I attended Y Combinator’s startup school this past weekend. It was a fun event, that provided some inspiring words for those who want to found a company. I would definitely recommend attending at least once for those who have not been.
Many of the talks resonated with things I had already heard at other events; but it was refreshing to hear them in person from people who were quite accomplished. I liked Jessica Livingston and Ben Horowitz’s talks the best. Travis Kalanick (Uber) was also a very energizing and entertaining talk as well, I just didn’t take any notes on that one. It was also pretty inspiring to hear from Patrick Collison, who was I think the youngest person on stage.
I pasted the notes which I thought were most impactful to me below.
Jessica Livingston
Partner, Y Combinator
- you need determination – you will get rejected
- you will have problems
- co-founder relationships are important – know yours well
- key for managing investors – create a competitive situation
- they are herd mentality – want to invest if others invest
- 3 important things YC tells people to do
- talking to users
- writing code
- exercising
- avoid distractions (hobnobbing, startup events, etc.)
- don’t talk to corp dev people – they will only want to acqui-hire
- make something people want – talk to users and adjust
- no extremes (happiness, depression) last that long
Ben Horowitz
Partner, Andreessen Horowitz; Founder, Opsware
- build something you believe in
- don’t give up
- don’t get more isolated when you do a startup – stay engaged and meet people
- build a way of doing something that is 10x better than the next way of doing it
- its harder than it looks
- take the top spot – #2 gets nothing
- what we look for
- a break through idea – usually looks like a stupid idea (only 1 parter understands it and the others don’t, and the founder is very smart)
- a founder with the skill and courage to build the great idea into great company
- courage is built over time – not born
- Have these three things
- 1) can you articulate your vision and convince
- 2) do people to want to work for you
- 3) are you able to get people on board
Patrick Collison
Founder, Stripe
- Buenos aires – really good for getting things done
- fix any errors that come up
- find some intuitive thing that should be easy that is not and do that for your startup
- friends with your cofounder – you should want to go with them for drinks
- be the one at startup school 2 years from now, like he was
Ben Silbermann
Founder, Pinterest
- building things takes a long time (1.5 years before it was released for him)
- committing matters, doing a startup on the stuff is tough
- investors are people. you want to convince investors that could be the one thing they regret not doing
- be great at one thing – do that well
- find your core set of users who really enjoy your product
David Rusenko
Founder, Weebly
- create happy users – get them happy and then figure out what problem you are solving
- It takes time on a startup
- took 18 months – weebly to get traction
- 36 months to “make it” out of money issues
- you can’t succeed if you quit
- think about the future and what will need to exist as basis for an idea
Tom Preston-Werner
Founder, GitHub
- money is not the thing – its just a number
- people are the only thing that matters
- complementary skills – look for that in a co founder
- if people are asking – can i pay for this product before you even think about selling it – that is a good sign
- meet ups are a good way to meet people
- learn how to code
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