I’ve just watched the YC Startup Class published on Michael Seibel’s website and couldn’t help sharing the highlights with you. Great bunch of advice and questions-to-be-asked for every startup founder to be considered!
Passion first and startup second. It’s not about how but WHY! Here it’s confirmed again that it’s not the idea most important but passion, need in society and the team. There should be a mission. Even if it sounds like a bad idea and you know it’s a good idea it will be good startup. Passion leads to great things and amazing companies, it just sometimes take time to prove it!
If you are working on any business idea, it’s worth to think of answering the below questions.
Why now is a great time for your idea to transform into real product? Why 2 years ago was too early and next year will be too late? Think of it! Validate your product now and here.
Do you build something that people love? It’s better to create the product that few people love than a lot of people like. And remember, small but rapidly growing market is better than big but slowly growing.
Do you need what you want to provide to the market? It’s always good to know the product from ‘the need perspective’. If you do not really feel you want to use what you are creating, then think twice if it’s really in demand in general.
Is your vision clear and articulate in small number of words? Can you simple explain what is your product and the mission behind?
Do you meet your potential cofounders? If not, start doing this. Solo startups are minority and you most probably need a few creative people around.
Do you see the organic growth when you do not even pay a lot for marketing? If not, you need to think of it as when people love something, they tell their friends about it and their friends buy it as well and so on and so forth. It’s great indicator if it’s recommended or not and you have to go to people.
Is your product simple and easy to use? It must start from an easy thing and only then you can grow it further.
Are you kind of fanatical about your product? Do you wake up in the middle of the night to fix a bug because you cannot stand this? 😉
Do you use google ads as from day one? If yes, it’s not necessary good thing. You should just find few people that will use your product until they love it and will keep giving you feedback so you can make it perfect! Get users manually on the beginning and make sure they are satisfied.
Do you use the feedback you have available? It’s most powerful product developing tool that draft direction of the further development.
Are you working all the time? If the idea drives you, you will truly think of it 24h a day. It’s hard to imagine but if you love it it’s always in your head.
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The university environment is a great place to be as you can observe the trends and interest of young people. It’s easier then to define the rapidly growing market and existing demand. It’s not necessary condition but ‘nice to have’ environment opportunity. Get in front of your customers! Don’t ask anyone to be brave for you. The other founder will not tell you what you are looking for neither the investor or VCs. It will be your customer who can help the most.
If there are problems you just need to keep going. It’s like real life and you just have to go through it. You rely on people, you will work out it with them. There are ups and downs. There may be burnout but it need to be challenged and figure out how to work with it and come back to the passion-driven-life.
Hiring is really important and finding your cofounder cannot be a random thing that happens by chance. Some tips on how to find your cofounder and why it’s not really about the skills, you can find here.
It cannot be someone you do not know at all. It’s been noticed by YC while analysing startups they have been working with that this I-do-not-know-you-but-we-both-want-to-do-business-so-let’s-do-it does not work in most of the cases. There are some exceptions of course so you may be lucky and find just perfect match by chance though. In general it’s better to have no cofounder than have a bad cofounder.
Also, try not to hire unless you have a desperate need to. The quantity is not really important but quality. We all know that quite well.
Do not hesitate to use recommendations from your folks. It’s worth considering people referred by people you already respect. If you talk already to some people, ask yourself:
– are they smart?
– do they get things done?
– do I want to spend a lot of time around them?
Then the decision seems to be simple, if any of the answer to these questions is no, you should not hire them. If all of them are ‘yes’ then you talk to them further but it’s already someone you seriously consider.
Extreme focus and extreme delicacy is a key! Startup works in intense environment so it’s not a place for people desiring strict work-life balance. Execution speed is crucial together with obsessed quality standards. Quality bar must be set high! It should be business that is hard to duplicate.
Always keep momentum
Always keep growing
All in all, but the WHY is crucial and forget about everything else if you do not have it sorted out. If you want more arguments to prove that WHY is most important thing ever while building your company, consider watching this TedTalk about why the companies win having the WHY defined and why the other fail or not doing so well. Simon Sinek – Start With Why – TED Talk Short
If you are passionate about something you simply can’t not do it 🙂 The world need you and you just need to find where!
These are a few notes from the classes I watched and I was amazed with the content. Such good advice in so short lectures is just ‘must to listen’ for all startup founders. It’s so straight to the point that you feel like taking note about each sentence they say. I hope my bullet points are helpful and give you some basic taste of how YC see the process of building company but I truly encourage you to watch the whole series on your own here.
Also, you may want to take a look at the presentation with even shorter content and key points about how to start a startup and/or get to YC:
