I'll counter with some more basic and more broadly applicable advice.
1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for
2) Promote yourself incessantly because others will be promoting themselves even more incessantly.
3) Spend your money wisely - focus on people, product, and marketing. Don't waste your money on office trappings and stuff that makes you feel good. Save your lunch money.
4) Ignore Venture Capital. If you are actually selling something people want, you can grow on revenues. If it takes a lot of money to create what your customers want or if your growth is greater than revenue, then the VCs will want to talk to you anyways. Because a) you're growing and b) customers actually want what you have. But don't start by focusing on what VCs want. Focus on what your customers want instead.
5) Always be selling. To your customers. To the press. To your employees. To anyone who matters. Never stop talking about your company.
6) Always be listening. To your customers. To your employees. The easiest and best ideas come from others.
7) Re-invest. Plow your earnings back into the company and promotion.
8) It's ok not to have a competitive advantage. What? Ok maybe you need to have some advantage but it doesn't have to be nearly as significant as is stated in this video. You need to have some reason for your customers to buy your product or service instead of competitors', so there's always some advantage. It could be price. Features. better service. But it could also be just a better connection with your prospects. Or perhaps you manage to place yourself in the right place at the right time. Or maybe you're just spending a lot on marketing. If you want to be successful, you need to identify at least one FAIR competitive advantage that your customers care about. And if you want to be super successful, identify one UNFAIR competitive advantage that locks out the competition. That could be an exclusive partnership, some intellectual property advantage, or connections with your customers that your competitors can't easily obtain.
This applies no matter if you're running a silicon valley style startup or a cybersecurity enterprise-focused government client startup -- both can make you millions or billions.
Number 4 is exceedingly important and it's counter to popular thought. Bootstrapping is painful but if you start growing fast you won't have to seek them out the VC's will find you.
I have trouble seeing how this works in a robotics or biotech company. Yes, if you're building something facing consumers on the web you can go a long way on small savings and people just putting time in. But if you want to build something that requires some capital simply to keep the business running that's going to be difficult.
"1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for"
This piece advice seems leftover from a bygone era as this is so fundamental that I wonder does it even bear saying?
Again, if you're building something people don't want or aren't going to pay for, something is seriously fundamentally wrong and you should try to define what you're even trying to achieve; that is, you're not even trying to build a business but may think you are.
In most industries, making money is usually the very first thing that happens and, in some cases, happens before a thing is built or a service is provided.
Starting a business == making money. Maybe it's not profitable, but money should be changing hands. If that's not happening, go back to the drawing board and question everything.
How is 1) more broadly applicable? Nobody wants to pay money for anything. Perhaps you could say _would_ pay money for if they had to. Even still, the world of internet users has been trained to get a lot of great valuable things for free (Google, facebook and virtually every other consumer service) so their willingness to pay is skewed heavily towards free
- "Product so good that people wanna tell others about it" doesn't mean this is an excuse to hide in a corner and keep building the product. Product can't be "good" if it's not based on frequent and lots of conversations / interactions with users.
- The point about "exponential growth in market" is very important if your startup wants to raise money from VCs and has similar goals. Otherwise, focusing on creating value even in mature markets can be a good choice too. Same point applies to the "Huge if it works" point too.
- His point about real trend vs fake trend is also a good point for your own product's real usage vs fake usage. Are people "really" engaged and using your product or are they just thinking that it's cool but not really using it?
- I have nothing to add to what he said about the team, but team is so important that I wanted to mention it as well.
- His point about optimism is another point where team (or advisors or well-wishers) help. A startup is a roller-coaster. You will have days of negativity and doubts. At that moment, a team member (or someone similar) who pushes you and encourages you is very important!
- Love the points about "We'll figure it out" and "I've got it"
- "Bias towards action" doesn't mean being busy for the sake of being busy. In my career, I've seen so many months wasted because action wasn't based on well-thought-out logic. So, certainly keep bias towards action, but don't use it as no excuse to not think. A good way to not move fast is to move fast in unnecessary directions.
- The "Never lose momentum" point is so difficult in real world (unless you're lucky). But, good to be reminded about.
- The point about "Distribution startegy" is another great point. Every distribution strategy we are thinking of is going to turn out to be harder than we thought. Still, finding new / unexplored distribution sources compared to your competition can be a great win!
- I am sure this wasn't intentional, but I'll say that the talk didn't focus enough on users / customers. In the end, it's all about creating genuine value for the customers / users.
> Product can't be "good" if it's not based on frequent and lots of conversations / interactions with users.
It also can't be good if you're not implementing the ideas being surfaced in those interactions, and implementing takes longer than talking with people. If you have a conversation with someone and end up building something they ask for that takes six weeks of full time work, then does it really make sense to delay the timeline on shipping that feature so that you can keep talking with more potential users who will likely have the same objections anyway? I'm not trying to justify not talking with users, but at the same time once you've gotten the message, it may be time to hang up the phone.
I find Sam Altman's advice on startup completely and utterly useless. They're akin to the "How to become a millionaire" books. I've said this in the past [1] that providing generic advice doesn't work for startups. Every company is unique and they have unique challenges. Instead, Sam should be focusing on bringing stories of various startups in light, interview their founders and have a focused discourse on what worked and what didn't for that __particular__ startup.
Amen. This barely (if at all) applies to enterprise startups ("make something people want to tell their friends about" doesn't run up against internal decision-making and budgets very well... and "something that's easy to explain" is something that's only relevant in the right industry) and doesn't apply at all to startups in particular industry sectors, government-oriented, or even many hardware oriented ones.
This applies to a subset of Silicon Valley-style, hyper consumer oriented, VC-backable startups that at the end of the day, are fairly interchangeable.
I sort of disagree in one important sense: all generic advice is pretty useless.
How to succeed in sports? practice, focus, take care of your diet and health
How to succeed in a large company? keep your boss happy, work hard, focus
etc
This is not Altman's fault. I don't think the videos can -- or are supposed to -- replace actual detailed daily advice on struggles which, presumably, you get if you join Ycombinator.
I don't think that "focusing on bringing stories of various startups to light" is all that different from what he is doing. The same criticism applies: it is their story not yours.
And the same caveat applies: it is a sample of the kind of advice you will get.
I want more stories from Loopt. It was ahead of its time and I know he learned a lot from his time as a startup CEO (before joining YC) that we rarely hear about.
I tend to agree. The more experience I gain in running startup companies the more I believe the recipe for success is 1) show up 2) work hard 3) get lucky. And #3 is super important.
The upcoming videos in this series are mostly presented by startup founders, employees, and investors speaking from their personal experience. To your point about generic advice not working for startups, his advice seems distilled down to the most general advice that does work for startups. Given the number YC has incubated he probably has a good grasp on that. To me these videos are like candy, intuitive but great reminders nonetheless.
Yes, this is why Founders at Work is such a great book: it's full of interviews and case studies, and the reader is free to interpret the stories and learn their own lessons.
I agree that it is a high-level type of advice but it is actually spot on. Everything can't just be handed to you. The hard part about his advice is actually executing on it. Even creating a product that people want and will pay for is extremely difficult.
In a similar vein to the question "Why do startups win?", which besides having a rich history of rigorous academic inquiry and to my thinking has never been adequately resolved.
One can ask, "Why does Startup School work?" And a chief factor is the imposition of an external hard deadline (Demo Day). As well as the tracking of performance metrics by a team outside the locus of founders.
To that end, a "Milestone Tracker" interface that is both public and designed with accountability in mind could be a key component in making things "real" for participants.
It also occurs to me that in a class of 15K startups, you are going to receive a lot of "offers" to try products and services from your fellow classmates. Just in the past hour I got $250 in credits from a cloud analytics startup, and a discount coupon from a crowdfunding platform for foodies ;)
Manageable for a cohort size in the low hundreds. But perhaps an issue at scale that may result in missed opportunities.
It may be a good idea to have a centralized site at startupschool.org/offers with a canonical list of "startup-to-startup" (S2S) deals.
Of course it would be differentiated from third-party credits by the likes of GCloud, AWS, Stripe, etc
No, that is not what he is saying. He is saying that right now there is no "killer app" or major reason to run out to get a VR headset or use VR. I agree with him. There is a lot of advancements in terms of VR hardware but what about the software side of it? Extremely minimal use in terms of software. I think VR won't go mainstream until there is some sort of "killer app" in terms of software that could be run on the VR headsets.
Perhaps that is a sign. If you like VR and think it is the future then think about what that killer app could be and invent it because right now, I don't see any killer app for VR yet. Just lots of ideas floating around but no real product.
I believe in AR/VR. I don't work in that space but I feel they should start with specialized use cases such as mental health and show value and be nimble about bringing it mainstream. Otherwise it will be a pie in the sky.....
- Be raised rich and or be surrounded by the rich/powerful(Elizabeth Holmes, Evan Speigel, etc...)
- Have rich & powerful friends directly or indirectly
- Impress & become friendly with the rich & powerful either through clear data that shows your worth an investment(your startup data shows traction) or lie your butt off; aka fake it before you make it. I always strive(d) for the former as darn my parents and the morality they instilled.
rexreed|7 years ago
1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for
2) Promote yourself incessantly because others will be promoting themselves even more incessantly.
3) Spend your money wisely - focus on people, product, and marketing. Don't waste your money on office trappings and stuff that makes you feel good. Save your lunch money.
4) Ignore Venture Capital. If you are actually selling something people want, you can grow on revenues. If it takes a lot of money to create what your customers want or if your growth is greater than revenue, then the VCs will want to talk to you anyways. Because a) you're growing and b) customers actually want what you have. But don't start by focusing on what VCs want. Focus on what your customers want instead.
5) Always be selling. To your customers. To the press. To your employees. To anyone who matters. Never stop talking about your company.
6) Always be listening. To your customers. To your employees. The easiest and best ideas come from others.
7) Re-invest. Plow your earnings back into the company and promotion.
8) It's ok not to have a competitive advantage. What? Ok maybe you need to have some advantage but it doesn't have to be nearly as significant as is stated in this video. You need to have some reason for your customers to buy your product or service instead of competitors', so there's always some advantage. It could be price. Features. better service. But it could also be just a better connection with your prospects. Or perhaps you manage to place yourself in the right place at the right time. Or maybe you're just spending a lot on marketing. If you want to be successful, you need to identify at least one FAIR competitive advantage that your customers care about. And if you want to be super successful, identify one UNFAIR competitive advantage that locks out the competition. That could be an exclusive partnership, some intellectual property advantage, or connections with your customers that your competitors can't easily obtain.
This applies no matter if you're running a silicon valley style startup or a cybersecurity enterprise-focused government client startup -- both can make you millions or billions.
rmason|7 years ago
ryeguy_24|7 years ago
1. Be good at product management
2. Do marketing a lot
3. Be smart financially
4. Be smart financially
5. Do marketing a lot
6. Be good at product management
7. Be smart financially
8. Be good at product management
Barrin92|7 years ago
I have trouble seeing how this works in a robotics or biotech company. Yes, if you're building something facing consumers on the web you can go a long way on small savings and people just putting time in. But if you want to build something that requires some capital simply to keep the business running that's going to be difficult.
debt|7 years ago
This piece advice seems leftover from a bygone era as this is so fundamental that I wonder does it even bear saying?
Again, if you're building something people don't want or aren't going to pay for, something is seriously fundamentally wrong and you should try to define what you're even trying to achieve; that is, you're not even trying to build a business but may think you are.
In most industries, making money is usually the very first thing that happens and, in some cases, happens before a thing is built or a service is provided.
Starting a business == making money. Maybe it's not profitable, but money should be changing hands. If that's not happening, go back to the drawing board and question everything.
We're not in the Dropbox circa 2013 era anymore.
enos_feedler|7 years ago
suyash|7 years ago
sinatra|7 years ago
- The point about "exponential growth in market" is very important if your startup wants to raise money from VCs and has similar goals. Otherwise, focusing on creating value even in mature markets can be a good choice too. Same point applies to the "Huge if it works" point too.
- His point about real trend vs fake trend is also a good point for your own product's real usage vs fake usage. Are people "really" engaged and using your product or are they just thinking that it's cool but not really using it?
- I have nothing to add to what he said about the team, but team is so important that I wanted to mention it as well.
- His point about optimism is another point where team (or advisors or well-wishers) help. A startup is a roller-coaster. You will have days of negativity and doubts. At that moment, a team member (or someone similar) who pushes you and encourages you is very important!
- Love the points about "We'll figure it out" and "I've got it"
- "Bias towards action" doesn't mean being busy for the sake of being busy. In my career, I've seen so many months wasted because action wasn't based on well-thought-out logic. So, certainly keep bias towards action, but don't use it as no excuse to not think. A good way to not move fast is to move fast in unnecessary directions.
- The "Never lose momentum" point is so difficult in real world (unless you're lucky). But, good to be reminded about.
- The point about "Distribution startegy" is another great point. Every distribution strategy we are thinking of is going to turn out to be harder than we thought. Still, finding new / unexplored distribution sources compared to your competition can be a great win!
- I am sure this wasn't intentional, but I'll say that the talk didn't focus enough on users / customers. In the end, it's all about creating genuine value for the customers / users.
Alex3917|7 years ago
It also can't be good if you're not implementing the ideas being surfaced in those interactions, and implementing takes longer than talking with people. If you have a conversation with someone and end up building something they ask for that takes six weeks of full time work, then does it really make sense to delay the timeline on shipping that feature so that you can keep talking with more potential users who will likely have the same objections anyway? I'm not trying to justify not talking with users, but at the same time once you've gotten the message, it may be time to hang up the phone.
fermienrico|7 years ago
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17309725
rexreed|7 years ago
This applies to a subset of Silicon Valley-style, hyper consumer oriented, VC-backable startups that at the end of the day, are fairly interchangeable.
projectramo|7 years ago
How to succeed in sports? practice, focus, take care of your diet and health
How to succeed in a large company? keep your boss happy, work hard, focus
etc
This is not Altman's fault. I don't think the videos can -- or are supposed to -- replace actual detailed daily advice on struggles which, presumably, you get if you join Ycombinator.
I don't think that "focusing on bringing stories of various startups to light" is all that different from what he is doing. The same criticism applies: it is their story not yours.
And the same caveat applies: it is a sample of the kind of advice you will get.
kn0thing|7 years ago
mikekij|7 years ago
drum|7 years ago
enraged_camel|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
anonymous5133|7 years ago
lihaciudaniel|7 years ago
[deleted]
ArtWomb|7 years ago
In a similar vein to the question "Why do startups win?", which besides having a rich history of rigorous academic inquiry and to my thinking has never been adequately resolved.
One can ask, "Why does Startup School work?" And a chief factor is the imposition of an external hard deadline (Demo Day). As well as the tracking of performance metrics by a team outside the locus of founders.
To that end, a "Milestone Tracker" interface that is both public and designed with accountability in mind could be a key component in making things "real" for participants.
It also occurs to me that in a class of 15K startups, you are going to receive a lot of "offers" to try products and services from your fellow classmates. Just in the past hour I got $250 in credits from a cloud analytics startup, and a discount coupon from a crowdfunding platform for foodies ;)
Manageable for a cohort size in the low hundreds. But perhaps an issue at scale that may result in missed opportunities.
It may be a good idea to have a centralized site at startupschool.org/offers with a canonical list of "startup-to-startup" (S2S) deals.
Of course it would be differentiated from third-party credits by the likes of GCloud, AWS, Stripe, etc
jarsin|7 years ago
Just curious because I swear saw a blog where they want VR startups to apply awhile ago but can't find it now.
anonymous5133|7 years ago
Perhaps that is a sign. If you like VR and think it is the future then think about what that killer app could be and invent it because right now, I don't see any killer app for VR yet. Just lots of ideas floating around but no real product.
madeuptempacct|7 years ago
mvpu|7 years ago
noer|7 years ago
id_rsa|7 years ago
kevinskii|7 years ago
tonyedgecombe|7 years ago
paul7986|7 years ago
- Have rich & powerful friends directly or indirectly
- Impress & become friendly with the rich & powerful either through clear data that shows your worth an investment(your startup data shows traction) or lie your butt off; aka fake it before you make it. I always strive(d) for the former as darn my parents and the morality they instilled.
sidlls|7 years ago
hashrate|7 years ago