Week 50 - building Octolane: kids, late night and thanksgiving

Week 50 at @octolane_ai

Headcount: 5 (All full-stack engineer)

Last night, I stayed up late working on our engineering, something about the quiet hours helps me focus deeply—no distractions, just code. Our office is still our kitchen area, so when I'm done, I head back to the bedroom, often still attached to my laptop. I’ve developed the habit of falling asleep with my 16-inch machine right next to me. This morning I woke up as usual, laptop beside me, ready to tackle a massive to-do list. First stop was coffee, so I walked to Blue Bottle, only to find it closed. It took me a moment to realize why: it's Thanksgiving.

Not that I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but I never really think to take the day off. I'm the first in my family to be here, and where I’m from, we don't have Thanksgiving. Same goes for my co-founder—he moved here just five months ago, another first-gen immigrant. So none of us really thought about taking time off to celebrate. Reflecting on it now, I can't even remember the last time we took a day off. We always work with urgency at Octolane because most startups fail, and for us, it's a do-or-die situation. 

While writing this, my co-founder Rafi just came into our common area with his newborn, Nufaeel, who's one month old today. Watching the baby, calm and curious, looking up at me with those big eyes... it’s grounding.

My co-founder, his wife, their baby, and I all share this apartment—it’s made things simpler. I tried to get Rafi to take some parental leave, but he wouldn’t. He pushed code the day of delivery and still holds the top spot for merged PRs. Even now, post-baby, he’s more motivated than ever and razor-focused on what’s important. Kids change you like that—they bring perspective, they make you better. I wouldn’t know firsthand (still very single), but it’s beautiful to watch.

From a breakthrough thought to implementation, it’s just minutes. I love working together like this. We’ve got a remote team now and recently brought on two senior full-stack engineers—industry veterans, both incredible. Had to poach them from a top company, and I’m getting better at convincing people to jump from the plane without a parachute (metaphorically, of course). When you see everyone around you giving their all, it drives you forward too.

Today I also caught up with my research professor about the hybrid AI system we built. During the discussion, he mentioned that the things that seem like weaknesses might actually be our strengths.
In our industry,
- we’re the youngest team trying to replace Salesforce with an AI-native CRM.
- We’ve raised the least money, and
- I’ve never even worked in sales. I’ve always been just a builder, a college kid with a passion for engineering.

Yet, these disadvantages have led to three crucial advantages:

1. Scrappiness: We’ve built everything in-house, cutting costs wherever we can. Our own email sequencing (replacing Apollo), B2B data enrichment (replacing ZoomInfo), meeting recorder (replacing Gong), form builder (replacing Typeform), even knowledge management. Every core feature, every integration we have was built internally. It's hard, and it’ll continue to be hard. But goal is to become number one or nothing. We took Rippling approach of being a Compound Startup.

2. Question Everything: I’ve used over 40 CRMs, went through Salesforce certifications, combed through countless documentation pages, and interviewed hundreds of users. Each time, I asked: but why? Why so many tools for one workflow? Why so much manual data entry? Surely, LLMs can make this easier. It all seemed like a waste of time, and we can do better.

3. Chip on Our Shoulders: Make it happen or lose everything—it’s almost that simple.

Building in public is what led to this newsletter. The goal is to give everyone complete transparency into what goes on behind the scenes of building a startup in Silicon Valley that’s aiming to replace a $300 billion company. As I continue to share my daily journey on Twitter and LinkedIn, I want to use this newsletter to provide a deeper view for our readers. If you have any feedback, I’d appreciate it—let us know what you’d like included in the next one.

Here's what’s on my list today:

1. Publish the first post of this newsletter.

2. Help code the new UX pattern we’ve been working on.

3. Develop the engineering architecture for the next feature we’re really excited about.

4. Prepare for an on-screen interview in two days for a candidate we’re considering—fingers crossed.

5. Hit the gym tonight before bed.

6. And dinner, can’t forget about the dinner.

If you read all this, thank you. Startups are hard, but people like you make it easier to keep pushing.

See you next Thursday. Happy Thanksgiving!

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