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Candidate Profile

5 cohorts3 candidates
3 candidates in LD14

Paul Smith

Location: London, UK

Position Applied: Technical Co-founder

Applied: February 12, 2024

Cohort: LD14 (London)

Application Answers

What kind of company do you want to build? (150 words)

I want to build a B2B SaaS platform that helps engineering teams ship better software faster. Having led engineering teams for 10 years, I've seen how fragmented tooling and poor developer experience slow down product development. My vision is to create an integrated platform that combines code review, testing, and deployment into a seamless workflow. The market opportunity is significant - there are 27M developers worldwide and the DevTools market is growing 25% YoY. I believe I can build a category-defining company by focusing on developer experience and solving real pain points I've experienced firsthand.

Why do you want to join Entrepreneur First? (100 words)

EF offers something unique - the opportunity to find the right co-founder before committing to an idea. As a technical person, I know my weakness is on the commercial side. EF's structured approach to team formation, combined with access to world-class mentors and a community of ambitious founders, makes it the perfect environment to build a successful company. I'm particularly drawn to EF's focus on deep tech and the caliber of people in the network.

What's the most impressive thing you've built? (100 words)

I built a customer analytics platform from scratch that became my company's core product. Starting with just an idea and requirements, I designed the architecture, led a team of 5 engineers, and shipped it in 6 months. The platform now processes 50M events daily, serves 500K+ users, and drove 30% revenue growth. What made it impressive wasn't just the technical complexity, but the impact - it fundamentally changed how our customers understood their users. I'm most proud of the product thinking that went into it.

Have you considered The Bridge programme? Why/why not?

I haven't considered The Bridge because I'm committed to being a full-time founder. I've spent the last year validating ideas and preparing financially to go all-in on building a company. While I understand The Bridge offers more flexibility, I believe the Core programme's intensity and full commitment is what I need to maximize my chances of success. I've saved enough runway to focus entirely on EF for 6 months without other commitments.

Resume Highlights

Experience: 10+ years in product engineering and technical leadership

Current Role: Senior Product Engineer at TechCorp (2020 - Present)

Previous Role: Full Stack Engineer at StartupXYZ (2016 - 2020)

Skills: React, TypeScript, Python, GraphQL, System Design, Product Strategy

Education: MSc Computer Science, Imperial College London

Notable Achievements: Built customer analytics platform serving 500K+ users, reduced system latency by 70%, led team of 5 engineers

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