Best of Just Go Grind (First Half of 2025)

In 2005, Y Combinator launched with little fanfare, a summer experiment born out of Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston’s frustration with how traditional venture capital worked.

Their goal wasn’t to build a Silicon Valley powerhouse. They simply wanted to help hackers become founders. But in doing so, they reshaped early-stage investing—creating a fast, founder-focused, standardized approach. Today, YC’s impact stretches far beyond its portfolio, embedding itself into the DNA of startup culture.

What began as a scrappy idea between friends—and eventually spouses—became one of the most influential forces in tech.

Before the billion-dollar valuations and flood of imitators, Y Combinator was just a hunch—a weekend conversation, a $200K experiment, and a belief there had to be a better way to back ambitious people.

Dave Fontenot founded HF0, the world’s first and only monastery for code.

Inspired by his first hackathon, he took it upon himself to build the largest one out there—MHacks. From its foundation in 2013, more than 10,000 people from across the globe have attended.

A decade later, this time inspired by living in real monasteries all over the world, he decided to build his own, only for hackers. A huge mansion in San Francisco, an ecosystem of well-known founders, and the opportunity to get a vision off the ground.

HF0 is about 12 weeks of flow where your sole focus is on one mission: building your life’s work.

A24 was born in the A24—the famous Italian highway, that is.

The Autostrada 24 connects Italy’s east coast to the capital and it’s where Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodge were when an idea hit.

It’s really no joke that all roads lead to Rome. At least, the world’s most prestigious indie studio does.

But what happened in Italy had been a long time coming.

The year was 2012. Hollywood was thriving off of The Hunger Games, The Hobbit and Marvel’s Avengers’ overwhelming success.

Numbers stated that ‘people wanted to see what they’d seen before, with a new twist.’

Daniel Katz, however, had a different perspective.

He was a long time fan of Miramax, the studio that became synonymous with independent cinema back in the nineties. Most of their films explored unconventional themes that set them apart from Hollywood’s gems at the time.

Above all, Miramax was known for having directors take the front seat—having them unleash their creativity and explore their vision deeper. As a result, it was cradle to some of cinema’s modern classics like Trainspotting, Life Is Beautiful and none other than Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

A24 was ultimately built upon this influence.

John Andrew Entwistle is the founder of Wander, a company rewriting the narrative of travel through elegance, technology, and intentional design.

He built his first company at the age of 13. And by the time he was 16, he built Coder.com—an idea born in high school, later backed by Silicon Valley's most storied venture firms.

At 23 he was already a CEO and had raised over 50 million dollars. But he got a different vision, something he was more passionate and excited about, and went all in to build Wander.

Now, at only 27, John Andrew is one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 and has grown Wander into one of the defining forces in the American travel landscape.

A few weeks back I ran a poll asking what your main challenges were right now.

The leading response?

Fundraising.

So we put together a few resources that will be helpful for you.

Some are recent, some are timeless, all can be useful in your process.