More advice for new Y Combinator founders | Hacker News Reader

More advice for new Y Combinator founders

124 pointssama28 comments

-Get ready for high highs and low lows, and practice keeping yourself in the middle or you'll never get good work done. You're going to be pretty sure your company is dying at least once a month, and it usually isn't. This is very important and very difficult to learn.

-Focus on the product, especially in the early days. You'll have time to make deals later. Now, you've got to build something great.

-If you hire, do it very slowly and carefully. The culture of a company is set very early, and so is the quality of the team.

-Don't be afraid to change your idea if the market seems bad. Early is a good time to do it. You can change your product, you can change your team, you can change your sales strategy, but you can probably not create a market. Good startups surf someone else's wave.

-Figure out what the important things are, and spend lots time on those and little on the rest. Lots of startups work very hard, but on the wrong things. They still die an untimely death.

-Watch out for fights and brewing tension among cofounders (ie, make sure everyone feels they have a reasonably fair deal). I've seen this derail more early startups than anything else. And, if you are really sure you have the wrong cofounder, fire fast.

-The startups in my Y Combinator 'class' that tanked the fastest were the ones that spent the most time worrying about option grants for members of their board of advisors and the least time on their product. Could be a coincidence, but why risk it? Build your product.

-Great products, technology, and people win the day in the long run. History backs this up. Do not be afraid of competitors without them, no matter how much money they raise or how much noise they make.

-It's most tempting to give up right before you're about to succeed.

Best of luck, Sam Altman

I agree with everything here. If I had to pick out the most important, it would be the last sentence of the second (and seventh) item: "Now you've got to build something great."

Few startups build something great and then die. Nearly all startups that fail to build something great die. Therefore succeeding is identical with building something great, plus or minus about 1%. In phase 1, doing anything else except making something great (fussing over paperwork, arguing with one another, working on other projects, worrying about competitors) is a mistake.

I can't agree with the second to last point enough... People are paranoid about competition and copycats--- it's a waste of time and energy.

Sam, thanks for an awesome post!

I have one question. You say the following:

>>> Figure out what the important things are, and spend lots time on those and little on the rest. Lots of startups work very hard, but on the wrong things.

Product is number one, no question about it. What else do you consider important and what do you consider 'wrong things'?

Good:

-Things that will get you more revenue

-Things that will get you more users (and thus hopefully revenue)

-Things that will make your product better (and thus hopefully more users)

-Things that will get you great hires (and thus hopefully better products)

-Focusing on the right market

Bad:

-Going to events at business schools or 'networking' with the people that do

Thanks Sam! As usual, excellent advice. Though it seems like common sense, you'd be surprised how hard this advice might be to follow. Especially the last one.

How to fight with lows? Especially, what if you spend months on the product and no one actually uses it?

You've answered your own question. One of the (many) advantages of releasing quickly is that it's better for morale.

Some fruit doesn't hang quite that low, though.

So, try and find that which does?

With this approach, you'd not work on Google.

Be creative in finding smaller releasable pieces.

The #1 thing to optimize for is your own motivation.

Break off a piece that is low and release that, then build on it.

I like how you styled it as advice for Y C founders, even though it's applicable to all startups, hoping that our competitors will therefore ignore and/or do the opposite. Brilliant maneuver sir.

Remember if you're not a Y C founder, be sure to spend all of your time working on patents.

Obviously you all don't know Matt. He's the resident court jester and we love him for it. And by we I, at the very least, mean me.

Nice post Sam. I wonder about #1, though. How do you tell the difference between when you think your company is dying and when it really is?

If no new or current users/advertisers/customers/etc care about what you're doing, and no one in the company has a plan (or, more commonly I think, a desire) to fix it, you are probably in bad shape.

Gotta give two thumbs up to that first point. I completely underestimated how emotional I am, and how much that interfered with my work.

Every one of these "seems" like common sense. It sure is nice when someone (especially someone who's been there) articulates them so well. This is definitely bulletin board material. Thank you, Sam!

Hmm this reminds me of that book...oh yeah, Donald Trump's "Success University" series I think.

"I don't sell buildings because I'm famous. I sell buildings because I build good buildings."

This are some great tips. Ill live by these.

Thanks Sam, its nice of you to put in the time and type this up. And all the best.

Which YC startups have tanked?

you can find a half updated list on the wikipedia page for ycombinator.

That last point is so true!

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