The YC Program
The Pocket Guide of Essential YC Advice
- Launch now
- “Make something people want”
- Do things that don’t scale
- Find the 90 / 10 solution
- Find 10-100 customers who love your product
- All startups are badly broken at some point
- Write code - talk to users
- “It’s not your money”
- Growth is the result of a great product, not the precursor
- Don’t scale your team/product until you have built something people want
- Valuation is not = success or even the probability of success
- Avoid long-negotiated deals with big customers if you can
- Avoid big company corporate development queries - a waste of time
- Avoid conferences unless they are the best way to get customers
- Pre-product market fit - do things that don’t scale: remain small and nimble
- Startups can only solve one problem well at any given time
- Founder relationships matter more than you think
- Sometimes you need to fire your customers (they might be killing you)