Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

docs.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 86 posts

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#21

Post by thegabriele »

cmogni1 wrote: post #14

I haven’t finished reading this, but what strikes me about the advice in the notes is that much of it is either contradictory or there exist counterexamples to the claims. For example, the reader is encouraged to start building, but is told you also need a good idea and that you can pivot but most good companies don’t start with a pivot. Counterexample: Slack was a pivot. We’re also instructed that you should build s…

Perhaps here's a meta-lesson to be learned for a right mindset: there are many ways to start (a good news i presume) but less and less ways to grow in a sustainable fashion as your business matures (YC or others can help you with that).

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#22

Post by midway »

randomsearch wrote: post #9
midway wrote: post #8

Catchy title with strong words ('57-page', 'YC'), no real click-bait but close. I skimmed the first pages and most of the advice is neither wrong or bad. Still, reading a lenghty 57-note in order to learn is wrong. You learn by doing. If you want to start something stop procrastinating on HN and execute the first step: found the legal entity for your endeavor. This will keep you busy for the next days, and you learn.…

Don’t set up a legal entity. Find the nugget of your idea. Do something to get market feedback. Eg your idea is Uber for pet food - go interview people leaving a big pet food store and ask them if they’re interested. Old school market research. Or say your idea is a sports news site for minor teams. Set up an MVP that serves for your local team and promote it, see how many many people go to the site. MVP could be a s…

While I agree with most what you wrote, I still think that setting up a legal entity is a good first step. Most wannabes struggle with starting. They wait for the perfect idea, the perfect team and so on. They never start. Even if you start with a crappy idea. Ideas will evolve, get pivoted, whatever. My message is about to start and not wasting your time with inactivity like reading random Google Docs by random dudes.

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#23

Post by distant_hat »

There's a huge amount of survivorship bias in all such lists. Startups that succeed get analyzed a lot, those that did pretty much the same things but failed don't. To be rigorous about it, you'd have to define things like what's a startup, what constitutes success, what constitutes failure, far more carefully.

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#24

Post by paintbox »

midway wrote: post #19

Interesting: The title was changed ('57-Page' was removed) while the comment which classified the prior title as close to click-bait was downvoted. I didn't know that users could change the title of their submission. How is this possible or is this actually a post by YC? If latter, a hint would be great that this might be YC promoted content and not actual user content.

It is possible that an admin changed the title.

Folks probably downvoted you because they deemed your tone unwelcome here.

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#25

Post by omeid2 »

jialutu wrote: post #20
cmogni1 wrote: post #14

I haven’t finished reading this, but what strikes me about the advice in the notes is that much of it is either contradictory or there exist counterexamples to the claims. For example, the reader is encouraged to start building, but is told you also need a good idea and that you can pivot but most good companies don’t start with a pivot. Counterexample: Slack was a pivot. We’re also instructed that you should build s…

Monopoly is good - except Google. - Peter Thiel

There is some kind of kind of logic in this, Google, is more than a Search monopoly, or Maps, or Gmail, or Google Play, or Google Ads, or presence on very large number of website through Ads, Analytics, ReCaptcha, and lord knows what. Google is not a monopoly, it is more than that.

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#26

Post by midway »

paintbox wrote: post #24
midway wrote: post #19

Interesting: The title was changed ('57-Page' was removed) while the comment which classified the prior title as close to click-bait was downvoted. I didn't know that users could change the title of their submission. How is this possible or is this actually a post by YC? If latter, a hint would be great that this might be YC promoted content and not actual user content.

It is possible that an admin changed the title. Folks probably downvoted you because they deemed your tone unwelcome here.

> It is possible that an admin changed the title

Still strange. Why should an admin change the submission of a random user if it doesn't breach any of HN's rules?

Maybe because it's not a random submission by a random user?

Guess I must be wrong but would love to hear what that admin who did the change has to say.

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#27

Post by muzani »

distant_hat wrote: post #23

There's a huge amount of survivorship bias in all such lists. Startups that succeed get analyzed a lot, those that did pretty much the same things but failed don't. To be rigorous about it, you'd have to define things like what's a startup, what constitutes success, what constitutes failure, far more carefully.

That's the good thing about lists that come from VCs. They analyze both the successes and failures, as well as things like risk level. YC also does a great job of not falling into the trap of copying the last superstar.

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#28

Post by drieddust »

jialutu wrote: post #20
cmogni1 wrote: post #14

I haven’t finished reading this, but what strikes me about the advice in the notes is that much of it is either contradictory or there exist counterexamples to the claims. For example, the reader is encouraged to start building, but is told you also need a good idea and that you can pivot but most good companies don’t start with a pivot. Counterexample: Slack was a pivot. We’re also instructed that you should build s…

Monopoly is good - except Google. - Peter Thiel

Because he own Facebook. Monopoly is not good ever.

Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC

#30

Post by greattypo »

cmogni1 wrote: post #14

I haven’t finished reading this, but what strikes me about the advice in the notes is that much of it is either contradictory or there exist counterexamples to the claims. For example, the reader is encouraged to start building, but is told you also need a good idea and that you can pivot but most good companies don’t start with a pivot. Counterexample: Slack was a pivot. We’re also instructed that you should build s…

I felt this way going through YC - sometimes different partners gave conflicting advice, and that felt confusing. It took a while for me to look back on the experience and realize it was a feature not a bug.

[edit - disclosure: I was one of the presenters in this series.]

Post reply on HN