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Lecture 3: How to Start a Startup

startupclass.samaltman.com

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Re: Lecture 3: How to Start a Startup

#22

Post by johndolan »

bira wrote: post #7

Here you have some notes on the lecture. By the way, we are a couple of italian friends building FlashUp, a platform for sharing notes on lectures, videos, books, panels so other people can enjoy the nitty-gritty without having to spend hours and hours glued to their screens. Any feedback is appreciated. --- NOTES: --> Startups are very counter-intuitive – if you trust and never question your intuition you will make…

Thanks a lot for doing this.

Re: Lecture 3: How to Start a Startup

#24

Post by meowface »

jbhatab wrote: post #12

I don't know if I'm alone on this one, but I thought his presentation was a bit scattered. Not taking away from him in any way, but his examples were not effectively backing up the points he was making. You could even see him hesitating and questioning his own statements in his head a few times.

I don't really agree, I just think it was a bit of an informal presentation. I actually really liked that he questioned his own statements, because he knows it can be very difficult to give solid advice in an ill-defined field like this. I think I learned a lot more from his hesitance in giving anything definitive than I would have if he tried to provide solid guidelines.

Also, given the limited time I don't think he had a lot of opportunities to go into detail with examples. This was just a broad overview of advice he thinks you should take.

Re: Lecture 3: How to Start a Startup

#25

Post by nxh »

The fact is most startups will fail[1]. If I fail and try again and again, statistically I will probably fail eventually. Therefore, most of us will end up working for other companies. Statistically again, there are a lot more employees in well established companies than startups so most of us will likely end up working for well established/large organizations.

So my question is: does the experience, the knowledge I learn from startups helps me on my probably eventual job in an established company? Should I just go work for a large company right away so I can be good at what I will end up doing? It seems to be opposite to what PG said[2].

[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044372020...

[2] http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

Re: Lecture 3: How to Start a Startup

#26

Post by ssqmm »

Interesting take on not starting a startup while in college. I've watched a lot of his lectures and didn't see him state this before. Good point in thinking about the ideas and cultivating them before jumping the gun too early in life.

Re: Lecture 3: How to Start a Startup

#27

Post by staunch »

bramgg wrote: post #9
dxbydt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's very funny! I've never heard him talk before. I listened to this whole thing & laughed so many times. "screw this whole entrepreneurship thing" at 34 mins.

I've only heard one. Either the other talk of his I listened to was abnormally dry, or he's just more comfortable joking around with a younger audience (which kind of makes sense).

I imagine abdicating the YC throne had something to do with it.

Re: Lecture 3: How to Start a Startup

#28

Post by prostoalex »

nxh wrote: post #25

The fact is most startups will fail[1]. If I fail and try again and again, statistically I will probably fail eventually. Therefore, most of us will end up working for other companies. Statistically again, there are a lot more employees in well established companies than startups so most of us will likely end up working for well established/large organizations. So my question is: does the experience, the knowledge I…

Strictly speaking, a corporate recruitment process will peg and interview you based on your experience level. 3 years at a failed startup are likely to be equivalent to 3 years at a large established company, you'll go through the same interview process, be asked the same questions, and presented with the same offer.

From a rational standpoint, having even a mild level of success that ends up in an acqui-hire instead of an outright failure will yield you a better offer from a large corp than an applicant who just sent his resume in.

Given two choices - equivalent compensation at failure, and higher compensation at anything but failure, you should do a startup.

That does not take into account stress levels and opportunity cost of your spare time.

Re: Lecture 3: How to Start a Startup

#30

Post by johndolan »

blergh123 wrote: post #29

As someone who lives outside the US, what did PG mean when he was talking about Facebook starting as a Florida LLC and that "even you guys know not to do that" ?

I'm not very knowledgeable so take this with a grain of salt, but I believe he's talking about the common strategy of having your business set up in Delaware.
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