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

blog.ycombinator.com

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

#61

Post by manigandham »

wenbin wrote: post #45

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., ho…

Advice is on a spectrum from being so generic as to be common sense, all the way to understanding your precise situation and choices.

Things like health insurance and credit cards are far too specific for YC to put out as a generic guide. The size of your team, budget, where you're located, etc. all make a big difference.

Part of being an entrepreneur is figuring these things out, and I'll admit that choosing the "default" options was actually a negative for my last startup because it didn't provide what we needed. Doing the research is a good test for how well you'll be able to handle the rest of the details of running a business.

If you don't know where to look for this info, I recommend reading how similar companies (same sector, size, region) started and using what they use. Plenty of startup profiles out there on HN, techcrunch, angelist, producthunt, indiehacker and more. That's usually a good compromise to provide choices without too much research.

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

#62

Post by ngokevin »

will_pseudonym wrote: post #47
burlesona wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did startup school's first cohort, and I would say it's equally useful for bootstrappers and VC-minded founders. What it is NOT useful for is side projects. I think nurturing a side project into a full-time business is a whole different skill that's actually quite difficult and requires even more luck than bootstrapping or VC-startuping.

What makes you say that they're different skills? Or, why do you view them differently? I'd love to read more about this distinction.

I feel side projects is something you do for fun or on a whim. You just start building immediately on your off-time with not much expectations. Maybe to try out a new technology. It's more of a solo engineering activity. You build it first, and maybe down the line, something comes of it and you do a Show HN in six months.

A business is more broad and deliberate. From the get-go, you need to constantly be talking to many people, have a process for validating the problem, track metrics, plan your time, think about opportunity costs of pursuing different paths, have sales funnels, marketing, scope things out, etc.

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

#63

Post by redis_mlc »

hayksaakian wrote: post #54
redis_mlc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your tech startup should succeeds or fails in spite of the particular corporate credit you choose. I'd have to agree. Instead of "company", think "domain name." Instead of "health insurance", think "I'm in my 20's and don't need it." Instead of "company credit card", think "don't spend anything." Instead of "design/eng. help", think "no budget, DIY", "co-founder" or at most Craigslist gigs. Or just keep working…

being young, broke, and healthy helped me get my first company going without being distracted by decision fatigue because often times the decision was made for me. having a handful of mentors who can tell you "you're asking the wrong questions, ask yourself X instead" saved me a lot of time early on.

Yes, "focus is the new IQ."

A couple of founders have said, "Almost any choice works out fine." meaning don't waste a lot of time doing analysis.

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

#64

Post by burlesona »

will_pseudonym wrote: post #47
burlesona wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did startup school's first cohort, and I would say it's equally useful for bootstrappers and VC-minded founders. What it is NOT useful for is side projects. I think nurturing a side project into a full-time business is a whole different skill that's actually quite difficult and requires even more luck than bootstrapping or VC-startuping.

What makes you say that they're different skills? Or, why do you view them differently? I'd love to read more about this distinction.

A side hustle is just fundamentally different than a full-time job. On the one hand, something else is paying the bills, so you can be patient. But on the other hand, you can't take meetings 9-5, or push nearly as hard on the work as you could if it was full time, so you have to be patient.

It's quite difficult to work on something enough on the side to build momentum and get it rolling, and it's extra hard to maintain that momentum for long enough for it to reach "escape velocity," that is, to become profitable to where you can quit your day job.

So the challenge of managing the two jobs, and specifically transitioning from day job + hobby (at the beginning), to two jobs but one doesn't really pay well, to finally quitting the first job so you can focus on the bootstrapped project...

That's just a whole different beast from somebody who quits their job and starts a business (with or without raising money).

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

#65

Post by randmeerkat »

redis_mlc wrote: post #53
hayksaakian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately a lot of the trivia doesn't really matter for your success or failure. High level thinking combined with effort and luck are what helps you "make it" in my eyes. If your tech startup should succeeds or fails in spite of the particular corporate credit you choose. This is the same problem with youtubers who have 0 subscribers obsessing over what particular camera they need to buy, all while people are growi…

> If your tech startup should succeeds or fails in spite of the particular corporate credit you choose. I'd have to agree. Instead of "company", think "domain name." Instead of "health insurance", think "I'm in my 20's and don't need it." Instead of "company credit card", think "don't spend anything." Instead of "design/eng. help", think "no budget, DIY", "co-founder" or at most Craigslist gigs. Or just keep working…

Telling someone they don’t need health insurance is irresponsible, there’s plenty of things that can go wrong in your 20s, like a car accident. If they decided not to have that while running a startup not only would they potentially lose their first mover advantage, they’d be saddled in crippling medical debt. One’s health should always come first, you don’t appreciate it until you don’t have it.

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

#66

Post by sebmellen »

redis_mlc wrote: post #53
hayksaakian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately a lot of the trivia doesn't really matter for your success or failure. High level thinking combined with effort and luck are what helps you "make it" in my eyes. If your tech startup should succeeds or fails in spite of the particular corporate credit you choose. This is the same problem with youtubers who have 0 subscribers obsessing over what particular camera they need to buy, all while people are growi…

> If your tech startup should succeeds or fails in spite of the particular corporate credit you choose. I'd have to agree. Instead of "company", think "domain name." Instead of "health insurance", think "I'm in my 20's and don't need it." Instead of "company credit card", think "don't spend anything." Instead of "design/eng. help", think "no budget, DIY", "co-founder" or at most Craigslist gigs. Or just keep working…

I agree with you on all but health insurance. Catastrophic life events are uncommon, but they do happen. Any founder owes it to themselves and their company to be insured so they don't become bankrupt from medical bills or die because they're unable to get proper treatment.

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

#67

Post by tonyedgecombe »

randmeerkat wrote: post #65
redis_mlc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your tech startup should succeeds or fails in spite of the particular corporate credit you choose. I'd have to agree. Instead of "company", think "domain name." Instead of "health insurance", think "I'm in my 20's and don't need it." Instead of "company credit card", think "don't spend anything." Instead of "design/eng. help", think "no budget, DIY", "co-founder" or at most Craigslist gigs. Or just keep working…

Telling someone they don’t need health insurance is irresponsible, there’s plenty of things that can go wrong in your 20s, like a car accident. If they decided not to have that while running a startup not only would they potentially lose their first mover advantage, they’d be saddled in crippling medical debt. One’s health should always come first, you don’t appreciate it until you don’t have it.

I'm surprised private healthcare isn't more of a drain on the American economy. I often wonder how many businesses aren't started because of that cost.

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

#68

Post by Fission »

wenbin wrote: post #45

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., ho…

This is one of the problems we try to solve at Satchel (https://satchel.com/). We write long-form guides to help startups figure out the best tool for them to use.

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

#69

Post by esc_colon_q »

wenbin wrote: post #45

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., ho…

If you fail based on any of the "would be nice to know" items, you were never going to succeed.

Find another few founders, ask them what they use. Find another few who use the same, ask what they think. Repeat.

If you can't figure out how to hire, you're not fit for this.

There's really nothing to any of this that should be at all difficult relative to product/market fit, and the answers to all those other things change too often to be worth enshrining. "Ask other cofounders" is the trivial and 99% correct answer, so why complain that someone hasn't done that for you given that the data will be stale every 6 months?

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

#70

Post by ketzo »

esc_colon_q wrote: post #69
wenbin wrote: post #45

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., ho…

If you fail based on any of the "would be nice to know" items, you were never going to succeed. Find another few founders, ask them what they use. Find another few who use the same, ask what they think. Repeat. If you can't figure out how to hire, you're not fit for this. There's really nothing to any of this that should be at all difficult relative to product/market fit, and the answers to all those other things cha…

What? That’s a weird, shitty thing to say. Why am I not allowed to ask someone how to get health insurance?
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