8 ms·

YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet

330 points by kcorbitt 6y ago

kcorbitt 6y ago
Hey HN! We launched Startup School as an online program in 2017, but it was only for founders who were already actively working on building their companies. Since then we've heard from many folks considering in starting a company in the future, and we realized that a modified version of Startup School could be helpful for them as well. This requires some curriculum tweaks like a much stronger focus on finding and vetting ideas as well as thinking about co-founders. We decided to work on that, and just announced that you can register for the new course today. It'll provide curriculum tailored for early founders as well as exercises to think through the decision to start a company or not.
- zweicoder 6y ago
  FYI I just tried signing in via my HN account, but there's an issue where it tries to collect my name and email, but fails because there's no input box for them
dumbfoundded 6y ago
I'm not sure what the ideal % of people should actually start a company is. It certainly isn't for everyone. Perhaps a helpful topic would be "Should I actually be a founder?" or "Should I start a venture scale company or a lifestyle business?". I think many more people would be happy with the consistency and regularity of a small lifestyle business than pursing an opportunity that's billion or bust.
- kcorbitt 6y ago
  Totally agreed -- starting a company probably isn't the right choice for the majority of people. Our Future Founder curriculum actually includes a couple of Paul Graham's old essays that explore that topic (http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html and http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html). Hopefully, this course will help potential founders make a more informed decision about whether starting a company is the right decision for them or not.
- quaffapint 6y ago
  That is certainly a valid point and there should be something on it. Though at the same time a lot of the stages and efforts you need to go through in the beginning (validation, sales, marketing, etc) are very similar. I never have aspiration that whatever I create will make enough money for me to leave my day job. Give that, I still need to go through all the steps though to get there.
- eloff 6y ago
  Given how many people are unemployed, I would say a problem in the USA (and probably all developed nations with few exceptions) today is that not enough people start companies. Too many employees, not enough employers. That said, most people are better suited to starting a small business than a venture financed business. And the former employ vastly more people.
  - qppo 6y ago
    I agree but find it's more a capital and cultural problem to solve. Too many people don't have the financial tolerance for the risk, and too many people with it are too afraid to put it into new ventures.
    - eloff 6y ago
      I think it's school. It teaches you to be a good and compliant little worker drone from a young age. It does not encourage an entrepreneurial mindset. By the time people are adults the mindset is entrenched.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - petra 6y ago
    Solving unemployment isn't that simple:Startups, especially recent startups often increase productivity, and that reduces the amount of jobs or wages.
- rizpanjwani 6y ago
  from what I understand, the first video lecture addresses this.
xyclos 6y ago
I'd like to register for the course, but it asks me to complete information about my company. Surely, if I was only thinking of starting a startup and had not already started one I wouldn't have that information to provide. So, I'm not entirely sure how to complete the registration other than just making stuff up.
- kcorbitt 6y ago
  After submitting your basic user information, it should ask whether you're joining as an active founder or a future founder. If you select "Future Founder", you won't be asked to complete a company profile. If you accidentally selected the wrong track, you can update your selection at https://www.startupschool.org/track https://www.startupschool.org/track . Hope that makes sense! EDIT: to those still running into issues here, the workarounds others have posted (fill out dummy company data, then go to "Choose a Track" and switch to "Future Founders" track) seem to work. Still trying to find the root cause here. EDIT2: This should be resolved now for everyone.
  - xyclos 6y ago
    Ah, thank you. Interestingly I didn't see that step. It went straight to the information about your business step. I've switched the selection now.
  - asimpletune 6y ago
    Every time I try to sign up it just takes me to step 4/4, with no way to go back. I’m on mobile.
    - madacol 6y ago
      Same as you here. Just Invent some non sense there, and when you are inside, you can go to "My profile" > Choose Track, and choose "Future Founder"
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
djsavvy 6y ago
Looks cool! Hoping to learn a lot. By the way, @dang, the link https://www.startupschool.org/posts/35214 https://www.startupschool.org/posts/35214 on the page https://www.startupschool.org/dashboard https://www.startupschool.org/dashboard (under "Welcome to the forum") is 404ing for me. Has it not been published yet?
- kcorbitt 6y ago
  Good catch -- this should be fixed for you now. I'll push a general fix that'll avoid this problem for everyone in the next 20 minutes.
cglee 6y ago
IMO, there needs to be a bootstrapping track. Perhaps the bootstrapping track should even be the primary one. Of course YC won't do this, but IMHO, bootstrapping leads to the best chance for young people to quickly become millionaires.
- kcorbitt 6y ago
  We've talked about this, and may build a track that officially targets this in the future. That said, with the exception of two pieces of content that talk about applying to YC, one piece about understanding SAFE financing, and perhaps part of our video about pitching your startup, really everything else we talk about is the right advice whether you're planning on bootstrapping or raising VC. Learning to build something people want, which is the core of the Startup School curriculum, really doesn't depend on where your funding comes from!
  - mdorazio 6y ago
    Definitely finding the right thing to make and then finding product-market fit are the same, but bootstrapping necessarily limits your choices to products/services that are profitable early on rather than after burning millions to capture market share. Bootstrapping also, in my opinion and experience, requires a lot more appreciation of accounting and finance on the part of founders, and a lot more questioning ("do I really need to hire another person for this or can I find a way to keep costs down?"). I can definitely see a different curriculum and skillset building that is separate from the VC track.
    - ampdepolymerase 6y ago
      The problem is that YC-type opportunities are limited to those living in maybe 3 cities. Most places in the world do not have the funding opportunities. Shaping the narrative such that YC-style incubation is the "default" only benefits YC so they will have an increasingly large pool of applicants where they can pick the cream of the crop. This does not serve founders well as they would be wasting their time networking to nowhere when instead they should be building and selling.
TameAntelope 6y ago
I'm getting this response when I try to log in: {"status":422,"error":"Unprocessable Entity"}
- kcorbitt 6y ago
  Hey, please email us a screenshot of the page right before you get that error to startupschool@ycombinator.com and I'll take a look ASAP.
  - TameAntelope 6y ago
    Sent -- appreciated!
mrkurt 6y ago
I'm here for the Zoolander meme. Even if it was an accident.
manesioz 6y ago
Really excited for this!
ryanmarsh 6y ago
A CENTER FOR ANTS???
codetrotter 6y ago
OT the title as written by the submitter (“YC Startup School for future founders who aren’t quite ready to start yet”) reminds me a bit of Zoolander Anyway, the program sounds very interesting and it’s nice to see that YC is caring about people who want to start something but don’t yet know what they want to start.
- will_pseudonym 6y ago
  > reminds me a bit of Zoolander Thanks for the laugh. :) Taking that theme further, here's an an extension to that title I came up with: "YC Startup School for future founders who aren’t quite ready to start yet and who want to start in the future too"
yuskii 6y ago
I'll think about applying...after my other interviews.
etherio 6y ago
This is really great! As a high school student I'm not very experienced with the startup ecosystem but it'll be really interesting to learn more.
kevdev 6y ago
Serious thank you for doing this!
scriptnull 6y ago
When I click on Register and login with my YC account, it takes me to "SIGN UP | COMPANY DETAILS (STEP 4/4)" step. I think I left halfway while signing up in Startup School long time ago for the first time. Is there a way to not fill the company details and sign up for future founders course?
- kcorbitt 6y ago
  Ah yes, you're not the only one but your comment here helped me diagnose the issue! I've fixed this issue now and you should be able to select a track and complete registration.
  - scriptnull 6y ago
    Thanks for the quick fix!
sirodoht 6y ago
It feels like YC is the mainstream thing nowadays, the traditional school of startupery. But startup founders and hackers like the naughty [0] things, not the established. [0]: https://youtu.be/4WO5kJChg3w?t=404 https://youtu.be/4WO5kJChg3w?t=404
- ngokevin 6y ago
  That's a bit over-generalized. If someone's idea of doing a naughty thing is not making something people want, not talking to users, not validating a problem, not explaining what you do clearly, I don't think they'll do well at all.
drchiu 6y ago
My first thought was that this sounds like a joke, but thinking about it further I realized there are definitely some target cases for this kind of program. I'm lucky to be able to work on my stuff full time, but it wasn't too long ago when I worked a full time job and couldn't find the time to balance things out to go 100% in my business. I think this is great. I would think of it as "progressive onboarding" for future founders.
wenbin 6y ago
YC is always doing a good job in educating people on startup things, and they truly inspire a whole generation of founders, including myself. But still, most advices we could find online are too high level, too abstract, too philosophical. Yeah there’s a need for this type of things. But as a person who is thinking to quit his/her job to start a company, they may need more actionable advices and data points, e.g., how to buy healthy insurance, what corporate credit card to use, where to find design/engineering help, what specific tools to use for specific things & the cost... I wish there were such “trivia” advices when I started out 4 years ago. Of course, we can’t expect someone like pg or sam Altman to tell us what specific saas or api or health insurance to buy :) this kind of things can only come from people who fight in the frontline , while the memory / experience is still fresh. Maybe I should write an ebook for these unglamorous advices , especially for people who don’t want to go the venture scale route :) - [edit 1] I had an old blog post on the tools / tech I used for my company: https://www.listennotes.com/blog/the-boring-technology-behind-a-one-person-23/ https://www.listennotes.com/blog/the-boring-technology-behin... it’s of course not the most optimal set of tools & tech; but they get things done :) - [edit 2] when people make it and become successful entrepreneurs/VCs, they are teaching in startup graduate schools with their deep knowledge. But Where is the startup kindergarten/primary school to teach those things that college/graduate schools assume you already know?
- chrisweekly 6y ago
  I recommend a famous book about creating companies and running / growing successful businesses called "The Hard Thing About Hard Things". The gist of it is, there is no recipe for success, no roadmap or checklist to follow. Due diligence and research / prep are one thing, but anyone requiring a "color by numbers" or "connect the dots" guide is, by definition, ill-suited for entrepreneurship.
  - jayjohn436 6y ago
    One of the best books I have ever read. It taught me what it meant to be a product manager and how to be a professional at the workplace no matter what. I now refer to it almost every day while running my own start up which is three months old.
mtVessel 6y ago
You know what's funny? I've read the promo material, signed up, and there's little mention of how this program works, whether it's synchronous, async, or what? I'm assuming it's all async, since otherwise, it would be titled "Startup School for future founders who are comfortable with open-ended commitments, because they're young, single and unemployed."
DoreenMichele 6y ago
The post fails to specify this, so I hesitated to even bother to click through to the registration page, but this is a free course. Startup School for Future Founders A free, 6-week online course for aspiring startup founders. https://www.startupschool.org/future-founders https://www.startupschool.org/future-founders I wish I had a clearer idea of what kind of schedule and time commitment is involved. I'm tempted to sign up, but I still have a lot of trouble keeping a schedule, though I'm less impaired than I used to be. I can be productive, but on my own terms, which is why I work from home and yadda.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
nojvek 6y ago
The big value of YC is getting a club of people together doing similar things. I did startup school but the videos got boring. I wish I could interact with other people also doing YC and building their own startups. Half the value of school is other kids also in the same environment. Easy to forget that when making things online.

330 points by kcorbitt 6y ago

Hey HN! We launched Startup School as an online program in 2017, but it was only for founders who were already actively working on building their companies. Since then we've heard from many folks considering in starting a company in the future, and we realized that a modified version of Startup School could be helpful for them as well. This requires some curriculum tweaks like a much stronger focus on finding and vetting ideas as well as thinking about co-founders. We decided to work on that, and just announced that you can register for the new course today. It'll provide curriculum tailored for early founders as well as exercises to think through the decision to start a company or not.

zweicoder 6y ago
FYI I just tried signing in via my HN account, but there's an issue where it tries to collect my name and email, but fails because there's no input box for them

dumbfoundded 6y ago

I'm not sure what the ideal % of people should actually start a company is. It certainly isn't for everyone. Perhaps a helpful topic would be "Should I actually be a founder?" or "Should I start a venture scale company or a lifestyle business?". I think many more people would be happy with the consistency and regularity of a small lifestyle business than pursing an opportunity that's billion or bust.

kcorbitt 6y ago
Totally agreed -- starting a company probably isn't the right choice for the majority of people. Our Future Founder curriculum actually includes a couple of Paul Graham's old essays that explore that topic (http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html and http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html). Hopefully, this course will help potential founders make a more informed decision about whether starting a company is the right decision for them or not.
quaffapint 6y ago
That is certainly a valid point and there should be something on it. Though at the same time a lot of the stages and efforts you need to go through in the beginning (validation, sales, marketing, etc) are very similar. I never have aspiration that whatever I create will make enough money for me to leave my day job. Give that, I still need to go through all the steps though to get there.
eloff 6y ago
Given how many people are unemployed, I would say a problem in the USA (and probably all developed nations with few exceptions) today is that not enough people start companies. Too many employees, not enough employers. That said, most people are better suited to starting a small business than a venture financed business. And the former employ vastly more people.
- qppo 6y ago
  I agree but find it's more a capital and cultural problem to solve. Too many people don't have the financial tolerance for the risk, and too many people with it are too afraid to put it into new ventures.
  - eloff 6y ago
    I think it's school. It teaches you to be a good and compliant little worker drone from a young age. It does not encourage an entrepreneurial mindset. By the time people are adults the mindset is entrenched.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- petra 6y ago
  Solving unemployment isn't that simple:Startups, especially recent startups often increase productivity, and that reduces the amount of jobs or wages.
rizpanjwani 6y ago
from what I understand, the first video lecture addresses this.

xyclos 6y ago

I'd like to register for the course, but it asks me to complete information about my company. Surely, if I was only thinking of starting a startup and had not already started one I wouldn't have that information to provide. So, I'm not entirely sure how to complete the registration other than just making stuff up.

kcorbitt 6y ago
After submitting your basic user information, it should ask whether you're joining as an active founder or a future founder. If you select "Future Founder", you won't be asked to complete a company profile. If you accidentally selected the wrong track, you can update your selection at https://www.startupschool.org/track https://www.startupschool.org/track . Hope that makes sense! EDIT: to those still running into issues here, the workarounds others have posted (fill out dummy company data, then go to "Choose a Track" and switch to "Future Founders" track) seem to work. Still trying to find the root cause here. EDIT2: This should be resolved now for everyone.
- xyclos 6y ago
  Ah, thank you. Interestingly I didn't see that step. It went straight to the information about your business step. I've switched the selection now.
- asimpletune 6y ago
  Every time I try to sign up it just takes me to step 4/4, with no way to go back. I’m on mobile.
  - madacol 6y ago
    Same as you here. Just Invent some non sense there, and when you are inside, you can go to "My profile" > Choose Track, and choose "Future Founder"
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

djsavvy 6y ago

Looks cool! Hoping to learn a lot. By the way, @dang, the link https://www.startupschool.org/posts/35214 https://www.startupschool.org/posts/35214 on the page https://www.startupschool.org/dashboard https://www.startupschool.org/dashboard (under "Welcome to the forum") is 404ing for me. Has it not been published yet?

kcorbitt 6y ago
Good catch -- this should be fixed for you now. I'll push a general fix that'll avoid this problem for everyone in the next 20 minutes.

cglee 6y ago

IMO, there needs to be a bootstrapping track. Perhaps the bootstrapping track should even be the primary one. Of course YC won't do this, but IMHO, bootstrapping leads to the best chance for young people to quickly become millionaires.

kcorbitt 6y ago
We've talked about this, and may build a track that officially targets this in the future. That said, with the exception of two pieces of content that talk about applying to YC, one piece about understanding SAFE financing, and perhaps part of our video about pitching your startup, really everything else we talk about is the right advice whether you're planning on bootstrapping or raising VC. Learning to build something people want, which is the core of the Startup School curriculum, really doesn't depend on where your funding comes from!
- mdorazio 6y ago
  Definitely finding the right thing to make and then finding product-market fit are the same, but bootstrapping necessarily limits your choices to products/services that are profitable early on rather than after burning millions to capture market share. Bootstrapping also, in my opinion and experience, requires a lot more appreciation of accounting and finance on the part of founders, and a lot more questioning ("do I really need to hire another person for this or can I find a way to keep costs down?"). I can definitely see a different curriculum and skillset building that is separate from the VC track.
  - ampdepolymerase 6y ago
    The problem is that YC-type opportunities are limited to those living in maybe 3 cities. Most places in the world do not have the funding opportunities. Shaping the narrative such that YC-style incubation is the "default" only benefits YC so they will have an increasingly large pool of applicants where they can pick the cream of the crop. This does not serve founders well as they would be wasting their time networking to nowhere when instead they should be building and selling.

TameAntelope 6y ago

I'm getting this response when I try to log in: {"status":422,"error":"Unprocessable Entity"}

kcorbitt 6y ago
Hey, please email us a screenshot of the page right before you get that error to startupschool@ycombinator.com and I'll take a look ASAP.
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  Sent -- appreciated!

mrkurt 6y ago

I'm here for the Zoolander meme. Even if it was an accident.

manesioz 6y ago

Really excited for this!

ryanmarsh 6y ago

A CENTER FOR ANTS???

codetrotter 6y ago

OT the title as written by the submitter (“YC Startup School for future founders who aren’t quite ready to start yet”) reminds me a bit of Zoolander Anyway, the program sounds very interesting and it’s nice to see that YC is caring about people who want to start something but don’t yet know what they want to start.

will_pseudonym 6y ago
> reminds me a bit of Zoolander Thanks for the laugh. :) Taking that theme further, here's an an extension to that title I came up with: "YC Startup School for future founders who aren’t quite ready to start yet and who want to start in the future too"

yuskii 6y ago

I'll think about applying...after my other interviews.

etherio 6y ago

This is really great! As a high school student I'm not very experienced with the startup ecosystem but it'll be really interesting to learn more.

kevdev 6y ago

Serious thank you for doing this!

scriptnull 6y ago

When I click on Register and login with my YC account, it takes me to "SIGN UP | COMPANY DETAILS (STEP 4/4)" step. I think I left halfway while signing up in Startup School long time ago for the first time. Is there a way to not fill the company details and sign up for future founders course?

kcorbitt 6y ago
Ah yes, you're not the only one but your comment here helped me diagnose the issue! I've fixed this issue now and you should be able to select a track and complete registration.
- scriptnull 6y ago
  Thanks for the quick fix!

sirodoht 6y ago

It feels like YC is the mainstream thing nowadays, the traditional school of startupery. But startup founders and hackers like the naughty [0] things, not the established. [0]: https://youtu.be/4WO5kJChg3w?t=404 https://youtu.be/4WO5kJChg3w?t=404

ngokevin 6y ago
That's a bit over-generalized. If someone's idea of doing a naughty thing is not making something people want, not talking to users, not validating a problem, not explaining what you do clearly, I don't think they'll do well at all.

drchiu 6y ago

My first thought was that this sounds like a joke, but thinking about it further I realized there are definitely some target cases for this kind of program. I'm lucky to be able to work on my stuff full time, but it wasn't too long ago when I worked a full time job and couldn't find the time to balance things out to go 100% in my business. I think this is great. I would think of it as "progressive onboarding" for future founders.

wenbin 6y ago

YC is always doing a good job in educating people on startup things, and they truly inspire a whole generation of founders, including myself. But still, most advices we could find online are too high level, too abstract, too philosophical. Yeah there’s a need for this type of things. But as a person who is thinking to quit his/her job to start a company, they may need more actionable advices and data points, e.g., how to buy healthy insurance, what corporate credit card to use, where to find design/engineering help, what specific tools to use for specific things & the cost... I wish there were such “trivia” advices when I started out 4 years ago. Of course, we can’t expect someone like pg or sam Altman to tell us what specific saas or api or health insurance to buy :) this kind of things can only come from people who fight in the frontline , while the memory / experience is still fresh. Maybe I should write an ebook for these unglamorous advices , especially for people who don’t want to go the venture scale route :) - [edit 1] I had an old blog post on the tools / tech I used for my company: https://www.listennotes.com/blog/the-boring-technology-behind-a-one-person-23/ https://www.listennotes.com/blog/the-boring-technology-behin... it’s of course not the most optimal set of tools & tech; but they get things done :) - [edit 2] when people make it and become successful entrepreneurs/VCs, they are teaching in startup graduate schools with their deep knowledge. But Where is the startup kindergarten/primary school to teach those things that college/graduate schools assume you already know?

chrisweekly 6y ago
I recommend a famous book about creating companies and running / growing successful businesses called "The Hard Thing About Hard Things". The gist of it is, there is no recipe for success, no roadmap or checklist to follow. Due diligence and research / prep are one thing, but anyone requiring a "color by numbers" or "connect the dots" guide is, by definition, ill-suited for entrepreneurship.
- jayjohn436 6y ago
  One of the best books I have ever read. It taught me what it meant to be a product manager and how to be a professional at the workplace no matter what. I now refer to it almost every day while running my own start up which is three months old.

mtVessel 6y ago

You know what's funny? I've read the promo material, signed up, and there's little mention of how this program works, whether it's synchronous, async, or what? I'm assuming it's all async, since otherwise, it would be titled "Startup School for future founders who are comfortable with open-ended commitments, because they're young, single and unemployed."

DoreenMichele 6y ago

The post fails to specify this, so I hesitated to even bother to click through to the registration page, but this is a free course. Startup School for Future Founders A free, 6-week online course for aspiring startup founders. https://www.startupschool.org/future-founders https://www.startupschool.org/future-founders I wish I had a clearer idea of what kind of schedule and time commitment is involved. I'm tempted to sign up, but I still have a lot of trouble keeping a schedule, though I'm less impaired than I used to be. I can be productive, but on my own terms, which is why I work from home and yadda.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

nojvek 6y ago

The big value of YC is getting a club of people together doing similar things. I did startup school but the videos got boring. I wish I could interact with other people also doing YC and building their own startups. Half the value of school is other kids also in the same environment. Easy to forget that when making things online.