In our Paris office, there's a poster pinned to the wall close to where we demo new product work. It serves as a visible, constant reminder of what actually matters when you're building a startup.
The poster is a collage of YC advice. And for us at Konvu, it carries even more weight. Benoit, Paul, and I were early employees at Sqreen. In 2018, we relocated to San Francisco when Sqreen went through the YC batch. We got to experience many of these principles firsthand during the batch. That advice has stuck with us. As we started Konvu, it served as both inspiration and grounding.
The YC principles that guide everything we do
Build something people want
Obvious? Yes. Easy? Definitely not. In security, many vendors start with technology and retrofit a use case around it. You'll often hear origin stories like: "We wanted to do something with eBPF, so we built a product around it." That's a solution in search of a problem. We took the opposite path.
When we started Konvu, we focused on understanding what problems actually needed solving. We spoke with hundreds of people we knew—and many we didn't—to get a clear picture. In every conversation, we asked a simple but powerful question: "What are your top 3 hair-on-fire problems right now?"
What emerged, consistently, was pain around vulnerability overload. CISOs, security teams, and engineering leaders all told us the same thing: they were drowning in vulnerabilities, spending far too much time triaging and remediating issues—many of which didn't even matter. That disconnect was costing time, focus, and trust across teams. And it's what ultimately led us to tackle the problem we're now passionate about solving.
That commitment shows up in the way we work. We ship product updates weekly and collect feedback immediately. We're constantly on calls with users, digging into their workflows, blockers, and priorities. That early discovery mindset never left. And before we commit to anything, we still ask ourselves: why does this matter?
Write code. Talk to users.
This one might sound simple, but it's fundamental. And at Konvu, we treat it as a core operating principle. We expect engineers to be close to customers—not just figuratively, but literally. It's normal here for engineers to join user calls a couple times each month, hearing problems firsthand, asking clarifying questions, and building empathy directly from the source.
We also run regular feedback sessions where we share insights from go-to-market conversations across the whole team. That helps engineers understand not only how users interact with what we've built, but also what they wish it did, what adjacent problems they face, and how they talk about the value we're delivering.
Finally, we've embraced a strong demo culture. Every week, engineers show what they've built to the team—live. It's our version of Demo Day, and it keeps the feedback loop tight, reinforces urgency, and celebrates momentum. It aligns beautifully with the YC philosophy: write code, talk to users, repeat.
Growth is the result of a great product, not the precursor
This is another line from the poster that we've taken to heart. At Konvu, we didn't scale fast. We didn't announce a big launch, or parade our fundraising. We didn't chase vanity metrics or try to look bigger than we were. For the first year, we stayed deliberately quiet.
We focused entirely on building a product that actually delivered on its promise. That meant tight collaboration with design partners, honest feedback loops, and long hours getting the details right. While others were optimizing their perception, we were obsessing over substance.
We believe that too many vendors claim more than they can back up. Our approach was different. When we couldn't yet deliver the full value, we said less. We stayed close to customers, learned relentlessly, and invested in the product until it truly solved the problem. That difference in mindset is one of the things that sets us apart.
Startups can only solve one real problem well at a time
That philosophy is deeply embedded in how we operate at Konvu. Right now, we're laser-focused on one specific, painful problem: helping teams triage vulnerabilities from open source components. We chose it not because it was trendy or easy, but because it consistently came up in every user conversation as a top hair-on-fire issue.
While we know there are dozens of adjacent use cases we could go after, we made a deliberate call not to go broad too soon. Instead of addressing many problems shallowly, we're going deep on one. The goal is simple: build something a few users truly love for a very specific use case. Expansion and platformization will come later—but only if we nail this first.
That kind of focus helps us deliver more meaningful value, make sharper product decisions, and build a stronger foundation. It's tempting to spread out, but we know better: true momentum comes from winning one battle at a time.
Join us in shaping something early, principled, and humbitious
We're still early. We don't have everything figured out—and that's the fun of it. We're in the middle of shaping something meaningful from the ground up, learning fast, making bold bets, and building with curiosity and intent. That energy is what keeps us moving. But we know what kind of company we want to build. And this poster, as simple as it is, keeps us honest.
If you're a product-minded engineer who reads this and thinks, "That's exactly the kind of company I want to be part of", we want to hear from you. Konvu is hiring, and this is your chance to help shape something early, principled, and humbitious.