Entry-Level Software Engineer [SDE 1] at Amazon

One common complaint I get from my friends to who I pitch Taro is why they should trust a company that is "Selling shovels during a gold rush".

I personally believe there is a ton of value in joining Taro but I can see their perspective since not every coaching/mentorship service has their clients' best interests in mind.

This question is more for Alex and Rahul but others are free to chime in. What is your response to this?

"Why should I trust Taro? Aren't they selling shovels during a gold rush?"

Senior Software Engineer at Taro Community

Questions for Alex and Rahul which I know were covered in some videos somewhere in snippets, but maybe not all in one question. Taro has amassed a lot of great content in its courses and blogs -**\- how long did it take to create initial MVP of quiz app before the Taro founders quit their jobs to go and work on Taro full time as a startup entrepreneurs?** 

- **When did the founders pivot?**
- **How long did it take to create initial content (blogs over the years, lots of videos, powerpoints etc.)?**

It's impressive to see the amount of rich content, how long did it take for Rahul and Alex to conceptualize Taro (in its early form, name), **what ways did they test the success metrics of various pieces of content for a single feature (video series, single video/blog etc.) - how well did they perform over a given period of time?**

Taro amassed a lot of content in its courses and blogs - how long did it take to create initial MVP of quiz app before founders quit their jobs?

Machine Learning Engineer at Taro Community

I'm curious what the vision for Taro in the next year will be and also what Taro will ideally look like after 5 years. Also curious what the roadmap looks like

It'll be fun to follow up on this and see how far off it'll be :)

What is the 1/5 year vision for Taro/Taro Roadmap

Junior Software Engineer at Taro Community

I'm curious since you now have the opportunity to design and interview candidates as you see fit, how would you design the interview for your next hire?

How many rounds?

Any takehomes?

how would you source your candidates?

what are things you would do to avoid doing the terrible interview practices companies usually do?

How would you interview a candidate for a backend role vs a frontend role?

To the Taro founders, how would you interview a candidate?

I know this is different for Alex, Rahul, and Charlie, but am particularly interested in Charlie's answer since he's the main developer (right?)

What Does a Day Working on Taro Look Like?

"How did you decide to quit your job and make a startup?" - 9/13/2022

If you're interested in starting your own startup, check out our curated playlist for it here: [[Taro Top 10] Entrepreneurship And Tech Startups](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/ArtlSzF17v7cad1K6TJG/)

- Alex has wanted to start his own thing for a while - Ever since his side projects started getting serious traction in 2015-2016 (25,000+ users each).
- The initial goal with [Tech Career Growth Community](https://www.linkedin.com/company/techcareergrowth/) wasn't to make a business out of it. The pandemic was happening and people were suffering - We just wanted to help people.
  - Tech Career Growth then grew beyond Rahul's and Alex's wildest imaginations.
  - This made them start thinking what they could accomplish if they worked on it full-time instead of part-time.
- For Alex, there are the core reasons why he decided to make the jump back in early 2022:
  - **Diminishing returns on "preparing" to make a startup** - He had the 0 to 1 experience from doing side projects and building Course Hero's Android apps from scratch. Meta was great helping him build soft skills.
  - **Tech Career Growth taking off** - Alex had more fun working on this community than working his full-time job at Robinhood (which is saying something as he *really* enjoyed working at Robinhood!).
  - **Getting into an incubator** - In late 2021, Alex and Rahul got into OnDeck, which gives the old YC deal of 125k for 7%.
  - **Life timing** - Alex is 30 as of the publishing date of this video, and creating a startup only gets harder as you age due to increasing responsibilities outside of work.

If you're interested in how Alex published ~30 apps that got ~3 million users combined, check these out:
- ["Finding a mobile app idea - How to do it?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/KJ4VXh6rUhKbWeiJoRDe/finding-a-mobile-app-idea-how-to-do-it/)
- [[Masterclass] How To Come Up With 100k+ Users App Ideas You Can Build For Free](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/AI4zi759PSGn6RwIFT6f/masterclass-how-to-come-up-with-100k-users-app-ideas-you-can-build-for-free/)
- [[Masterclass] How To Build And Grow Tech Products To 500k+ Users For Free](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/OEuX0KMhcnNSTJ50Voee/masterclass-how-to-build-and-grow-tech-products-to-500k-users-for-free/)

Lastly, here's a great discussion on how hard startups are compared to leveling up at a "traditional" job: ["Career advancement or building a startup? Which one is harder?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/EquWmWjZhqiiujyltreJ/career-advancement-or-building-a-startup-which-one-is-harder/)

"How can I help with what you guys are doing with Taro?" - 9/13/2022

- If you can afford it, please [join Taro Premium](https://app.jointaro.com/membership)!
  - If you work at a Big Tech company, there's a good chance you have L&D (learning and development) budget that you can use to expense Taro and pretty much get it for free! Here's a [template](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xpY2XBKTpiMN-o7U2c1pvqai5afQSVIuGMgQZiB-_Rg/edit) you can share with your manager to get Taro reimbursed.
  - Here are the companies we know of that can reimburse Taro: Meta, Google, Amazon, Robinhood, Airtable, Yelp, Gusto, Shopify, Gusto, New Relic
- Send us your feedback!
  - As an early user of Taro, you have outsized power for taking a bet on us. We listen very closely to all user feedback at this stage.
  - On the mobile apps, we have a "Send feedback" button in your profile.
  - We're also on LinkedIn and the [Tech Career Growth Slack](https://join.slack.com/t/techcareergrowth/shared_invite/zt-lt2tbjcn-LOAVIDuGPI~nkuc4woHDLg).
- If the Taro's content is helpful for you, share it!
  - In the mobile apps, there's a share button on every Q&A and video.
  - We spent a lot of time on the underlying tech for this sharing, using something called "dynamic links". They work on every platform, matching the user to the Taro web app, iOS app, or Android app accordingly.
  - Fun fact: Taro content links will open up within the Android app after you install it and sign-in if you are shared a piece of Taro content and didn't have the app yet.
- If you're on Taro Premium, please share your perspective and answer questions! One of our core goals is to diversify the perspective on the platform.

"Why is Taro named Taro?" - 9/13/2022

- Here are the 3 main constraints we had on a name:
  - It should be short (4-8 characters).
  - There should be a good domain for it, ideally a ".com" website URL.
  - It should have positive associations.
- The reason it took 3 months to find a name for our product and company after we quit our jobs is because we spend the first 3 months thinking about what idea we wanted to do.
- "Tech Career Growth" is a wonderful name for our free community, but it's not a great product name as it's too long and too literal.
- We took ~3 weeks to decide on a name. Here was our process:
  - Come up with guiding principles for the name (covered above)
  - Brainstorm a bunch of names (100+)
  - Narrow it down to ~8 based on the above principles
  - Make a deck with the final candidates, weighing pros and cons
  - Have a couple rounds of discussion/debate to pick 1 name
- You can think of "Taro" as a similar play to "Apple". Doesn't really describe what the product is, but it's a food with positive associations and a short name.
- The logo is a "T" and has additional symbolism by looking like roads. Our goal with Taro is to help you **navigate** your career!

The Plan To Make Taro Q&A Suck Less - 9/13/2022

- **Update:** Literally a few hours after recording this video, the ability to like answers on Taro web was shipped.
- The #1 priority with the Q&A platform is adding notifications. Here are some important ones:
  - Being notified when someone answers a question that you have asked
  - Being notified when someone likes an answer that you have shared, as you should be able to feel good if you have shared your wisdom in a high-quality answer
- Overall strategy: Make the process of asking a question and getting answers delightful and silky smooth, as you can't have answers without questions. From there, make it a great experience and rewarding to answer questions.
- Ideas:
  - The ability to write a private "Thank You" note to someone who left a really great answer on your question.
  - Question askers can choose and highlight an answer on each of their questions, which helped them the most. This is another way to let question answerers know the impact they're having.

Taro at YC's Demo Day (Summer 2022)

Demo Day is an event where Y Combinator-funded companies present to a room full of specially selected investors and press. This is our presentation about Taro. 

Since the presentations are only 1 minute long, the goal is not to cover everything (that'd be impossible), but instead to say enough such that investors want to learn more.

We launched Taro Premium earlier in the summer, so a lot of our pitch focused on the traction we found in a short time.

Thank you all for being on this rocket ship with us. If you want to support what we do even more, [consider joining Taro Premium](https://app.jointaro.com/membership). Right now, we're pretty early so, so we can be very hands-on with each new member!

If you're thinking of doing your own startup someday, here's some resources to help with that:
- ["How did you decide to quit your job and make a startup?"](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/beZzIkLUP28WinNQctlP/how-did-you-decide-to-quit-your-job-and-make-a-startup-9132022/) - In this video, Rahul's cofounder Alex walks through his decision-making process behind starting Taro
- ["Career advancement or building a startup? Which one is harder?" ](https://www.jointaro.com/question/EquWmWjZhqiiujyltreJ/career-advancement-or-building-a-startup-which-one-is-harder/)

"How can I get the most out of Taro Premium?" - 9/7/2022

- **Ask us questions!** 🙏 🙏 🙏
  - You can do it from the Taro web app [here](https://app.jointaro.com/questions/create).
  - A lot of your growth corresponds to how much you put yourself out there. The more you share, the more opportunities you're giving yourself to "get lucky" and receive some incredible, insightful advice you can apply to your job and level up.
  - *You don't need to have a good question or even a full question at all to ask something.* Taro is a judgment-free zone. Feel free to just share your current situation and thoughts on it and end your question with something like, "Do any of you have thoughts on how I can improve this situation?"
- Follow the tag corresponding to your level
  - The biggest commonality when it comes to career issues is level.
  - There are very clear patterns among senior engineers pushing for staff, mid-level engineers pushing for senior, etc.
  - In the Taro mobile app, go to the tags page and find the one for your level. If you follow it (or unfollow and then follow it again), it will float to the top of your home feed.
- Share your feedback
  - Every Taro Premium member is effectively a "mini product manager" of the company.
  - If you find a bug or have a feature idea that would help you a lot, please let us know!

"What does your day to day look like?" - 8/19/2022

- *In short, it varies a **lot**.* Startups are extremely unpredictable, and the biggest problem facing the company will change every month or even every week.
- However, there are 2 constants:
  - **Talking with new Taro Premium members** - We chat 30 minutes with every new member to get to know them, make sure they're set up properly within the community, and understand their job and career goals. These meetings add up, and we have a decent amount of them every day.
  - **Talking with Rahul** - There's always a ton going on, and we always have a bunch of ideas on how to evolve Taro, so we need a lot of time to talk each day, usually 45 minutes to 1 hour. According to YC, cofounders falling out is the #1 reason startups fail, so we really want to make sure that doesn't happen.
- We try to get a decent amount of code in every week, but it's hard to find time for it and the company's top priorities are often times not build related.
  - On a side note, the highest build priority for us right now is to really make the Taro web app silky smooth.
- We are fundraising right now, so that's dominating our lives.
- We have a lot of meetings in general as networking is crucial for startups.

"Is Taro hiring?" - 8/18/2022

If you're searching for a job, check out [our in-depth video on how Taro can help you do just that](https://link.jointaro.com/e5Swdksn8886KrQs9).

- **Not right now, but hopefully soon** - We want to make sure that when we do hire a full-time employee, we treat them very well and pay them top-of-market. We also want to make sure we're running as stable a ship as possible, especially in this economy - We don't want to hire someone just to lay them off within a year. This requires a lot of capital, more than we have with just the YC investment.
- We're raising our seed round now, and if this goes well, we should be able to hire a full-time engineer, maybe 2.
- Our dream is to turn Taro into a huge, financially sound company and then hire folks who have been supporting us for a long time, all the way back to the Tech Career Growth days.
- If you want to help, continue using Taro, letting us know how we can improve, and sharing the app with your friends and colleagues! The more we grow, the faster we can scale up Taro and achieve our vision of empowering every software engineer in the world to be happier and more effective in their careers.

"What is the growth plan for Taro Premium?" - 8/18/2022

There are 2 core areas at play here:
1. Empowering Taro Premium members to share their diverse wealth of perspectives and wisdom
2. Tactical areas of improvement

**Communal Sharing**
- Right now, Rahul and I are doing the thing that doesn't scale in true startup fashion: Providing the vast majority of career guidance ourselves.
- However, not only does this not scale, we firmly believe that this isn't the right thing to do long term: Our perspectives are only 2 out of millions of incredible people working in tech.
- Let me be frank: While we've had a diverse range of experience and pushed to understand as many angles of the tech scene as possible, our perspective is narrow. We've only worked in the Silicon Valley. We're around the same age. We spent the lion's share of our careers working at Meta. We're both Asian men. Because of this, there's a lot of stuff we don't know and aren't well equipped to talk about.
- This is where the community comes in. At the time of release of this video, we have ~170 members in Taro Premium, and I've been blown away by the diversity of backgrounds present. If we can enable, reward, and empower all these incredible folks in tech to share their perspectives and help one another, we can create what is truly the greatest repository of tech career advice on Earth.

**Tactical Stuff**
- Our main priority right now is opening up the Q&A career advice platform, so that all members of Taro Premium can easily ask and answer questions.
- While this was recently made possible, there's still a lot lacking. There's no notifications to know when your question has been answered, and we all know that the UI/UX has a ton of room for improvement, especially on web.
- We're working with a contract designer right now to completely overhaul the look and feel of the Taro web app.
- Another thing we want to figure out is member matching. For now, we're mainly matching folks of similar level as the incentives get wonky when you pair folks of different levels. However, this "algorithm" is still quite naive, and we have a long way to go before we can sustainably have folks network with one another in a way where all parties feel like they got value.

Building Taro Q&A and Videos

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