YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
blog.ycombinator.com
YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
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Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#2Hey 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.
Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#3I'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.
Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#4I'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.
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 and 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.
Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#5I'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.
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.
Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#6I'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.
Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#7I'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.
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.
Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#8I'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.
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 . 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.
Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#9Looks cool! Hoping to learn a lot.
By the way, @dang, the link https://www.startupschool.org/posts/35214 on the page https://www.startupschool.org/dashboard (under "Welcome to the forum") is 404ing for me. Has it not been published yet?
Re: YC Startup School for future founders who aren't quite ready to start yet
#10I'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.
from what I understand, the first video lecture addresses this.