Intuned’s Act 3

In the summer of 2022, I found myself feeling frustrated at my job.

I don’t even remember what triggered it, but that feeling was getting stronger - the one every engineer who wants to start their own company knows well. That voice in your head asking, “Why am I delaying this? I wish I was working on my own thing.”

Act 1: The Leap

I had an idea that had been floating in my mind for a while - data analytics for engineering teams using Git, Jira and similar tools. With the Y Combinator (YC) application deadline approaching, I decided to just go for it. I reached out to Zawad, my colleague, and Ahmed, my brother, pitching them: “Hey, this is the idea, this is the company I think we can build. Let’s apply to YC.”

We didn’t have a product. We were late to the deadline. But we applied anyway.

To our surprise, we were selected for an interview. And then, a few days later, came one of the most exciting moments of my life—Michael Seibel called to tell us we were accepted into YC. The very next day, I talked to my boss, gave notice, and jumped into the startup life headfirst.

We completed YCS22 and raised our pre-seed round. The future looked bright!

Fast forward a year. Things weren’t going as planned. We had reached a sobering conclusion: the engineering analytics problem we set out to solve wasn’t pressing enough for our users. It was always a secondary concern, never a priority. We had a few customers but no significant revenue.

It was time to make a tough decision. We decided to pivot.

The Pivot Phase

Fortunately, we still had most of our capital and remained super excited and motivated to build a company. During YC and while building our first product, I had kept a document titled “Random Startup Ideas” where I’d write down thoughts whenever I had something that felt worth revisiting. One pattern caught my attention: several fellow YC founders had asked me and Zawad about RPA and how they might use it in their products.

When the time to pivot came, this seemed worth exploring. We went back and talked to those founders who had asked about RPA to understand the question behind their question.

What we discovered was interesting (but obvious). These founders were trying to build integrations with software that didn’t offer official APIs. They had tried commercial RPA (Robotic Process Automation) products, but these weren’t priced or designed for their use cases. They ended up building custom solutions using browser automation and described the process as “a nightmare”—especially regarding reliability issues.

Act 2: Finding a New Direction

Zawad, Ahmed, and I saw an opportunity: help developers build reliable integrations with services that have no official APIs. This became our new one-liner.

To validate this direction, we reached out to more founders in domains we thought would be relevant, gathering additional feedback that confirmed we were onto something. Many shared similar pain points, which gave us more confidence.

But we were far from having it all figured out. We weren’t sure about the market size or if our technical approach would work. Despite the validation, we had only identified a problem without fully understanding it or having a solid solution.

We decided to take a shot at this area anyway - even without understanding the market fully or having the perfect solution to the problem.

We launched this concept within the YC community and received positive feedback. Since then, we’ve spoken with hundreds of companies and worked closely with dozens. For months, we struggled to find the right approach despite all this validation. The problem was real, but the solution was elusive.

Act 3: The Breakthrough

Up until a few months ago, I would say we were still trying to figure it out. Then we had one key realization that changed everything - a breakthrough that we’re now refocusing the entire company around.

That’s Act 3 of our story, and I’m excited to share more details soon!

Want to learn more? Happy to chat!

Email me at faisal@intunedhq.com