Thought the accelerator taught growth hacking, but discovered subtraction to a single thing
The hardest part of subtraction isn't cutting entertainment—it's eliminating the second-most important thing to obsess over the most important one.
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HF0's selectivity with ten companies per batch beats Y Combinator's scale
HF0 takes ten companies per batch, three times yearly; Y Combinator takes two hundred per batch, four times yearly. Guo Jing (郭靖) calls Y Combinator ‘spray and pray’—casting wide nets and betting on probability to produce winners. Early-stage accelerators theoretically have lower success rates, so they need larger pools to hedge risk; HF0 does the opposite, shrinking the denominator to its minimum and compensating only through extreme selectivity, making its acceptance rate far lower than Y Combinator's.
— Guo JingOpenRouter made barely enough for coffee, and that was the whole strategy
At HF0's weekly Monday Demo Dinners, each company reports progress on a single metric. OpenRouter didn't report revenue, but weekly token calls—founder Louis often said the company's earnings barely covered two cups of coffee. Months later, Stripe acquired OpenRouter for 7 billion dollars, and HF0 co-founder Evan posted to the alumni group with the caption ‘enough for coffee’.
— Guo JingJumping from 100 to 150 daily outreach contacts forced growth to emerge
During his growth obsession, Guo Jing consulted growth expert Blake Anderson on influencer partnerships. Guo said he'd contacted over 100 influencers in several months; Anderson said he contacts 150 per day—the order-of-magnitude gap made Guo realize his system was broken, so he rebuilt his outreach, follow-up, and conversion flow; now his team contacts 200 influencers per day.
— Guo JingPrice increases to drive growth collide with the conservation of energy
Guo Jing tried raising prices 30% to drive growth, but later realized this was ‘conservation of energy’—the conversion gains from raising prices are offset by potential-user churn and reputation loss. He noticed the best products like OpenAI and Anthropic don't rely on pricing tricks; annual plans are just monthly times 12 at 20% off, numbers decided casually, with real effort focused on model quality itself.
— Guo JingReal subtraction means cutting even the second-most important thing from focus
People think HF0's ‘subtraction’ means founders skip socializing and relaxing; Guo Jing says that's backwards—cutting entertainment is the easy part. Real subtraction is fixating only on what matters most to the company, even excluding the second-most important thing: if a major partnership moves slowly, abandon it, because trying to do everything means doing nothing about what actually matters most.
— Guo JingNovember 1 arrived and revenue doubled overnight from months of accumulated momentum
In the first half of the program, except for OpenRouter—which had already achieved flywheel effects—the whole cohort saw almost no growth, making Dave question his judgment. On October 30, everyone was still encouraging each other; on November 1, Guo Jing woke to find daily revenue had doubled—the accumulated influencer system and paid event both took effect the same day, then grew another 50%, then doubled again.
— Guo JingOpenRouter's moat may not survive a straightforward price war
Guo Jing observed that OpenRouter works because it executes one thing to extreme simplicity: no aggressive monetization, no reckless fundraising, just ‘a unified interface for calling all large models’. Developers don't rewrite code to switch models, and model makers rush to integrate because the call-volume leaderboard already carries authority. But Guo Jing admits this advantage might not withstand pure price competition.
— Guo JingAI music can master vocal technique but cannot generate imperfect emotional moments
Guo Jing says AI music can now achieve ‘vocal fusion’ humans cannot, yet cannot generate the moments that truly move—those imperfect, rawly emotional instants. He cites Li Zhi (李志)'s song captured on phone video at a Nanjing bar as more alive than the later mastered version, and Shan Yichun (山一纯)'s mid-performance crack and hesitation on The Voice of China moved him more than a perfect take would.
— Guo JingIn their own words · checked verbatim
It's more or less a joke—the spray and pray logic. Spray means spraying water, pray means praying, you spray everything out there.
它更多的是一种 开玩笑的讲 叫spray and pray的逻辑 就是spray就是洒水 pray就是祈祷 全部都洒掉
Guo Jing3:02
Louis used to say our revenue is just enough to buy two cups of coffee—he said it constantly.
然后Louis经常说 这个我们的收入也就是够喝两杯咖啡 他经常说这个话
Guo Jing11:07
I was like, I've contacted maybe over 100 in several months; he's like, I contact 150 per day.
我说我大概几个月时间联系了100多个吧 他说我每天联系150个
Guo Jing14:09
Things that seem unstable become stable once you increase the scale.
不稳定的东西, 当他的数量级提升上来之后就变成稳定的了
Guo Jing15:09
Looking back now, I feel like energy is conserved: when you raise prices, you lose potential users, and those lost potential users offset your gains.
但是今天我回过来, 我觉得能量是守恒的, 你涨了价格, 那么你流失了可能一些人的可能性, 这些人就是你的潜在用户流失了
Guo Jing18:12
Subtraction isn't cutting unimportant leisure activities—the hard part is fixating only on what matters most to your company, even eliminating the second-most important thing.
做减法不是说 你去把那些不重要的娱乐去减掉 做减法最难的是 怎么只盯着这个 对你公司最重要的那件事情 甚至排除掉第二重要的事情
Guo Jing21:15
October 30, everyone was still encouraging each other; November 1 morning I woke up and our daily revenue had doubled.
10月30号 大家就在聊着事 11月1号 我睁开眼 我们的当日收入翻了一倍
Guo Jing32:22
What truly moves people are those imperfect instants, those moments of genuine emotion.
但是我觉得触动人的东西 他是那些不完美的瞬间 真情流露的瞬间
Guo Jing52:37
Figures
| Stripe acquisition price for OpenRouter | 7 billion dollars | 1:01 |
| HF0 current batch investment terms | $1 million for 5% equity | 1:01 |
| HF0 previous batch investment terms | $625,000 for 3% equity | 4:04 |
| ACE Studio monthly revenue growth during HF0 | $80,000 to $800,000 per month (10x) | 11:07 |
| Blake Anderson's daily influencer contacts | 150 per day | 14:09 |
| Revenue increase from price raise | 30% | 17:12 |
Glossary
- spray and pray
- Investing broadly without selectivity; batching bets and relying on probability to produce winners.
- subtraction
- HF0 founder Dave's core principle of relentless focus on a single priority, removing everything else.
- Demo Dinner
- HF0's weekly Monday ritual where each company reports two-minute progress updates on a single metric.
- unified interface for LLMs
- OpenRouter's early positioning: one interface for developers to call any large model without rewriting code.
How to listen
Founders and team leads wanting to understand high-pressure accelerators like HF0, or designing internal sprint structures.
If you're not interested in AI music generation details, you can skip the Suno competition section after the 44-minute mark.