How did Textio's founder, Kieran Snyder, get started in AI and language?

Kieran Snyder has a background in linguistics and math, holding a PhD in Natural Language Processing. She also has extensive experience in product leadership roles at Microsoft and Amazon, where she developed an understanding of building software and analyzing language patterns.

What was Textio's initial product before focusing on job postings?

Before focusing on job postings, Textio built a Kickstarter predictor. This allowed them to prototype their technology which aimed to predict project success based on language and other communication elements on the platform.

What are the key strategic decisions that accelerated Textio's growth?

Kieran Snyder highlighted five key decisions: 1. Co-founding with her husband, Jensen Harris. 2. Starting with job posts in the HR tech space. 3. Rebranding to focus on value and impact. 4. Shifting the licensing and pricing model for scalability. 5. Strategically controlling the narrative around the company's impact.

Why did Textio decide to focus on job postings initially?

Textio chose job postings because Kieran had relationships in the talent and HR space from her previous writing and studies. This allowed them to address a specific problem with existing data, prove the platform's value, and gain a foothold in an underserved tech market, which had the added benefit of broad company adoption.

How did Textio change its product licensing and pricing model?

Initially, Textio offered individual seats for a low monthly fee, which wasn't scalable for enterprise sales. They shifted to a flat fee based on the number of open jobs per company for a subscription period, which made more sense for larger organizations and encouraged wider adoption within a company.

How did Textio manage its public narrative and press coverage?

Textio initially received coverage focused narrowly on bias. They strategically worked to broaden the narrative to 'Augmented Writing,' showcasing the wider impact of language on business outcomes beyond just bias, which helped position them as category creators.

Key Moments

Kieran Snyder of Textio at the Seattle Female Founders Conference

Y Combinator

Science & Technology3 min read29 min video

May 4, 2018|3,020 views|32|3

YC Y Combinator Textio Seattle Female Founders Conference Female Founder Startup Tech Female Founders Confernce Kieran Snyder

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Key Moments

TL;DR

Textio CEO Kieran Snyder shares 5 key decisions that accelerated her startup's growth.

Key Insights

Co-founding with a trusted partner, even a spouse, provides a strong foundation, leveraging complementary skills.

Starting with a specific, underserved market (job postings) allowed Textio to deliver value and gain traction before broadening.

Rebranding from 'ease of use' to 'value proposition' (faster hiring, increased diversity) significantly accelerated sales.

Shifting the licensing model to a flat fee based on open jobs, rather than per seat, enabled scalability and customer satisfaction.

Strategic use of press coverage evolved from focusing solely on bias to establishing 'Augmented Writing' as a new category.

Emphasize that a product's packaging, licensing, and the narrative it tells are as crucial as the core technology.

THE POWER OF A CO-FOUNDING PARTNERSHIP

Kieran Snyder emphasizes the critical decision to co-found Textio with her husband and CTO, Jensen Harris. Their complementary backgrounds in natural language processing and user experience, respectively, provided a robust foundation for the company. Snyder highlights that while a spousal co-founder isn't universally repeatable, the core principle of having a trusted partner with whom you can have frank discussions and who possesses different but aligned strengths is essential for startup success, whether it's a spouse or another carefully chosen co-founder.

STRATEGIC FOCUS ON JOB POSTINGS

Textio's initial focus on analyzing job postings was a deliberate strategic choice. While the company's long-term vision is to power all workplace writing, starting with job descriptions allowed them to tackle a specific, high-value problem for a receptive audience. This market had data, a clear pain point regarding recruitment efficiency and diversity, and offered Textio unique access through Snyder's existing network, enabling them to prove the platform's efficacy before expanding.

REBRANDING TO HIGHLIGHT VALUE AND METRICS

A significant accelerator for Textio was the decision to rebrand and shift their communication strategy. Initially pitching the product based on its ease of use, they realized this undervalued its true impact. The rebranding focused on quantifiable benefits, such as filling jobs two weeks faster or increasing the pipeline of female candidates for technical roles. This value-driven narrative resonated more strongly with customers and investors, demonstrating the tangible business outcomes Textio delivered.

INNOVATIVE LICENSING AND PRICING MODELS

Textio's evolution in product packaging and licensing was crucial for scalability. They transitioned from a per-seat subscription model, which proved limiting for enterprise sales, to a flat-fee model based on the number of open jobs. This approach not only made the product more accessible and valuable to larger organizations by allowing unlimited users but also strengthened Textio's data collection capabilities, creating a virtuous cycle of product improvement and customer retention.

EVOLVING THE PRESS NARRATIVE

Initially, Textio received significant press coverage focused narrowly on bias in language. While important, this limited their perceived scope. The company strategically worked to broaden this narrative, highlighting 'Augmented Writing' and its broader applications in communication and culture. This shift in storytelling attracted wider interest, positioned Textio as a category creator, and allowed them to articulate their larger vision beyond addressing bias, thereby influencing how the market perceived their value and potential.

FOSTERING CUSTOMER PARTNERSHIPS FOR DATA GROWTH

Textio's success is deeply intertwined with its customers, who act as data partners. By incentivizing customers to share their data—offering reduced platform fees in return—Textio built a massive dataset numbering in the hundreds of millions of jobs. This collaborative approach fuels the platform's machine-learning capabilities, continuously improving guidance for writers and reinforcing the value proposition, creating a symbiotic relationship that benefits both Textio and its user base.

Mentioned in This Episode

●Software & Apps

●Companies

●Organizations

●Concepts

●People Referenced

Key Decisions for Startup Success

Practical takeaways from this episode

Do This

Choose a co-founder thoughtfully; they should feel like a spouse and be someone you trust implicitly.

Start small by picking a specific problem where you have unique skills to win early on.

Focus on delivering value to a specific audience that you can uniquely serve.

Price and license your product strategically, considering it as a core part of the product itself.

Tell compelling stories about your company and its value to shape perception and willingness to pay.

Aim big and avoid being confined to a small box, even if starting small is a strategic choice.

Avoid This

Do not underestimate the importance of a strong co-founding relationship.

Do not try to solve every problem at once; focus on what you can do uniquely well.

Do not pitch your product solely on ease of use; highlight the concrete value and outcomes it provides.

Do not assume the initial product packaging or sales model is the final one; be prepared to shift.

Do not let investors or the ecosystem define your company's scope; define your own ambition.

Textio's Impact on Hiring Metrics

Data extracted from this episode

Metric	Improvement
Job fill time	Two weeks faster
Women into engineering/tech pipeline	23% more
Expedia job fill time (gender neutral posts)	Three weeks faster

Common Questions

Textio is a company that uses data analysis of business communications, primarily job postings, to help companies write more effective content. It identifies patterns in language that engage specific audiences and aims to reduce bias, ultimately improving outcomes like time-to-hire and diverse candidate pipelines.

Topics

Technology & Innovation Business & Entrepreneurship Narrative Control Product Strategy Startup Growth Founder Decisions Language Analysis HR Tech Augmented Writing

Mentioned in this video

Companies

The Riveter

A co-working space where Textio was not located during its early days.

Amazon

Kieran Snyder previously held product leadership roles at Amazon and conducted a study on bias in performance reviews there.

Y Combinator

Mentioned as a source of alumni who used and recommended Textio.

Johnson & Johnson

A large company that uses Textio to analyze job postings.

Microsoft

Kieran Snyder previously held product leadership roles at Microsoft.

Textio

A company that analyzes job postings and other business communications to help companies write more effective content and reduce bias.

Cisco

Mentioned as an example of a company where Textio has a broad reach across different functions due to hiring.

Expedia

Mentioned as an example of a company where using gender-neutral job posts led to filling roles three weeks faster.

Apple

Mentioned as an example of a company where Textio has a broad reach across different functions due to hiring.

Media

Bloomberg TV

Kieran Snyder appeared on Bloomberg TV to discuss Augmented Writing.

Organizations

CVS

A company that uses Textio to analyze job postings.

Software & Apps

Kickstarter

The platform used by Textio for its initial prototype (Kickstarter predictor), allowing them to test their technology with public project data and outcomes.

Google Docs

A target for Textio's long-term ambition to become the standard for writing all workplace documents.

Microsoft Word

A target for Textio's long-term ambition to become the standard for writing all workplace documents.

Concepts

natural language processing

Kieran Snyder's PhD field and a core technology behind Textio.

People

Jensen Harris

Co-founder and CTO of Textio, and Kieran Snyder's husband.

Kieran Snyder

Founder, co-founder, and CEO of Textio, with a background in linguistics, math, and natural language processing.