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Do you (generic you) think this could scale with something like a franchise model? Consider: there is a local Startup School "Dojo" where a number of founders

Do you (generic you) think this could scale with something like a franchise model? Consider: there is a local Startup School "Dojo" where a number of founders come together to watch the lectures. Instead of passing through all the questions, they try to solve the problems themselves and then escalate some common problems to office hours. I am just trying to think of ways that you -- or anyone -- could spread the startup gospel to all 50,000 and eventually more. Someone might say: You can always start your own study group. Response: True, but you want feedback from people who have gone through a few successful startup cycles. Ycombinator has credibility.

sandslash 10y ago
That's a really interesting idea, and a possibility. It's definitely something I've thought about a lot. Quite a few communities have reached out about doing study groups, and I'm excited to hear their feedback.
- startupdiscuss 10y ago
  One possibility, and I think HN is the right forum, is to produce some tools to leverage those communities. Some ideas: 1. Working infrastructure for chatrooms etc 2. A curriculum for people to go through 3. The most important thing, I think, is to have those weekly classes to tune into so the people adopt the rhythm. And whatever other ideas all the smart HN readers might suggest following this. Edit: Someone should submit this as one of the projects!
- samknight 10y ago
  Hi Steven, I understand you're putting together the Startup School MOC with Finbarr and Sam. I'm a London based startup founder who loves the idea behind the course and is interested in getting the most possible from it. My interest lead me to hitting the Startup School Radio podcast where I heard this sentiment from a fellow London founder, YC alumni and ex-YC partner Harj Taggar "Just psychologically it's a big deal to be around a lot of other people going through the same thing you are, and just not feeling like you're crazy". I took Harj's words to heart and went about finding other London founders who were in a similar situation to us, told them about the upcoming MOC and started organising us into a YC inspired network of support. After one week of reaching out and attending non-stop Meetup events for tech startups (7 so far, 4 more to go!), I've collected a brilliant group of 18 founders. It turns out they loved the idea of doing the course together just as much as we did. First YC lesson learnt: build something users love and they will be very happy to engage with you. We're currently organising our first weekly dinner (it's tomorrow and I've never cooked for 18 people - here's hoping everyone likes pasta!), and our attempt at office hours will commence with the first lecture. Any advice or assistance you'd be able to offer us would be brilliant and most appreciated. Is emailing you guys at startupschool@ycombinator.com the best place for that? Thanks for your time reading a rather long message! Lots of love from the London YC gang to the MOC team in Mountain View. Sam Knightsbridge ComHouse CEO
SmellTheGlove 10y ago
I think it's hard. With YC, the ongoing benefit from the founders' end is really the network. I think a franchise type model would really dilute that, and you'd end up with the "real" YC and everything else. To provide an example, consider law schools and the ABA versus medical schools and the AAMC: There are many ABA-accredited law schools, from which a degree will allow you to sit for the bar exam in a given state. The "real" law schools (let's say the Top 14 for now, with full disclosure that I attended a much shittier law school) provide a very similar education to everyone else even down through Tier 4. The network gets you hired into the big firms with greater ease from HLS and the rest of the Top 14. Everyone else has the same law license (provided they pass the bar), but the opportunities are markedly different for most. And before any fellow Tier 3/4'ers want to flame me for this, come on, you 100% know it's true. I think I've done pretty well, but I also stopped practicing law to do it. Now, an AAMC-accredited education, on the other hand, provides a lot more parity out of the gate when it comes to opportunity. Med school slots roughly match up with the number of residency slots in a given year, and more or less everyone matches. Not everyone gets to do Ortho/Plastic, but that has more to do with how well you did in med school, versus which med school you attended. The school itself still factors for some specialties, but not nearly to the degree that it would in law. You can be a pretty average med student and still walk out with a residency, license and reasonably good income. YC is more like #2.
- startupdiscuss 10y ago
  Let's say I agree with you that there is a lot of value in the network and the brand. The question remains: is there any residual value left in the advice and the "training"? Or, more importantly, is there significant value in the advice? Because if the answer to that question is affirmative, then even if I agree with you, it is a worthy pursuit. Note that value in advice is context sensitive. What might be amazing, valuable advice in 2009 may be standard stuff that you can get off many different courses in 2019. But while there are many places where you can learn to put the customer first and do some prototyping, there are a limited number of places you can learn what is happening now. ("Sure, in 2011 you could get funding by showing your user studies, but not an investor expects the product to be smart enough to learn the user's preferences on the fly" or whatever).

sandslash 10y ago

That's a really interesting idea, and a possibility. It's definitely something I've thought about a lot. Quite a few communities have reached out about doing study groups, and I'm excited to hear their feedback.

startupdiscuss 10y ago
One possibility, and I think HN is the right forum, is to produce some tools to leverage those communities. Some ideas: 1. Working infrastructure for chatrooms etc 2. A curriculum for people to go through 3. The most important thing, I think, is to have those weekly classes to tune into so the people adopt the rhythm. And whatever other ideas all the smart HN readers might suggest following this. Edit: Someone should submit this as one of the projects!
samknight 10y ago
Hi Steven, I understand you're putting together the Startup School MOC with Finbarr and Sam. I'm a London based startup founder who loves the idea behind the course and is interested in getting the most possible from it. My interest lead me to hitting the Startup School Radio podcast where I heard this sentiment from a fellow London founder, YC alumni and ex-YC partner Harj Taggar "Just psychologically it's a big deal to be around a lot of other people going through the same thing you are, and just not feeling like you're crazy". I took Harj's words to heart and went about finding other London founders who were in a similar situation to us, told them about the upcoming MOC and started organising us into a YC inspired network of support. After one week of reaching out and attending non-stop Meetup events for tech startups (7 so far, 4 more to go!), I've collected a brilliant group of 18 founders. It turns out they loved the idea of doing the course together just as much as we did. First YC lesson learnt: build something users love and they will be very happy to engage with you. We're currently organising our first weekly dinner (it's tomorrow and I've never cooked for 18 people - here's hoping everyone likes pasta!), and our attempt at office hours will commence with the first lecture. Any advice or assistance you'd be able to offer us would be brilliant and most appreciated. Is emailing you guys at startupschool@ycombinator.com the best place for that? Thanks for your time reading a rather long message! Lots of love from the London YC gang to the MOC team in Mountain View. Sam Knightsbridge ComHouse CEO

SmellTheGlove 10y ago

I think it's hard. With YC, the ongoing benefit from the founders' end is really the network. I think a franchise type model would really dilute that, and you'd end up with the "real" YC and everything else. To provide an example, consider law schools and the ABA versus medical schools and the AAMC: There are many ABA-accredited law schools, from which a degree will allow you to sit for the bar exam in a given state. The "real" law schools (let's say the Top 14 for now, with full disclosure that I attended a much shittier law school) provide a very similar education to everyone else even down through Tier 4. The network gets you hired into the big firms with greater ease from HLS and the rest of the Top 14. Everyone else has the same law license (provided they pass the bar), but the opportunities are markedly different for most. And before any fellow Tier 3/4'ers want to flame me for this, come on, you 100% know it's true. I think I've done pretty well, but I also stopped practicing law to do it. Now, an AAMC-accredited education, on the other hand, provides a lot more parity out of the gate when it comes to opportunity. Med school slots roughly match up with the number of residency slots in a given year, and more or less everyone matches. Not everyone gets to do Ortho/Plastic, but that has more to do with how well you did in med school, versus which med school you attended. The school itself still factors for some specialties, but not nearly to the degree that it would in law. You can be a pretty average med student and still walk out with a residency, license and reasonably good income. YC is more like #2.

startupdiscuss 10y ago
Let's say I agree with you that there is a lot of value in the network and the brand. The question remains: is there any residual value left in the advice and the "training"? Or, more importantly, is there significant value in the advice? Because if the answer to that question is affirmative, then even if I agree with you, it is a worthy pursuit. Note that value in advice is context sensitive. What might be amazing, valuable advice in 2009 may be standard stuff that you can get off many different courses in 2019. But while there are many places where you can learn to put the customer first and do some prototyping, there are a limited number of places you can learn what is happening now. ("Sure, in 2011 you could get funding by showing your user studies, but not an investor expects the product to be smart enough to learn the user's preferences on the fly" or whatever).