I started Startup School about 7 months ago and went from side-project to a full-time cofounder [1]. I (23M) am a first-time technical entrepreneur, and I cannot emphasize enough how beneficial YC's resources are for those who just start.
The most important thing which is told to you over and over again while you are doing Startup School is "talk to your users (potential users)". Talk to them before writing the first damn line of code. Only after you have 20-100 people who told you "yes, that is my problem which must be resolved" start working on your solution to this particular problem.
Still, about 80% of people who I met over SS weekly sessions completely neglected those rules. They were building to build not to solve the problem.
Also, AWS credits saved us thousands of $. I did not know about these credits until I randomly clicked on a "deals" tab of SS interface.
This "Build Sprint" is truly a great idea that will finally highlight the success of those teams who listened to YC's advises.
Finally, I think because of SS is free many people do not value their advises. However, SS literally has 99% of what you need to know to build a 100k-1M ARR business. That's why I think SS should be somewhat paid/exclusive to make people value it.
Only after you have 20-100 people who told you "yes, that is my problem which must be resolved" start working on your solution to this particular problem.
This is good advice if you want to 'do a startup', and maybe that's the sort of person startup school attracts, but it seems incongruous with the majority of founders I know who started by solving a problem they had themselves. They built something because they needed it to exist, and a business grew out from that.
Building to distract yourself from more important work on your startup (eg testing your assumptions) is a bad idea but building because you actually need the thing to exist isn't.
I need a thing to exist (calorie counter), but I also talked (if only superficially) to other people like me about the issue. I still got a lot of insight out of that. You wouldn’t expect the number of tiny, innocent assumptions you make that hold for yourself but are utterly not the case for others.
For example, the fact that I live with my partner and many of my potential users don’t means they can apply a fundamentally different process to tracking calories than me. You are not going to realize stuff like that on your own.
So even if you’re mostly just fixing your own problem, just talking to a few people and making minor changes accordingly can make your product useful for a way bigger audience. Or maybe better stated conversely, not talking to others will narrow your products’ audience down immensely.
Same, we fixed our own problem. Still, talked to others to understand if there is a demand. Because there is always a chance that it is only you who have such issues.
Hey HN! Really excited to launch the YC Build Sprint. We've been working on this for the last month. The main goal here is to help founders get as much done as possible in a 4-week period. We've found that time pressure can be really helpful for productivity, even if it's external (and even somewhat contrived).
That pressure was critical for me to launch my alpha when I did Startup School a couple years ago. I had been waiting to make my product "better" before releasing it. But everyone in my cohort had progress to show even though they were in early stages. So I went ahead and released what I had, which got me critical feedback from users for how to think about the market.
Thanks kcorbitt! Apologies if this is not the place to report this but invited co-founders get an 'Invite not found!' error after clicking on the invite link in the email and after filling out the profile.
In my opinion, Startup School is kind of a waste of time.
If you have the capacity and the will to build for yourself, you should already have the drive to push your idea forward. You don't need validation from them to make it work.
I hate getting judged by a "panel of experts" and their "opinions" destroying the wills to continue. Self-confidence and constant iterative validation are a big part of the founder's success. YC's model of "only the top 1% gets funding and support" has stopped producing unicorns. It exerts bias and provides false validation to the founders leading them into a false sense of security.
Resources are great, but I wouldn't waste time on a program like this. Especially they pick only 20.
I am a founder who has been trying for many years. I have a set of mental issues including insecurity (which is way better now) and I totally depend on peer group of founders to help me along.
Just for reference, last 2-3 weeks were a complete blank. I spoke to a few founders for motivation but I could not drive work.
If you have the capacity to work without any support, good for you. I am not in these networks for YC validation though. I am there for the peers, they help immensely. In fact I want to create an alternate place for founders, but many already exist and I am a part (PH, IH, Makerlog) of them too.
Where is the community in PH? Also everything that is top ranked on PH has a majority of vague or empty positivity. Being positive is good, but not the way PH and Yourstack are.
I wouldn't call it a waste of time but it did feel like it was targeted more towards very early-stage start-ups, and was probably helpful mostly to them.
If you have some kind of traction and experience, the video conferences felt pretty awkward because a lot of the founders were completely inexperienced and would try to be helpful by giving you "advice" they'd read in a blog somewhere or really obvious stuff.
YC needs a version (or sub-section) of startup school that's focused on generating quality startup ideas. I feel like that's a huge aspect that isn't really talked about. This "Build Sprint" is an example...they jump right to "let's figure out how to get your first customers", and assume everyone is ready to go with a million-dollar idea.
As usual the truth is somewhat more nuanced. There definitely are million dollar ideas, and there's a lot of bad ideas that sound like they could be million dollar ideas, but which don't work in practice, no matter how much work you put into it.
However, coming up with ideas is far, far easier than executing on them. If you're in a situation where you can't generate ideas, I would recommend reading/watching various advice on the subject in the YC library and elsewhere, to try and get closer to the right mindset to be open to opportunities. Then pay attention to all the little things you ignore day to day. Every time you find yourself getting frustrated with a company or process, that could be an opportunity in disguise. It's also beneficial to broaden your work experience. Go work in a different field or a field at an intersection with yours and pay attention.
Be Mindful of The Living Force as you go through life :)
> However, coming up with ideas is far, far easier than executing on them.
There was an article [0] shared here last month that I found useful for weighing the relative importance of ideas vs execution.
IMO, there are many many million-dollar-ideas (million with an m, not billion) out there, that are enough to make a bootstrap startup out of.
Many people see these ideas, but don't develop them because the problems are "body-building hard" instead of "ideas hard". Working 9-5 at $BIG_CO is neither kind of hard most of the time, and most people prefer that.
I agree very much with this idea. I'm working on bootstrapping a body building hard company at the moment.
I'm not exactly sure how it will play out, and it sure isn't easy. But I'm chipping away at it day after day and I'm confident I can make a living at it.
> I'm not much of a body builder compared to most, mind you, but I keep at it.
Mind sharing how you are able to sustain the habit?
I currently jog fairly consistently but only on week days. I’m able to jog for ~25 mins 3 to 5 times a week and make it a point to rest on weekends.
I got a boxed set of portable weights just as the lock down was about to be enacted but have not been able to lift regularly. Now, it takes an enormous amount of mental energy to get myself to lift even on weekends that I’ve simply abandoned the weights.
I think it's about creating habits. I struggled to workout at home during the lockdown, and slid backwards a lot. When I have the gym available, I just go 5 times a week at the same hour every day. I don't have to think about it. I don't take my phone with me, so I have an hour at the gym with nothing else to do but do my exercises. So my advice to you is set a time on the weekends when you're going to workout, and make sure you do that every weekend without fail, pretty soon it'll just be another thing you do, like brushing your teeth.
It's a little awkward now because I have to schedule an appointment for the gym and I can only get access 3 times a week, and it's the building gym so there isn't a huge variety of equipment, but I'm making do.
God willing, I’ll try out the same-time same-days tip this weekend and see if I can sustain it for a month. If I can’t make it work, I’ll trial the gym membership tip.
Not the person you've replied to, but I've found that the observation of consistent progress (in terms of the weights you're capable of lifting, etc) is a big hook.
I haven't lifted in a while, but I've done marathon training before and the hook is quite related. Each week, if you push yourself hard enough, you will make more or less linear progress.
Just like running, the first 2-3 weeks of regular lifting are a big slog to get through, but then your body starts learning/adapting, you start demonstrably and rapidly improving, and it becomes fun.
I agree somewhat but there are still differences between the 2 workouts. I guess it boils down to the different muscle types that are recruited for each workout: slow-twitch muscles for jogging versus fast-twitch muscles for weightlifting.
Linear progress is easy to track with runs when you push yourself hard enough as you say, but not so much with weights because it comes with it’s own tending. For instance, to really see results rapidly, your diet has to change such that you are getting certain amounts of protein and other nutrients to build muscle mass.
I have tried to copy the discipline I’ve inculcated from running regularly for weightlifting, but I’m not able to sustain it because in addition to it using up fast-twitch muscles, it also comes with a change in dietary habits that go with that kind of workout.
These are totally fair points. I'd only quibble a bit that diet can be a big limiter for linear progress in running, depending on the kind of running you're doing.
At the time I was training, I was aiming for a marathon time that qualifies you for the Boston Marathon, as an example. (that's much more about muscle development than other forms of running). You can't consistently run a sub-7:00 mile for more than 3 miles without having a pretty regimented diet.
If you don't increase your protein intake dramatically, you'll get injuries while pushing for that pace, and if you can't push, you will plateau.
But you're right that you can go pretty far (maybe a month) without changing your diet in running training, depending on where you're starting from.
I'm not discounting moonshot business ideas. I'm saying there's a bunch of capable people out there that may not have any idea what exactly to build. And I'm saying people like that could benefit from active discussion on ideas of what to build, and people that already have ideas of what to build would benefit from discussing their startup idea & business plan with others prior to diving in head first.
I'm basically saying mix wisdom of the crowd with the startup-idea generation process.
I agree with you I also have been looking for place where good ideas are shared and discussed. Couldn't find any except the usual subreddits where posts do occaisionally come by discussing trends, ideas etc. A good idea is rare. I don't follow the belief of ideas are a dime a dozen. If that where the case why was Uber the first company to innovate in the taxi space and why suddenly just after it launched like 20 different companies launched everywhere in the world doing exactly the same.
Quite sincerely, I'm convinced YC and other VCs don't do this because they've observed that ideas truly don't matter very much. And if you can't even come up with an idea what hope do you have of finishing the work, why not become an employee (which is fine)?
What matters is the journey and how you react to the multiple problems along the way (99% of people give up too early, too much grit is required). Usually by the end of that journey your initial idea has changed beyond recognition, even if there are some common elements between the idea and the endpoint.
To come up with some examples:
Apple: Computers for everyone -> Phones for everyone
if ideas don't matter, explain Uber and the dozens of copy cat apps that launched right after all over the world. Why didn't they launch before Uber was even thought of by the founder?
It's very hard for people to be disciplined about not increasing their lifestyle when doing this in order to actually save enough. But it's a nearly 100% sure-fire way to achieve that goal.
The Startup Ideas section of the YC Library[1] fulfilled this aspect for me. It framed my thinking on startups' role in society and how to generate them.
Really cool idea! I'm working on a project that could really, really use 4 weeks of focused effort, and I think that's enough time to accomplish a lot but short enough it doesn't feel overwhelming to zone in on it for that long. Looking forward to be a part of it!
I'm not very familiar with Startup School, can students who participated recently chime in about the amount of value obtained and time commitment involved? Is it possible to complete outside of PST business hours or are there real-time components? Thanks!
This is my first time going through it, it's pretty easy as far as time commitments goes. The weekly updates are pretty helpful actually, while we have made a lot of progress in both users and updates, but looking back at the past 8 weeks there were a number of goals that we didn't end up doing because "time got away from us" or The group sessions have been very hit or miss, it's often too much just introducing yourself instead of being able to ask questions that they might be able to help you with. And then there is a 22 section "curriculum" which are just YC articles and videos that you have to mark that you completed, generally pretty solid reads, but all 22 over 8 weeks feels like a lot of busy work than actual work, so I'm playing catch up right now. Overall I'd say do it, it's free and does give you something to keep track of your weeks, because they do fly by super fast. But we've tripled the number of users by mostly dumb luck and some persistence, so I would do it again.
I try to participate in Startup School each time it comes around. I find it incredibly good practice for "the real thing".
I'm not quite ready to start my own venture just yet, but I like to "practice" by coming up with an idea, setting goals, moving towards them, doing interviews, etc. The startup school is a really nice program to follow along with and have conversations with other founders during. I'm basically using it to war-game a startup launch myself. The idea being that when the time comes that I decide to jump in on something I'm very passionate about and put skin-in-the-game, it should all feel familiar (if not just a tiny bit more comfortable).
Of course it's not a substitute for the real thing, but I think it's brought immense value to my skillset.
> ...amount of value obtained and time commitment involved?
If you're a first-time founder, startup school is tremendously beneficial in terms of support from the community (though, indiehackers might be better), content, network (pioneer.app likely better at this), and motivation. I fully recommend it. I am not so sure of the value-add otherwise but it continues to attract energetic and optimistic people.
YC's Startup Library is strikingly good which is (was?) central part of the curriculum. Startup school arranges weekly / bi-weekly AMAs by YC alumni and other industry experts which are of great value, too. Not sure if they're continuing to do that.
The founders you meet during the course open up avenues for collaboration. It is also a great place to get feedback on your startup's progress, refine your pitch, discuss your concerns and roadblocks (which sometimes result in unsolicited but welcomed help), get exposure for your work (however limited).
Getting the most out of the program depends on one's ability to get things done, to stay motivated, focused, and honest.
> Is it possible to complete outside of PST business hours or are there real-time components?
Yes, there are no real-time components. They also match founders for weekly meetings depending on the day and time you choose in addition to other criteria.
Is the network for Pioneer.app if you get accepted for the 1% equity or more? Do you know what the general stats are? Is Pioneer.app worth it if you’re likely not to be accepted for the equity exchange?
Pioneer is better in the way that they actively seek to promote to the point of evangelizing and support the founders of what they classify as promising up-starts (top 1% or otherwise) using metrics they measure.
Startup school is more hands-off than Pioneer. The latter gamifies building a product that might motivate people and create a sense of achievement. The former is more on-your-own kind of a thing.
That said, I haven't been through a Pioneer program myself but know founders who have and liked it.
Startup school has been amazing for me ... it's really helped to give the psychological push to get going and keep going. I think it's really incredible that it exists, is free, and is as useful as it is.
I'm kind of at a loss for what they expect the "sprint goals" to be.
Would people who've been through this program be willing to share what their sprint goal was along with how mature their project was, what kind of experience they had and whether they achieved their sprint goal?
While the selection criteria seems pretty subjective, if you want a chance at winning the $10K grant then your work should focus on business growth. They mention examples like launching V1, but the criteria has no real focus on product progress or technical achievements.
In fact, it seems like simply running a successful marketing campaign for your preexisting product would set you up for success in this "sprint".
More specifically, the selection criteria reads:
A panel of qualified judges determined by Sponsor (YC) in its sole discretion will select as the Winners the Participants with the twenty highest-scoring Submissions from among all eligible Submissions received by the Submission Deadline based on the following criteria:
* Participant’s revenue or prospects for revenue in the near term (25%)
* Participant’s business growth as measured by an increase in users, increase in revenues, progress in bookings or improvement in the Participant’s objectives (“Business Growth”) (25%)
* Scalability of Participant’s business (25%)
* Feasibility of implementing Participant’s proposed business objectives (25%)
I have registered for this, set a goal of 150 registered users and 2 paying users and then panicked. Here is the relevant blog https://toonclip.com/blog
IMHO, YC tends to launch these kinds of programs around summer.
The first iteration of this was launched in July 2015 and it was called the YC Fellowship. Participation was accomplished remotely via video chat and grant money was $12000.
The most important thing which is told to you over and over again while you are doing Startup School is "talk to your users (potential users)". Talk to them before writing the first damn line of code. Only after you have 20-100 people who told you "yes, that is my problem which must be resolved" start working on your solution to this particular problem.
Still, about 80% of people who I met over SS weekly sessions completely neglected those rules. They were building to build not to solve the problem.
Also, AWS credits saved us thousands of $. I did not know about these credits until I randomly clicked on a "deals" tab of SS interface.
This "Build Sprint" is truly a great idea that will finally highlight the success of those teams who listened to YC's advises.
Finally, I think because of SS is free many people do not value their advises. However, SS literally has 99% of what you need to know to build a 100k-1M ARR business. That's why I think SS should be somewhat paid/exclusive to make people value it.
[1] https://newscatcherapi.com/