Karn Saroya on the Capital-Light Way to Start an Insurance Business

Karn Saroya is the CEO and cofounder of Cover, which was in the YC Winter 2016 batch.

https://twitter.com/karnsaroya/
https://cover.com/

Cover is a nationally licensed insurance brokerage. You can use their app to take a picture of property you want to insure and they’ll connect you with their insurance partners so that you can get the best price and coverage.

The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.

https://twitter.com/craigcannon

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Topics

00:08 – Karn’s intro

00:33 – Using computer vision to identify and catalogue property

2:00 – How Karn ended up starting Cover

3:20 – Being a maker vs. an advisor

5:30 – Stylekick, Karn’s previous startup

9:00 – Joining Shopify

9:40 – How the idea for Cover happened

11:30 – The capital-light way to start an insurance business

16:00 – Underwriting

17:30 – Lead generation

19:50 – Product development

21:00 – Buying Cover.com for $750k

24:25 – Being engaged to a cofounder

28:15 – Managing two offices and cultures

30:30 – Being an international founder in YC

31:30 – Advice to people in the current batch of YC