Kathryn Minshew at Female Founders Conference 2014

After experiences in consulting and international vaccine work, Minshew saw a gap in career advice, job listings, and support for people navigating nonlinear careers. Her team began with a customized WordPress site for career advice aimed at women in their 20s, then tested paid job listings with Uber. The site drew 20,000 visitors in its first month, 26,000 in its second, and 75,000 in its third.

After joining YC, the team got excited about building a highly personalized product with 12 features. A partner urged them to launch sooner, so they cut scope, rebuilt the site, and launched 13 days later. Minshew says early feedback from actual target users helped the team find a better direction than waiting for a polished product or relying on friends’ approval.

The Muse tracked user behavior with Mixpanel and Crazy Egg and experimented with ways to get more visitors to watch company profile videos. A YC partner asked whether video views were a key metric. Minshew says the team refocused on outcomes such as visits, job applications, and sharing, treating video views as useful only if they contributed to those goals.

Minshew says startups usually need to find their audience rather than assume users will arrive on their own. The Muse contacted small professional and student groups directly, made sharing easy with sample posts, and wrote guest articles for sites including The Huffington Post and Forbes. To recruit, the team emphasized its mission and candidates’ personal goals, and looked for talent through networks such as Hacker News and Twitter.

Minshew cautions founders against comparing themselves with companies that attract funding, press, or vanity metrics. She recommends focusing on a clear user need and whether the product is something people love. She describes growth as building gradually from a handful of users to larger numbers, while staying focused on acquisition.