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Just start.

That’s the advice Graham Sabin (’24) would give to any ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ University student or recent grad thinking about launching a business.

“Just go into the uncertainty and be okay with it,” he says. “It’s not as scary as people make it out to be. College is the lowest-risk time in your life to try something.”

That mindset carried Sabin from building side projects during his freshman year at ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵ to launching his current AI startup, Copycat, through Y Combinator (YC), one of the most competitive startup accelerators in the world, with less than a 1% acceptance rate.

Sabin, who studied computer science with a minor in Hogan Entrepreneurial Leadership, launched his first startup during his freshman year, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, with two friends from high school.

“We had been wanting to do a project for a while, and with COVID going on, there was just not a whole lot to do,” Sabin says. “I’m not even totally sure why we landed on the idea.”

That idea became Pondr, a tool that analyzed Amazon reviews to help sellers better understand their customers.

After running Pondr for about a year and a half, Sabin paused his startup work and took a summer internship his junior year at West Monroe, a consulting firm, to give the corporate world a try.

“I had a blast at the job, but it wasn’t really fulfilling,” he says. “It wasn’t challenging enough, and the lack of ownership and ability to do what I thought needed to be done made me realize I didn’t want to go the corporate route.”

Coming out of that experience, Sabin made a decision: He would start a company of his own that he could work on full-time after graduation. In December of his senior year, he co-founded Platter, once again with his two high school friends. Platter helps restaurants build custom websites and mobile apps.

“It’s kind of like Shopify for restaurants,” he explains. “We expanded to a bunch of restaurants in Spokane and Seattle.”

After graduation, he did just what he set out to do, working on Platter full-time, growing it to serve around 50 restaurants and generating $6,500 in monthly revenue, with 70% profit margins. But as Platter grew, Sabin realized he wanted to move away from the restaurant industry. It was oversaturated, difficult to scale and, ultimately, not fulfilling.

“We wanted to build something bigger,” he says.

As someone interested in the startup ecosystem and with Y Combinator having launched companies like Airbnb, Reddit, and DoorDash, YC had always been on Sabin’s radar.

Sabin and his co-founders applied to YC six times over the years before getting accepted. In April 2024, they made it to the interview round for the first time while still working on Platter, but the idea didn’t resonate.

“We were so excited just to get the interview,” Sabin says. “But it became pretty clear they weren’t impressed. We got rejected right after.”

They applied again later that year, in October.

“They told us, ‘We like you as founders, but we don’t love the idea. Come back in three weeks with something new,’” he recalls.

In those three weeks, the idea for CopyCat came to life. The team reflected on their biggest pain points from Platter, specifically the hours they spent trying to automate repetitive tasks, where the automations constantly broke or took too long to build.

CopyCat lets businesses build browser agents to automate manual and repetitive processes.

With that idea, they were accepted into YC’s Winter 2025 batch, joining 150 other startups.

During the three-month program, Sabin and his co-founders spent most of their time refining their product, talking to users and preparing for launch, guided by group partners who acted as advisors. Twice a week, they attended dinners with guest speakers, including YC alumni like the founders of Airbnb, Coinbase and Instagram, who shared their experiences navigating the startup world.

But the most valuable part of the experience, Sabin says, was the community and mentorship.

“You’re surrounded by people who are incredibly ambitious, and it pushes you,” he says. “They’re not necessarily smarter or more talented, they just believe they can do it, and that makes you think you can go off and build whatever you want.”

Having completed the three-month accelerator, Sabin and his co-founders are now focused on growing Copycat’s user base and turning it into a tool that can help businesses of all sizes become more efficient. While it’s still early, their goal is to reach revenue milestones and begin building out a team.