback from Intercom, Zendesk, app stores, G2, popular video call platforms, and many other sources, turning that data into actionable feature requests, PRDs, and user stories that sync directly to Jira or Linear.

It operates on a SaaS model with tiered pricing based on the volume of data analyzed. While we have a free plan, we got our first paying customers on the day we launched our early MVP on Product Hunt. Most upgrades are driven by users seeking to analyze larger volumes of data.

Today, Kraftful supports over 50,000 product teams, including users from Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Canva. We’ve analyzed more than 25 million pieces of feedback, saving teams over 250,000 hours of manual review.

Modular development

The first version of Kraftful was built by just two engineers and launched as a barebones MVP within a few months. It could analyze a week’s worth of user feedback from Zendesk or app store reviews. We prioritized simplicity and exceptional prompts over complex features, ensuring the MVP delivered clear, actionable insights quickly.

The product broke almost immediately after launch because of API rate limits, but that was a good problem — it showed us the demand was real. 

Every step was iterative and we kept things lean, focusing only on features that directly improved usability or retention based on what we learned from constantly talking with our users.

We leverage a modern tech stack designed for scalability and AI-driven insights. Our front end is built with React and Blitz, delivering fast and interactive user experiences. The backend seamlessly integrates databases and APIs, enabling continuous syncing of user feedback into Kraftful and exporting of user stories to product development platforms.

We take a modular approach to AI, allowing us to evaluate and adopt new LLMs as they launch at any step in our complex AI analysis pipeline. This ensures that we're always powered by the most capable LLMs. Right now that is the o1 and 4o models, which we deploy via the OpenAI and Azure APIs for scale and cost optimization. 

Organic growth

First mover advantage

We were exceptionally early in building with LLMs and took a strategic approach to timing our full commitment to an LLM solution. In other words, we decided how much to build before launch based on when the ChatGPT hype was peaking. And we refined our positioning accordingly. This strategy allowed us to capitalize on the AI wave and get our brand in front of a wider audience.

Product Hunt

Because of this, our initial launch on Product Hunt generated significant traction, bringing thousands of users in a short time.

Word of mouth

From there, we’ve grown entirely organically. Customers often tell us they discover Kraftful through their friends who are most knowledgeable about AI, influencers’ posts, or inclusion in “top 10 AI tools” lists.

For word of mouth, we’ve focused on building an exceptional product and doing things that don’t scale to provide a standout experience. For example, customers often mention how unusual it is for a founder to personally reply to their support questions on a Sunday afternoon or hop on demo calls to show them around the product.

As for lists and influencers, we’ve rejected all paid opportunities because we get sufficient organic coverage. Our product spreads through word of mouth, and that creates a virtuous cycle. When influencers include Kraftful in their posts or lists, we reshare those posts with our audience, and Kraftful users often amplify them further. And when Kraftful is left out of a list or post, our customers and users frequently comment to add it.

This creates a snowball effect for our organic marketing.

Building in public

Generally, building in public has been incredibly effective for us. Sharing updates about our progress, launches, and challenges has helped us engage with a supportive community of product leaders.

Funding for credibility

Convincing Y Combinator and other top investors to bet on us early gave us additional credibility.

Slow movers

Kraftful is built for the future of product development. The most innovative product teams — like the 50,000 already using Kraftful — are leading the way.

But our biggest challenge is that some teams stick to outdated practices simply because, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” Our challenge is to show them why Kraftful is the better choice.

To do that, I demo the product in the context of their jobs. I show them how they can connect sources, collect data, analyze it, and write product documentation in minutes. Once they see Kraftful in action, they understand its value. A common reaction is, “I thought this was just another LLM wrapper, but this actually removes everything I hate about my job and helps me do it in a fraction of the time.”

That said, I still have work to do in finding these skeptics and getting Kraftful in front of them. My current approach doesn’t reach enough people fast enough, and scaling this effort is my next challenge.

Start small and iterate

Start small and iterate fast. Your MVP doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to solve one problem exceptionally well.

Focus on solving real pain points for your users, and make sure to talk with them A LOT to refine your product.

What's next?

We’re expanding Kraftful to support even more workflows for product teams, enabling them to focus on product craft and strategy. It’s an exciting space, as increasingly powerful AI models allow us to address more pain points than ever before.

On a personal level, I also want to continue growing VC-Backed Moms to support underrepresented founders and tackle problems that have historically been overlooked.

You can follow along on X and LinkedIn. Or check out VC-Backed Moms!