8 ms·

Things I learned at YC

204 points by aelaguiz 13y ago

GuerraEarth 13y ago
I read this carefully. Thanks for posting. Applying to YC this time around, with a lot of glee and enthusiasm.
emeidi 13y ago
Let me guess: 1) Add as much items to a list as possible?
robin_reala 13y ago
If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys."
- logicallee 13y ago
  I would normally agree with you, but the fact that there are 58 of them actually makes this a more meaty article.
- dhimes 13y ago
  I never liked that guideline, partially because it's mis-stated. In "10 Ways To Do X" there is no gratuitous adjective. I actually like the number being there- it helps prepare me for what's in the article. It also kind of helps my bs detector. I do prefer, however, that the gratuitous adjective be dropped.
- wellboy 13y ago
  They are probably there to prevent link-bait since people jump on these kind of articles since they are very easy to digest.
nephorider 13y ago
One more would be to never give up even if you may be dead 3 hours later.
GrinningFool 13y ago
"- Never discredit teams in YC if they are still showing up to the events together and seem to be working" Is it accepted to discredit them/talk crap about them if they're not doing this?
- jfoster 13y ago
  I initially interpreted it the way I think you have. I think it might be intended more along the lines of "never underestimate/write-off teams ..."
- 6d0debc071 13y ago
  Talking shit about people's rarely a good idea. Even if you're right people are going to be wondering what you're saying behind their backs. A lot of political advice just boils down to what your mum probably told you in primary school: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Just trying to be a nice person to everyone will take you miles.
- aelaguiz 13y ago
  Clearly not. It means that a team who is doing the YC activities and working hard always has a chance even if they don't appear to have found a market.
  - GrinningFool 13y ago
    Fair point. I think I was making a slightly more nuanced interpretation than the author intended.
pkorzeniewski 13y ago
One thing that bothers me with advices like this is the overall negativity. Yes, we all know creating a profitable startup isn't easy, but hearing over and over again "You will fail many times", "Its get harder not easier" and so on is really demotivating. Seriously, are there no entrepreneur stories that had a great idea from the beginning, executed them smoothly without any outside financing and achieved success? And by success I mean satisfying income that allows them to work full-time on their startup and live on a decent level. Not everyone wants to build The Next Great Thing, acquire hundreds of thousands users, generate mutli-million revenue and so on.
- dkersten 13y ago
  Seriously, are there no entrepreneur stories that had a great idea from the beginning, executed them smoothly without any outside financing and achieved success? Of course there are, but what use is telling people that they can execute smoothly and be successful (without outside funding) and everything will be great when this isn't how it works for the majority of people. I understand that being told that its hard and you will fail is demotivating, but telling people otherwise isn't going to help them because it is hard and most people will fail many times before they become successful. Maybe it should be seen as a perseverance test - if you can still stay motivated after being told these demotivational things, then its an indicator that you might just have what you need to persevere and make it. The 90% of startups failing thing is true - I see it all around me, I even experienced it myself. You may think it doesn't apply to you (as I did in my previous startup), but chances are it does. I think its best to prepare people for this reality and help them persevere and learn and become stronger. Even if its demotivating...
- argumentum 13y ago
  In my view, being told "it get's harder" and "you will fail" etc is the opposite of demotivating. When things are going great, what use is motivation anyway? When things are tough is when you need motivation. And the type of motivation you need is motivation to be stoic. That's exactly what this type of advice is. It would be a very tough world for founders if "great ideas", smoothly executed, led to living at a decent level. Startups make sense because of the chance of a 10000x outcome. Otherwise, it's a losing proposition to begin with, there are much much better ways of living at a "decent level". Of course that's only the financial part of it. There are other, better reasons to do a startup.
jacquesm 13y ago
That's a pretty good list, actually. Thanks for posting this, I'm sure that any start-up could do a lot worse than to print this out in big type and staple it to their wall.
mattsfrey 13y ago
- Just shut up and get a .com This one is so hard, I've spent probably over 100 dollars in the past on those magical domain name thinker upper tools
codex 13y ago
More advice from a failed YC company (an acquhire is not a success). I understand the desire to salvage something from the experience, but I only take advise from those more successful than I am. There are so many of those.
- pg 13y ago
  Actually Amir's company is still operating. But even if it weren't, you'd be mistaken. People who fail have some of the most valuable insights. I learned YC's motto "Make something people want" from failing to do it myself.
  - codex 13y ago
    I agree. However, people who fail also have terrible insights; for some, that contributed to their failure. And there's no reason to believe the specific reasons for their failure will be applicable to you. In the NFL, teams which lose tend to keep losing even though they have plenty of opportunity to learn. Teams are salary capped, so there is no intrinsic advantage. All successful companies are alike. Each failure fails in its own way.
    - teleclimber 13y ago
      I really disagree. I think people learn more from failures. In many cases it seems the successful ones don't really truly know why they were successful. Of course they did a lot of things right and it's worthwhile to listen to how they accomplished that, but if you were to duplicate exactly what they did you wouldn't necessarily be successful. So clearly there is something more to it. In any case, there will be bad advice coming from both successes and failures. To eliminate all the "failures" as having "terrible insights" is short-sighted. PS: I'm NOT a YC alum. And my bootstrapped company is running with revenues.
      - nostrademons 13y ago
        I think people learn more from success than from failure, but they learn more from failure than from doing nothing. Since typically your choice is between trying and not trying and not between succeeding and failing, your dominant strategy should be to try and let the cards fall where they may. Aside from that, most of the people reading are in the "doing nothing" category (I'm largely in this category myself when it comes to startups, though I have tried and failed before), and so it behooves them to listen to the failures. :-)
vldx 13y ago
> Every guy has thought about starting a dating site That was good.
- the_watcher 13y ago
  I laughed at this too, as a few years back at a startup program (hard to describe, not quite hackathon, really idea lab) I spent a weekend working on the exact same idea as Grouper (3 on 3 dates). We didn't keep going as the founder lost interest when some advisors told him online dating was over (in the disruption sense).
edw519 13y ago
I like lists like this because they're so quick and easy to read, you only have to learn 1 or 2 new things to get great ROI. For me, the items fall into 4 categories: 1. Go without saying, but need to be said anyway: - Real businesses have customers - It gets harder, not easier - Investors are normal people too 2. Interesting observation: - Being committed in the face of contrary evidence can sometimes be a game-maker. Generally though it’s just stupid. - Even very successful people frequently misunderstand their own success - There is no one thing that makes a company work. 3. Sound important, but really aren't: - Everyone is basically scared of everyone else at first - Bring a notebook; don’t take notes on your phone. People think you are tweeting or something. - People without life responsibility (kids, wife, etc) are at a serious advantage in the beginning stages - Every guy has thought about starting a dating site 4. Insightful: - If it seems hard but important and you try to outsource it, you'll probably get screwed. Potentially for a long time. - The more stability the rest of your life has, the easier it’ll be to deal with the massive instability of a startup - Small problems between team members will become big problems given time - Stop dancing around the thing and say the thing (I love this one.) Great list! Thanks for sharing, Amir.
- salemh 13y ago
  - Even very successful people frequently misunderstand their own success Do you think this is related to impostor syndrome[1], or something different? Perhaps not as "harsh" as impostor syndrome? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
  - dhimes 13y ago
    I think it's partly to do with the fact that in a complex system it's sometimes pretty difficult to clearly identify lines of cause and effect, but most smart people will think about it until they've satisfied themselves that they have figured it out. This is why I'm not so sold on advice given by 'one-hit wonders,' people who scored big with a startup and are now seen as gurus because of it. I'm interested to hear what they say, but I'm skeptical.
  - nl 13y ago
peterjancelis 13y ago
"The best companies didn't have political alliances because their product was awesome and they mostly knew it. The second best companies had fantastic political alliances and an okay product / traction." Political alliances with whom exactly? "Every guy has thought about starting a dating site." That one cracked me up. "If there is no competition you’re probably screwed." Maybe, but if the second best will be close in quality to the best one in your vertical, you won't have a very valuable company. See Peter Thiel's comments in his PandoMonthly interview. "It gets harder, not easier" Can you give some examples? Being able to build a team should make things easier on the founders, as they no longer have to be great at everything. I've seen founders get more relaxed as the business matured. "All the technology heavy startups wanted to try to somehow outsource their marketing or customer acquisition" I've seen this a lot and guilty of it myself.
001sky 13y ago
- The most elusive skill seemed to be knowing what to invent and what to steal - Everyone’s problem is money until it’s hiring Two I liked, highlighting subtle but critical pain/points.
the_watcher 13y ago
I think there is an important reason why people keep starting dating sites, and a good one. One of the things you should always have when starting a company is a way to make money (no matter how far in the future, speculative, or whatever, there should be some possibility of making money). What is something that humans have shown a willingness to pay for since the dawn of time?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
endriju 13y ago
Thanks for sharing this! However, i think there is a bit of a contradiction in following 2 points: - The more stability the rest of your life has, the easier it’ll be to deal with the massive instability of a startup - People without life responsibility (kids, wife, etc) are at a serious advantage in the beginning stages So what would your conclusion be here? Are people with stable love-life in advantage, or are single people the ones that have better chances?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  I think the point is that people without 'life responsibility' find it easier to have a 'stable' life. E.g. When you don't have a wife and kids to care for and spend time with the balancing act you have to maintain to have a stable life is much easier.
- stirno 13y ago
  I'm not convinced thats a contradiction. Being single does allow for you to kind of.. put relationships on hold for awhile to push hard for your business. I'm not sure thats wise in general, but it seems advantageous in certain scenarios.
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  I interpreted that as concerning two different domains with respect to a Start Up (or any immature business, really). With respect to stability: Persons with lots of frequently changing variables in their lives (e.g. frequent beginnings/endings to relationships, moving around, etc.) have less stability. Adding the instability that comes with a turbulent, chaotic tech start up just compounds the issue and taxes one's resilience even more, because inevitably one will have to pay attention to instabilities other than business related ones. With respect to responsibility: having kids, a spouse and other similar obligations (can) act as a tether and definitely act as dividers of attention. A spouse and children necessarily require attention that could otherwise be focused on the business. This is really much more of a problem for individuals who aren't already financially secure and depend on some relatively secure, stable income to support their lives. The common element in both cases is time and attention: living an unstable life increases the probability of something other than the business acting as competition for attention, and living a life with other responsibilities "baked in" guarantees competition for attention.
sillysaurus2 13y ago
Frequently YC’s advice is applicable at the aggregate but not individual level. Like in the grand scheme the biggest number of successful startups would be produced if all of them followed this advice, but you personally would not have your YC Expected Value maximized by following it. This is the most interesting and counter-intuitive point, I think.
- wellboy 13y ago
  Gosh I love this thread. That's the most important point about how to take advice if you put it in a formula, it's basically the mathematical explanation. The way it has been phrased on numerous other blog post was to take advice not literally, but to see where the other person is coming from and how the advice is applicable to your startup specifically. My most favourite way to phrase it is to try to find the 10% of advice out of the 100% that the person gave you, that is valuable for your startup.
jmngomes 13y ago
"The best companies didn't have political alliances because their product was awesome and they mostly knew it" Even if you have a great product, some industries, like advertising or public sector, are an order of magnitude harder to sell to if you're not really well connected.
- dclusin 13y ago
  It seems like this is largely the point of a startup accelerator. In exchange for equity you get cash, advice, and introductions to investors who have connections in the relevant area.
xSwag 13y ago
Can sombody please expand on: If there is no competition you’re probably screwed. Are there any cases when this is not applicable? (I recently started a website that nobody else seems to have done before -- web version of a desktop based tool)
- yurisagalov 13y ago
  Actually, in your case you still have competition - You're competing against the desktop-based tool. People coming to your service will be choosing between your tool, and the desktop-based variant. In regards to the original statement -- if there's no competition there's a possible risk that there's no market. It's not always the case (once in a while you really did create something that nobody knew they needed until you give it to them), but it can be dangerous to delude yourself into thinking you came up with that one product. More often, no competition means no market and no market means it doesn't matter how good your product is -- nobody wants it.
  - badclient 13y ago
    I'd make a distinction between no market and no existing market. Generally creating markets is much harder and riskier but often more profitable if you succeed. Example: BuddyMedia created the social media management tools market; hundreds of startups are now in that market.
    - yurisagalov 13y ago
      You're right. After I posted my response I was thinking of making that distinction and actually talk about the idea of first mover disadvantage (HBR covers it well : http://hbr.org/2001/10/first-mover-disadvantage/ar/1 http://hbr.org/2001/10/first-mover-disadvantage/ar/1)
  - teleclimber 13y ago
    It could be that there is no market per se, but it can be more subtle than that. There could be an easily identifiable market that is big enough to provide you with acceptable revenues... But it could be that this market is too difficult to satisfy! There could be any number problems: - The solution they need is terribly complicated but their budget is pathetic and will never allow you to recoup your development costs. - Or the problem they have is very convoluted but they expect your solution to be incredibly easy to use. Some markets are full of people who say things "this is too complicated/unfamiliar, I'll just do it on paper/FAX it to them/put it in Excel" or any other shockingly antiquated thinking. - Or maybe the market looks to be uniform from the outside but once you dive in you realize that each customer in the market requires your solution to work in a different way, making it very hard to please even a subset of the market. - It could be that the entire market needs your solution to interface with product-X, but that vendor won't even talk to you for any number of reasons (exclusive with someone else, they think you're a joke, or whatever). And on and on...
Justen 13y ago
Nice list! Some solid bits of advice there. I've been working over a year with a buddy on something we're looking to release before the new year. As the last couple weeks count down, I wish I had that advice e-mail address lol.
stephengillie 13y ago
Old people have got to get over this stigma of taking notes on electronic devices. It's the 21st century, and we have the technology, but everyone wants to be a hipster and it's just stupid.
- harlanlewis 13y ago
  Whether you have someone's attention is obvious regardless of what they're holding, so I don't care about that. If someone is rude enough to give only partial attention while they tweet through a conversation, that's fine and I'll deal with it as appropriate. That said, I have noticed a high correlation between taking notes on a phone and taking really shitty notes - a few characters instead of a sentence, no connections between related ideas that came up at different times, no drawings, interruptions for futzing with the lackluster select/editing tools on touch devices. But maybe all that doesn't matter and it's not the tool at all. Maybe it's that the only people who try it don't know how to take notes while being engaged in a conversation.
exo_duz 13y ago
Thanks for this. Very insightful. I did a Startup Weekend a few months ago and the biggest lesson I learnt there was "Listen, listen, listen!" as well as "Ask for help, you don't have all the answers". The peopl are there to help and they are either volunteering their time to do so. Take full advantage of that.

204 points by aelaguiz 13y ago

GuerraEarth 13y ago

I read this carefully. Thanks for posting. Applying to YC this time around, with a lot of glee and enthusiasm.

emeidi 13y ago

Let me guess: 1) Add as much items to a list as possible?

robin_reala 13y ago

If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys."

logicallee 13y ago
I would normally agree with you, but the fact that there are 58 of them actually makes this a more meaty article.
dhimes 13y ago
I never liked that guideline, partially because it's mis-stated. In "10 Ways To Do X" there is no gratuitous adjective. I actually like the number being there- it helps prepare me for what's in the article. It also kind of helps my bs detector. I do prefer, however, that the gratuitous adjective be dropped.
wellboy 13y ago
They are probably there to prevent link-bait since people jump on these kind of articles since they are very easy to digest.

nephorider 13y ago

One more would be to never give up even if you may be dead 3 hours later.

GrinningFool 13y ago

"- Never discredit teams in YC if they are still showing up to the events together and seem to be working" Is it accepted to discredit them/talk crap about them if they're not doing this?

jfoster 13y ago
I initially interpreted it the way I think you have. I think it might be intended more along the lines of "never underestimate/write-off teams ..."
6d0debc071 13y ago
Talking shit about people's rarely a good idea. Even if you're right people are going to be wondering what you're saying behind their backs. A lot of political advice just boils down to what your mum probably told you in primary school: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Just trying to be a nice person to everyone will take you miles.
aelaguiz 13y ago
Clearly not. It means that a team who is doing the YC activities and working hard always has a chance even if they don't appear to have found a market.
- GrinningFool 13y ago
  Fair point. I think I was making a slightly more nuanced interpretation than the author intended.

pkorzeniewski 13y ago

One thing that bothers me with advices like this is the overall negativity. Yes, we all know creating a profitable startup isn't easy, but hearing over and over again "You will fail many times", "Its get harder not easier" and so on is really demotivating. Seriously, are there no entrepreneur stories that had a great idea from the beginning, executed them smoothly without any outside financing and achieved success? And by success I mean satisfying income that allows them to work full-time on their startup and live on a decent level. Not everyone wants to build The Next Great Thing, acquire hundreds of thousands users, generate mutli-million revenue and so on.

dkersten 13y ago
Seriously, are there no entrepreneur stories that had a great idea from the beginning, executed them smoothly without any outside financing and achieved success? Of course there are, but what use is telling people that they can execute smoothly and be successful (without outside funding) and everything will be great when this isn't how it works for the majority of people. I understand that being told that its hard and you will fail is demotivating, but telling people otherwise isn't going to help them because it is hard and most people will fail many times before they become successful. Maybe it should be seen as a perseverance test - if you can still stay motivated after being told these demotivational things, then its an indicator that you might just have what you need to persevere and make it. The 90% of startups failing thing is true - I see it all around me, I even experienced it myself. You may think it doesn't apply to you (as I did in my previous startup), but chances are it does. I think its best to prepare people for this reality and help them persevere and learn and become stronger. Even if its demotivating...
argumentum 13y ago
In my view, being told "it get's harder" and "you will fail" etc is the opposite of demotivating. When things are going great, what use is motivation anyway? When things are tough is when you need motivation. And the type of motivation you need is motivation to be stoic. That's exactly what this type of advice is. It would be a very tough world for founders if "great ideas", smoothly executed, led to living at a decent level. Startups make sense because of the chance of a 10000x outcome. Otherwise, it's a losing proposition to begin with, there are much much better ways of living at a "decent level". Of course that's only the financial part of it. There are other, better reasons to do a startup.

jacquesm 13y ago

That's a pretty good list, actually. Thanks for posting this, I'm sure that any start-up could do a lot worse than to print this out in big type and staple it to their wall.

mattsfrey 13y ago

- Just shut up and get a .com This one is so hard, I've spent probably over 100 dollars in the past on those magical domain name thinker upper tools

codex 13y ago

More advice from a failed YC company (an acquhire is not a success). I understand the desire to salvage something from the experience, but I only take advise from those more successful than I am. There are so many of those.

pg 13y ago
Actually Amir's company is still operating. But even if it weren't, you'd be mistaken. People who fail have some of the most valuable insights. I learned YC's motto "Make something people want" from failing to do it myself.
- codex 13y ago
  I agree. However, people who fail also have terrible insights; for some, that contributed to their failure. And there's no reason to believe the specific reasons for their failure will be applicable to you. In the NFL, teams which lose tend to keep losing even though they have plenty of opportunity to learn. Teams are salary capped, so there is no intrinsic advantage. All successful companies are alike. Each failure fails in its own way.
  - teleclimber 13y ago
    I really disagree. I think people learn more from failures. In many cases it seems the successful ones don't really truly know why they were successful. Of course they did a lot of things right and it's worthwhile to listen to how they accomplished that, but if you were to duplicate exactly what they did you wouldn't necessarily be successful. So clearly there is something more to it. In any case, there will be bad advice coming from both successes and failures. To eliminate all the "failures" as having "terrible insights" is short-sighted. PS: I'm NOT a YC alum. And my bootstrapped company is running with revenues.
    - nostrademons 13y ago
      I think people learn more from success than from failure, but they learn more from failure than from doing nothing. Since typically your choice is between trying and not trying and not between succeeding and failing, your dominant strategy should be to try and let the cards fall where they may. Aside from that, most of the people reading are in the "doing nothing" category (I'm largely in this category myself when it comes to startups, though I have tried and failed before), and so it behooves them to listen to the failures. :-)

vldx 13y ago

> Every guy has thought about starting a dating site That was good.

the_watcher 13y ago
I laughed at this too, as a few years back at a startup program (hard to describe, not quite hackathon, really idea lab) I spent a weekend working on the exact same idea as Grouper (3 on 3 dates). We didn't keep going as the founder lost interest when some advisors told him online dating was over (in the disruption sense).

edw519 13y ago

I like lists like this because they're so quick and easy to read, you only have to learn 1 or 2 new things to get great ROI. For me, the items fall into 4 categories: 1. Go without saying, but need to be said anyway: - Real businesses have customers - It gets harder, not easier - Investors are normal people too 2. Interesting observation: - Being committed in the face of contrary evidence can sometimes be a game-maker. Generally though it’s just stupid. - Even very successful people frequently misunderstand their own success - There is no one thing that makes a company work. 3. Sound important, but really aren't: - Everyone is basically scared of everyone else at first - Bring a notebook; don’t take notes on your phone. People think you are tweeting or something. - People without life responsibility (kids, wife, etc) are at a serious advantage in the beginning stages - Every guy has thought about starting a dating site 4. Insightful: - If it seems hard but important and you try to outsource it, you'll probably get screwed. Potentially for a long time. - The more stability the rest of your life has, the easier it’ll be to deal with the massive instability of a startup - Small problems between team members will become big problems given time - Stop dancing around the thing and say the thing (I love this one.) Great list! Thanks for sharing, Amir.

salemh 13y ago
- Even very successful people frequently misunderstand their own success Do you think this is related to impostor syndrome[1], or something different? Perhaps not as "harsh" as impostor syndrome? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
- dhimes 13y ago
  I think it's partly to do with the fact that in a complex system it's sometimes pretty difficult to clearly identify lines of cause and effect, but most smart people will think about it until they've satisfied themselves that they have figured it out. This is why I'm not so sold on advice given by 'one-hit wonders,' people who scored big with a startup and are now seen as gurus because of it. I'm interested to hear what they say, but I'm skeptical.
- nl 13y ago

peterjancelis 13y ago

"The best companies didn't have political alliances because their product was awesome and they mostly knew it. The second best companies had fantastic political alliances and an okay product / traction." Political alliances with whom exactly? "Every guy has thought about starting a dating site." That one cracked me up. "If there is no competition you’re probably screwed." Maybe, but if the second best will be close in quality to the best one in your vertical, you won't have a very valuable company. See Peter Thiel's comments in his PandoMonthly interview. "It gets harder, not easier" Can you give some examples? Being able to build a team should make things easier on the founders, as they no longer have to be great at everything. I've seen founders get more relaxed as the business matured. "All the technology heavy startups wanted to try to somehow outsource their marketing or customer acquisition" I've seen this a lot and guilty of it myself.

001sky 13y ago

- The most elusive skill seemed to be knowing what to invent and what to steal - Everyone’s problem is money until it’s hiring Two I liked, highlighting subtle but critical pain/points.

the_watcher 13y ago

I think there is an important reason why people keep starting dating sites, and a good one. One of the things you should always have when starting a company is a way to make money (no matter how far in the future, speculative, or whatever, there should be some possibility of making money). What is something that humans have shown a willingness to pay for since the dawn of time?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

endriju 13y ago

Thanks for sharing this! However, i think there is a bit of a contradiction in following 2 points: - The more stability the rest of your life has, the easier it’ll be to deal with the massive instability of a startup - People without life responsibility (kids, wife, etc) are at a serious advantage in the beginning stages So what would your conclusion be here? Are people with stable love-life in advantage, or are single people the ones that have better chances?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
k-mcgrady 13y ago
I think the point is that people without 'life responsibility' find it easier to have a 'stable' life. E.g. When you don't have a wife and kids to care for and spend time with the balancing act you have to maintain to have a stable life is much easier.
stirno 13y ago
I'm not convinced thats a contradiction. Being single does allow for you to kind of.. put relationships on hold for awhile to push hard for your business. I'm not sure thats wise in general, but it seems advantageous in certain scenarios.
Iftheshoefits 13y ago
I interpreted that as concerning two different domains with respect to a Start Up (or any immature business, really). With respect to stability: Persons with lots of frequently changing variables in their lives (e.g. frequent beginnings/endings to relationships, moving around, etc.) have less stability. Adding the instability that comes with a turbulent, chaotic tech start up just compounds the issue and taxes one's resilience even more, because inevitably one will have to pay attention to instabilities other than business related ones. With respect to responsibility: having kids, a spouse and other similar obligations (can) act as a tether and definitely act as dividers of attention. A spouse and children necessarily require attention that could otherwise be focused on the business. This is really much more of a problem for individuals who aren't already financially secure and depend on some relatively secure, stable income to support their lives. The common element in both cases is time and attention: living an unstable life increases the probability of something other than the business acting as competition for attention, and living a life with other responsibilities "baked in" guarantees competition for attention.

sillysaurus2 13y ago

Frequently YC’s advice is applicable at the aggregate but not individual level. Like in the grand scheme the biggest number of successful startups would be produced if all of them followed this advice, but you personally would not have your YC Expected Value maximized by following it. This is the most interesting and counter-intuitive point, I think.

wellboy 13y ago
Gosh I love this thread. That's the most important point about how to take advice if you put it in a formula, it's basically the mathematical explanation. The way it has been phrased on numerous other blog post was to take advice not literally, but to see where the other person is coming from and how the advice is applicable to your startup specifically. My most favourite way to phrase it is to try to find the 10% of advice out of the 100% that the person gave you, that is valuable for your startup.

jmngomes 13y ago

"The best companies didn't have political alliances because their product was awesome and they mostly knew it" Even if you have a great product, some industries, like advertising or public sector, are an order of magnitude harder to sell to if you're not really well connected.

dclusin 13y ago
It seems like this is largely the point of a startup accelerator. In exchange for equity you get cash, advice, and introductions to investors who have connections in the relevant area.

xSwag 13y ago

Can sombody please expand on: If there is no competition you’re probably screwed. Are there any cases when this is not applicable? (I recently started a website that nobody else seems to have done before -- web version of a desktop based tool)

yurisagalov 13y ago
Actually, in your case you still have competition - You're competing against the desktop-based tool. People coming to your service will be choosing between your tool, and the desktop-based variant. In regards to the original statement -- if there's no competition there's a possible risk that there's no market. It's not always the case (once in a while you really did create something that nobody knew they needed until you give it to them), but it can be dangerous to delude yourself into thinking you came up with that one product. More often, no competition means no market and no market means it doesn't matter how good your product is -- nobody wants it.
- badclient 13y ago
  I'd make a distinction between no market and no existing market. Generally creating markets is much harder and riskier but often more profitable if you succeed. Example: BuddyMedia created the social media management tools market; hundreds of startups are now in that market.
  - yurisagalov 13y ago
    You're right. After I posted my response I was thinking of making that distinction and actually talk about the idea of first mover disadvantage (HBR covers it well : http://hbr.org/2001/10/first-mover-disadvantage/ar/1 http://hbr.org/2001/10/first-mover-disadvantage/ar/1)
- teleclimber 13y ago
  It could be that there is no market per se, but it can be more subtle than that. There could be an easily identifiable market that is big enough to provide you with acceptable revenues... But it could be that this market is too difficult to satisfy! There could be any number problems: - The solution they need is terribly complicated but their budget is pathetic and will never allow you to recoup your development costs. - Or the problem they have is very convoluted but they expect your solution to be incredibly easy to use. Some markets are full of people who say things "this is too complicated/unfamiliar, I'll just do it on paper/FAX it to them/put it in Excel" or any other shockingly antiquated thinking. - Or maybe the market looks to be uniform from the outside but once you dive in you realize that each customer in the market requires your solution to work in a different way, making it very hard to please even a subset of the market. - It could be that the entire market needs your solution to interface with product-X, but that vendor won't even talk to you for any number of reasons (exclusive with someone else, they think you're a joke, or whatever). And on and on...

Justen 13y ago

Nice list! Some solid bits of advice there. I've been working over a year with a buddy on something we're looking to release before the new year. As the last couple weeks count down, I wish I had that advice e-mail address lol.

stephengillie 13y ago

Old people have got to get over this stigma of taking notes on electronic devices. It's the 21st century, and we have the technology, but everyone wants to be a hipster and it's just stupid.

harlanlewis 13y ago
Whether you have someone's attention is obvious regardless of what they're holding, so I don't care about that. If someone is rude enough to give only partial attention while they tweet through a conversation, that's fine and I'll deal with it as appropriate. That said, I have noticed a high correlation between taking notes on a phone and taking really shitty notes - a few characters instead of a sentence, no connections between related ideas that came up at different times, no drawings, interruptions for futzing with the lackluster select/editing tools on touch devices. But maybe all that doesn't matter and it's not the tool at all. Maybe it's that the only people who try it don't know how to take notes while being engaged in a conversation.

exo_duz 13y ago

Thanks for this. Very insightful. I did a Startup Weekend a few months ago and the biggest lesson I learnt there was "Listen, listen, listen!" as well as "Ask for help, you don't have all the answers". The peopl are there to help and they are either volunteering their time to do so. Take full advantage of that.