I’m Sélim Benayat, co-founder of Bento. Ask me anything! 😻❤️‍🔥🍱

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Featured•3yr ago

Hey Product Hunt ✌🏻 I’m Sélim, and I’m currently working on Bento - a personal page to share everything you are, create and sell. Think link in bio, but rich and beautiful ✨. I’m a serial builder and entrepreneur, founding companies for 10 years by now. I’ve launched on Product Hunt twice before, love this place and super happy to be able to do an AMA here! Previously, I founded RosieReality, an augmented-reality company. After five years, we got acquired in 2020. The first employee at RosieReality - Mugeeb - is now my co-founder at Bento. I feel very lucky to be building products with him for the past eight years. 🥰 For Bento, we have raised a pre-seed from Sequoia - you can read all about it at Bento.me/2022. Our cold start, the first iterations, the pivot, and now our successful launch in December last year. All of it resulted in a huge, and for us, unexpected storm of love! Eight weeks later, there is a global community showcasing themselves and their work on Bento. Ask me anything about building startups, product- and community-led growth, going the VC-backed route, or getting into the Sequoia Arc program! 🕺🏻🪄

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Hi Sélim, Bento looks clean and slick! 1. Which stage were you with Bento upon joining the Sequoia Arc program? 2. Do you think you'd be here without the program? 3. What is one lesson that you've learned from the program that you could share with us?

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3yr ago

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@ieraj Eraj - thanks for your questions! Happy to try and answer! 1. Mugeeb and I were very early in our journey. So early in fact, that the product had a different name and look/feel. There was an MVP we could play with - but not too many users. 2. Definitely not - just due to the fact that Eike and Valerie joined us because they discovered Bento on the Sequoia site. 3. It's rather simple - but powerful. You have to keep growing as a founder, to be able to grow a company. Keep improving your ways of working to keep improving your company.

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3yr ago

@drmanhatta Awesome, thanks for the insights!

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3yr ago

Hey Sélim, Joe Here! Thanks for taking some questions. Wanted to know how you got connected to the Sequoia Arc program, and what the journey there was from exiting RosieReality. ...also are you Berlin based?

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3yr ago

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@joseph_natoli Joe - thanks for the questions 👋 My connection the the Sequoia team was rather serendipitous - I was talking to a friend of mine while grabbing coffee who then told me about what Arc was about and that I should reach out 🙏🏻 My journey at Arc was nothing short of transformational - as mentioned in another comment. Sequoia did a brilliant job brining together a driven group of founders and help us better understand our own ambitions and how to get there. They made sure to show us “greatness” and how we too could get there. 🪄 And yes - Berlin!!! Hence the cheeky reference in our product image on TechCrunch hahah 🤫 https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/1...

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3yr ago

@drmanhatta Thanks for sharing Selim, seems to be that rather serendipitous moments are how most good things happen. 😅 Ahh, glad to hear you are based in Berlin. I am down in Leipzig. Would love to connect in an email and try to grab a coffee sometime when I am back in Germany in a few weeks. Just send a note on Linkedin.

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3yr ago

Hey Sélim/ I love how smooth the link creation is compared to other link in bio platforms! You guys are amazing! I have 4 questions 😅 1. Does Bento plan to help creators monetise their followers in any way? 2.Did you have an MVP before engaging your first VC about fundraising for Bento or did you build the MVP after being funded? 3. Would Bento be what it is today without Sequoia's investment? In other words would you have been able to Bootstrap all the way to where the product is? 4. With so many use cases for Bento and other link in bio tools, how did you target your first 100 users?

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3yr ago

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@emmakapella Hey hey :) Let me try to give some background! 1. Yes - currently we are thinking through different models that would allows creators on Bento monetize their audience more efficiently than it is possible today. 2. We did have a small MVP you could play with - but we did not have too many users that were using it. It was more to show technical feasibility :) 3. Hmm good question - we would have been able to bootstrap it yes. But I think we would not be where we are today with Sequoia. The network supercharged our ambition and help us through tremendous professional and personal support. It truly is a world class team you are joining. 4. Love that question. For us it was "let's give it to people that are like us. That like to ship products and enjoy design". In that sense, we built it for ourselves

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3yr ago

Thank you so much! Go Bento!

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3yr ago

Hi Sélim, first of all, congratulations to the successful launch! I have three questions: 1) Who has been your greatest inspiration? 2) Can you describe/outline your typical day? 3) Where do you want to be in, let's say, 20 years? What do want to have done/achieved/experienced? What's the bigger meaning behind life for you?

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3yr ago

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@andrin_renz1 Wow three big questions - not sure if I have the answers... Let me try. 1. Who has been your greatest inspiration? This has to be my dad! To this day he is always working and pushing his own projects. Always has been. Seeing this drive to create things was very inspiring! 1. Can you describe/outline your typical day Honestly, currently rather repetitive - trying to build a company is not something to share on Instagram .. most of the time. I get up around 6:30, hit the gym, get to the office and try to get as much stuff done before the day comes to a close haha Dinner time often is around 9pm, followed by emails until it's lights out :) hahaha Of course there is the traveling and all, but the typical day is rather busy. 1. Where do you want to be in, let's say, 20 years? What do want to have done/achieved/experienced? What's the bigger meaning behind life for you? This my friend - I honestly can’t answer right now haha I hope to have answers over time :)

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3yr ago

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Congratulations on the successful launch! Product of the day, woohooo! What do you think one thing that worked out so well for your team for your PH success?

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3yr ago