Komby in 14 Steps: Step 7: Underdog Man, the one they do not see coming

In a room (virtual or real) someone is always talking about term sheets, decks, advisers and a ten-million seed. I turned up with bootstrap, a credit score built on a two-hundred-pound limit, nights of code and a determination nobody saw. The outsider learns very early to move forward whilst observers count their fundraising rounds.

Underdog Man is the track of that fight. The posture of the founder they underestimate because he has neither a TechCrunch headline nor a premium LinkedIn account, and who stays in the arena to reach success.

The trial: playing a match whose rules are not yours

Being an outsider is a daily situation: you do not have the same resources, the same visibility, or the same network as those who have already raised. You code almost alone, you support almost alone, you sell almost alone, whilst retail, hospitality and service-sector software giants line up marketing budgets bigger than your annual revenue, hundred-person teams and stands at HOSTELCO.

The fight comes from the gap between what you know of the field and what the market values. You know the field and you know what they really want. Yet they make you understand, sometimes politely, sometimes bluntly, that without fundraising, without scale and without "blitzscale", you will not count. Underdog Man takes the hit. He moves forward. Especially during a Zoom demo where the prospect compares your product to a giant.

One demo, one silence, one more obstacle

I remember a hotel of about thirty rooms, limited budget, prospect surrounded by two colleagues. He was comparing with a giant (I will not say which) that promised him "everything integrated" for double our price. On Zoom, alone facing them, I showed what I had built: one place, fifteen fewer tabs. When he asked why me rather than the giant, I could have talked only about price. I said something else: because when you have a problem on a Saturday night, you will have me, not ticket number 847291.

He nodded. He did not sign that day. He signed three weeks later. That evening, I didn't celebrate. I still had an obstacle in front of me: the system that forces you to justify existing when you serve the field (retail, service sector, restaurants and offices) better than those who raise millions to ignore it. Giants often hire profiles who have never set foot in a kitchen; I have the memory of three years of apprenticeship at sixteen to nineteen, then radio, the courts, London and a credit score at zero. That's a field advantage.

That pressure has a precise shape: having to be twice as sharp in the eyes of those who confuse fundraising and legitimacy. You over-prepare, you over-deliver, you reply at midnight because silence might be read as amateurism. Underdog Man is that: proving twice what someone else proves once, with ten times fewer resources, and keeping on towards success.

Y Combinator, 2026: too wide for the box

There are prospect rejections, and there are rejections that resonate differently. In 2026, facing Y Combinator, the answer (or what I understood of it) came down to two words I already knew from salaried France: too much. Too wide. Too many surfaces. Too much interest already captured elsewhere.

Because Komby is a MetaSaaS, not a mono-SaaS. The wording on komby.io is clear: restaurants, offices and nightclubs; reservations, CRM, reviews, social media, website, recruitment, payments, online sales, GEO and SEO, Capsule browser / workstation, and the rest of the modules. For a fund that already has dozens of mono-SaaS in portfolio, the question turns icy: why invest again in a tool that does one thing, when a MetaSaaS can already cover what several of their start-ups sell separately?

They need the world to stay fragmented. CRM or booking or reviews or social or site or recruitment or payment or SEO. I built the opposite, because an independent (restaurant, shop, office, nightclub or service business) does not have thirteen minutes for thirteen tools. They had already told me "too much" as an employee in France; they tell me again in 2026 as a founder. Same phrase, different arena. I say it because it is the outsider's battle mark: when you are invisible, they ignore you; when you are too wide, they refuse you. The industry wants boxes. Komby refuses the box. Underdog Man carries that.

Why this title

Underdog Man came out to say it clearly: outsider, not loser. I won't waste my life calming observers who count my fundraising rounds. Their opinion weighs nothing. I do what I have to do to succeed.

The beat came hard, rebellious. Amanda Leen sings the outsider as a fighter they underestimate who keeps moving anyway.

One day I will meet a serious investor, in phase with my whole personality. Until then, I build. Obstacles stay obstacles. Success stays the goal.

What this step fed

The Komby album is quasi-autobiographical. Underdog Man documents the trial of invisibility: playing a match whose rules favour those who have already won elsewhere. On France Je Te Quitte, I have told other fights without a net, departures, exiles, rebuilds. Here, the fight is that of the market, of the gaze, of permanent comparison.

Komby inherited that agility by the necessity of staying in the arena. What comes next (The Takeover) arrives when the market stops ignoring you and pressure changes shape.

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Alexandre Auger, CEO of Komby

*Step 7/14. Previous: London Lights (06). Next: The Takeover (08)*