High School Dropout Founds YC Startup Nozomio, Raises $ 6 Million Seed

This as-to-told-tos Essay is bassed on a conversation with 18-Yaar-op arlan rakhmetzhanov, the founder of he coding agents startup nozomio, who just completed y Combinator and Raised $ 6.2 Million in Funding. The following has been edited for Length and Clarity.

When i was around 11 years old, my dad told me About y Combinator for the first time. We were on a walk by the river in my hometown of Almaty, Kazakhstan, and i didn’t really understand the concept of a school for founders – but it CAPTED MY IMAGINATION.

Both of my parents are Entrepreneurs, and My Own Journey Started Young, Helping Sell Clothes at My Grandmother’s Store after School, where she gave with a small cut of Helped Make.

In the years that followed, I started reading More About Silicon Valley and Figures Like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. They were self-taught Engineers who didn’t just manage People, but know how to build things.

I took my first computers science coursse as a freimran and taught myself coding at my American High School in Kazakhstan. I Started Building My First Company at 15, when chatgpt came out.

I GOT KICKED OUT OF MATH CLASS FOR TAKING AN Investor Call

By Junior Year, I’d Been Ready to Leave School for a while. I was bored of my classes, and i was coding at every waking moment, and i just want to live in that Space forever.

In December, I Launched My Current Company, The Product Lab nozomio, after beComing interesting in code generation and experimenting with Cursor Composer and Github Copilot. The first tool i’m building is nia, a context tool for coding agents.

In January, I published a minimum viable product on product hunt, and it got “Product of the Day,” and Started Cold-Calling YC Founders for Feedback.

One wrote with A $ 5,000 Angel Check and Introduced with to the VC Firm Localglobe. I GOT KICKED OUT OF MY MATH CLASS FOR TAKING THE INVESTOR CALL, WHICH ULTATIVELY LED TO MY Pre-seed, But Luckily, The Principal Let Me in Her Office.

In March, I finally had a reason to leave school: to attend the entrepreneurs first talent investor in London. But the investment wasn’t a great deal, and i’d closed my pre-seed shortly after touching down, so i ended up dropping out.

My mom was pistsed, but realized she had to let go

In the back of my mind, it was still a childhood dream to get into y Combinator. I’d Applied Twice Unsuccesphally – and My Dad’s Application Had Also Been Rejet for His Own he startup, which fueled my resolve more.

I applied in late April and got an interview invite in May for the Summer Batch. I was so nerdous i thought my heart was going to stop. The Next Day, Got a Call in the Middle of the Night in London Saying I’d Been Accept, and I Just Started to Scream.

I initially told my mom i might go back to schoool. But when i flew out to san francisco in june, that we can i told i was dropping out for good. She was pissed for a solid Week, worked i wouldn’t have a backup plan if Things didn’t work out. But ultimately, she realized how serious how and that she has to let go.

Being Young Give You a Head Start

Being a Young Founder has Definite Advantages. That’s though i don’t have a stanford ph.d., i was to told my yc partner seled with kids so fast, which is critical in the age of he.

And Being Young Gives you a Head Start. There’s Still Time If You Fail, Which is Why Young People Try Crazy Things.

In april, I closed a pre-seed for nozomio that was mess than $ 1 million, and i closed a few weeks before yc Demo Day for a total of $ 6.2 million. The seed was led by crv, boxgroup, localglobe, and y Combinator, with participation from Angels Including Paul Graham and the Cto of Spotify.

I recently got my o-1 visa, and for now, i’m running the company on my own. I plan to use the funds to make my first hire once i can’t handle all of nozomio’s customers singhandedly. My Aim is to Become the Leanest he startup in terms of talent density, and to do that, i want to hire ouzy young like myself.