Raphael Schaad

General Partner @ YC | Swiss Designer, MIT Engineer, Cron Founder

Founder

Cron· Winter 2020🇺🇸 United States

in LinkedIn 𝕏 @raphaelschaad

2026General Partner· Y Combinator

Founder · since 2019

Company

Y Combinator

Role

General Partner

current

Stage

—

no public source

Raised

—

no public source

Based

San Francisco, CA

current

Founder / co-founder — the company's markEmployee / research role

Source: LinkedIn work history

Profile coverage5 of 7 · missing posts, contact

Cron

Next-generation calendar for professionals and teams

Winter 2020

Experience

Career

Y Combinator
General Partner · San Francisco, CA · 2026 – Present
2026
Y Combinator
Visiting Partner · San Francisco, CA · 2025 – 2026
2025
Notion
Head of Design, Apps · New York, NY · 2025
2025
Notion
Head of Product, Calendar · New York, New York, United States · 2022 – 2024
2022
Cron
Founder
Founder CEO · San Francisco, California, United States · 2019 – 2022
2019
Schaad Consulting
Software Designer & Engineer · Bern, Berne, Switzerland · 2017 – 2019
2017
MIT Media Lab
Researcher · Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States · 2015 – 2017
2015
Flipboard Inc.
Software Designer & Engineer · Palo Alto, California, United States · 2011 – 2015
2011
Information Architects Tokyo
Software Designer & Engineer · Tokyo, Japan · 2009 – 2010
2009
Schaad Consulting
Software Designer & Engineer · Bern, Berne, Switzerland · 2009 – 2010
2009
PostFinance (Die Schweizerische Post)
Software Designer & Engineer · Bern, Berne, Switzerland · 2002 – 2006
2002

Bio

Raphael Schaad is a Visiting Partner at YC. He was the founder and CEO of Cron (W20), a calendar product beloved for its craft and acquired by Notion in 2022. At Notion, he grew Calendar to millions of users and served as Head of Design for Growth and new products like Mail. Previously, he helped build Flipboard and iA Writer. Raphael holds a BS in Computer Science from Bern University of Applied Sciences, and an MS in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.