Hi, I'm 19yo. I bootstrapped a SaaS in March last year together with a friend (he does sales, I do engineering). Currently we are at 250k ARR and growing fast. (Based in Netherlands).
I'm sharing this because I'm looking for people who went through a similar situation. I went from "coding in my bedroom next to my university study" to "doing technical interviews with senior engineers" and "enterprise sales to c-level people" within a year. I do like to push myself way beyond my comfort zone (it's my go-to strategy for learning new stuff) but sometimes it is quite overwhelming. Sometimes, when I can take a step back, I realize how insane this situation is.
Luckily I have supporting parents and peers, who try to advise where they can, but none of them have experience running a fast growing company.
Anyway. If anyone has had a similar experience, please share. If you know a community/network with similar people, please share.
I went from "idea in my dorm room" to interviewing and hiring executives in their 40s and 50s within 24 months. The best lesson I learned is that there are way fewer "rules" than you think, and smart, disciplined, focused entrepreneurs can accomplish way more than they assume. It's reasonable to reflect on your inexperience in order to prevent mistakes, but you should never feel intimidated by it, or let other people intimidate you. The world (and YC's portfolio) is full of "inexperienced" people like you who have built billion dollar companies that disrupted industries and became pillars of the economy.
If you post contact information in your profile, I'm sure at least a few people with relevant experience would reach out and offer to be a resource for more specific advice. I've done that a few times here with mostly successful results.