
My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC - charleswzx
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wkJ6Ruh2IiR-caT-PS3n5Yt5VKcmIsVhuQwjgqK7030/edit
======
cmogni1
I haven’t finished reading this, but what strikes me about the advice in the
notes is that much of it is either contradictory or there exist
counterexamples to the claims. For example, the reader is encouraged to start
building, but is told you also need a good idea and that you can pivot but
most good companies don’t start with a pivot. Counterexample: Slack was a
pivot. We’re also instructed that you should build something that’s hard to
replicate, but also that the thing you build first should be simple. What am I
supposed to take away from this? If it’s simple, isn’t it almost surely
replicable? Also, Netflix is a good counterexample: they just started with a
DVD mail service, and were easily replicable by an incumbent, like
Blockbuster. And the advice about not creating a market goes against what
sometimes occurs through branding. The original Banana Republic sold “safari
clothing”. There was no market for this before Banana Republic. Nor was there
a market for energy drinks before Red Bull. I’m told that you should have a
cofounder, yet is appears that there’s many examples of successful companies
without one (eg Amazon, IKEA). I’m not sure if this appears in the document
yet, but another piece of conventional wisedom I’ve heard is that you need to
work on your startup full time or else (insert bad thing about you not being
committed). But what about Nike, whose founder worked for 5 years as an
accountant while he developed the business?

My point is that a lot of the advice I’ve heard about startups in general is
framed (intentionally or unintentionally) as a series of directives that will
optimize your chances of success. Moreover, no other additional context is
provided to help you frame the advice, such that you can tell whether or not
it’s applicable or appropriate advice to follow. The lack of context coupled
with the existence of so many blatant counterexamples and contradictions
prevents the advice from being useful.

(Note: I edited the last paragraph for clarity)

~~~
jialutu
Monopoly is good - except Google.

\- Peter Thiel

~~~
omeid2
There is some kind of kind of logic in this, Google, is more than a Search
monopoly, or Maps, or Gmail, or Google Play, or Google Ads, or presence on
very large number of website through Ads, Analytics, ReCaptcha, and lord knows
what. Google is not a monopoly, it is more than that.

------
charleswzx
Just sharing the notes I compiled while watching the online sessions @
[https://startupclass.samaltman.com/](https://startupclass.samaltman.com/).
I've been sitting on this for about half a year, and almost forgot I'd
compiled it.

I hope some of you find this useful (:

~~~
dragonsh
Probably you should also look at "Disciplined Entrepreneurship"
[https://medium.com/west-stringfellow/disciplined-
entrepreneu...](https://medium.com/west-stringfellow/disciplined-
entrepreneurship-summary-and-review-1d0a7c310644)

Many suggestions are practical with case studies.

~~~
charleswzx
Thank you! This looks like a great resource :)

------
objektif
I am not in the startup scene but why cant one of the best reason to start a
company be to make more MONEY. Why is it always about changing the world and
the universe needs me type of stuff. This is too SV cartoonish for me.

~~~
mathgladiator
Because most employees assume money is a given, and they align with a mission
instead. It is also not socially acceptable to be in something just for the
money unless it is wall street.

~~~
objektif
What type of mission would that be? Selling ads, gathering your private data?
Can we get real please? Time to stop villianizing WS, SV is just modern day WS
with more greed. ( Sometimes more useful though. )

------
nyrulez
I recently started out on this road as a solo founder [0], and out of all the
given pieces of advice that YC gives, two things are the most conflicting for
me:

\- This pressure to have a co-founder. I see that quoted as a major reasons
for why startups go bust but also necessary for doing anything meaningful. I
can imagine there being truth to both statements. I've seen startups go bust
in my own network on both sides of the divide. But I feel there isn't enough
advice out there for folks who are doing it Solo - that's still a valid design
pattern for many startups in the past or present.

\- The whole idea of go big or go home - lot of the advice seems to assume you
want to be really big one day. There doesn't seem to be enough advice for
someone wanting to be a 10M-100M dollar business as their main milestone, not
as a path to hit a billion dollar valuation. That kind of assumption results
in very different kinds of design patterns, often borrowed from other billion
dollar startups that may not make sense to your own little venture in the
beginning.

I wish startup advice wasn't universal as every author or speaker would like
you to believe - there could be a system where it was doled out based on the
current phase and situation, or at least recognizing the fact that there isn't
one size fits all for something as varied as starting your own venture.

[0] [https://stockquanta.com](https://stockquanta.com)

~~~
scottlocklin
YC advice isn't optimizing to help founders at all. It's optimizing for their
business model.

I don't know why people think otherwise. Do you think venture capitalists are
your friends? Pretty sure they're not!

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
Yeah, but without entrepreneurs, VC's have no opportunity to invest in the
next Uber, etc.

It's in their interest to be both nice to you, and strike a good deal with
you, if they want to do business with you at all.

I wouldn't want to work with a VC who couldn't be nice to me. To be firm or
offer pointed criticism is fine.

~~~
scottlocklin
I dunno bro, did you read anything I said?

In business people can be perfectly nice and at the same time completely ruin
your life. In fact, that's standard practice.

I'm telling you to be wary of VC advice on how to start a startup, basically
because VC advice is entirely self serving; it's not designed to help you.
It's designed to help them.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
> I dunno bro, did you read anything I said?

This type of comment isn't really productive to make. Yes, I read what you
said. Because I replied to it.

My point is that I wouldn't work with somebody who wouldn't treat me
reasonably-- I wouldn't accept their VC money.

I don't understand how VC advice can be self-serving, though, since in order
for them to get a return on their money, your business has to take off. And
you don't give up 100% of the company. So you win too. I view it as mutual, in
that regard.

If you lose, they lose money. If they invest in you, they don't want to lose.

~~~
scottlocklin
You tell me

> I don't understand how VC ...

And you also tell me you don't like being told that you don't understand.
Which one is it? Go read what I said again. Now read the following.

You are one of N (N being large) investments by VC. Your utility function is
to increase your probability of getting rich. Their utility function is to
increase their probability of making bonus. How on earth can you assume you
are optimizing the same thing? You are not. You're just one of 100 or 200 dice
they're rolling. Your success is completely meaningless to them; they want the
loaded die, and they want to be able to identify it and bet the house on it.
You might have a great idea for a business which makes _YOU_ rich, but if it
doesn't fit their model, you're SOL with VC. You may even have a great idea
which makes the VC rich. They're not optimizing for your wealth here either:
they are optimizing for THEIR wealth, and they will happily take your company,
your idea, and all your profit and leave you with jack shit. As such, taking
advice from a venture capitalist is like taking advice from a financial
advisor that works in a boiler room. Guess what? They don't have your best
interests in mind either! They just want to make bonus. Just like the VC. You
are product to them.

If you've been around the block a few times, you'd know this. I'm trying to
tell you how it works, but you keep telling me VCs are your friend and
everything they tell you is the truth. They're not! They're almost all
scumbags! You should use them to achieve your goals, and that's it! And only a
fool takes what they have to say about founding a startup as some kind of
revealed truth. It's just propaganda to make their job easier.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
I actually boot-strap my own projects. So in a sense, you're right. I probably
never would take VC funding. I don't think terribly highly of them, but I do
think it would be naive for them to not want you succeed.

Thank you for finally highlighting something pivotal in our discussion: the
shared interest (or lack thereof) in your success. Like I said, it doesn't
totally add up to me. If you remain majority shareholder in your business, it
seems hard for them to walk off with more than you would at the liquidity
event (e.g, your company is acquired, an IPO, etc).

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. They're not 100% against your
interests, but not necessarily 100% for them, either.

~~~
scottlocklin
Sure, sometimes VC align with your interests. But I'm just trying to make the
point that taking their advice without thinking about it is ... inadvisable.

I've seen super terrible things happen to people. Sometimes you have to jump
up and down and make a lot of noise that "notes on how to start a startup by
YC" should be taken with much salt.

Anyway :allies:

------
distant_hat
There's a huge amount of survivorship bias in all such lists. Startups that
succeed get analyzed a lot, those that did pretty much the same things but
failed don't. To be rigorous about it, you'd have to define things like what's
a startup, what constitutes success, what constitutes failure, far more
carefully.

~~~
muzani
That's the good thing about lists that come from VCs. They analyze both the
successes and failures, as well as things like risk level. YC also does a
great job of not falling into the trap of copying the last superstar.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
True but huge caveat: their idea of success and the founder’s idea of success
may differ wildly. If a modest exit makes the founder a few million and the VC
just gets a single digit multiple, that’s not the kind of success they’re
going to gravitate towards in their analysis. They may not label it a failure
but they won’t be trying to identify how to replicate more of those, even if
it will have changed the founder’s life and family for generations.

~~~
muzani
Yes, that is true.

But so far this one has done a good job at that. The first thing they do is
even try to convince you that entrepreneurship isn't the most profitable path.
The statistically best path is to work at an early stage company. But if you
have a certain kind of insane resolve, then they'll guide you down it.

I think 'partial' success does get celebrated though, sort of like Reddit.
Again, this is something seed investors do far better than Series C investor
types.

The patterns are still pretty similar, as a good deal of this covers the path
from idea to "ramen profitable".

~~~
ummonk
> The first thing they do is even try to convince you that entrepreneurship
> isn't the most profitable path. The statistically best path is to work at an
> early stage company.

That's just them, being self-interested since they need employees for their
founders' startups more than they need new founders.

Realistically, the most profitable path statistically is to work at a FLNG or
decacorn.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Agreed. I'm completely skeptical that the expected return is higher for "early
stage startup" vs large tech co or "decacorn" (love that term, btw) and
investing in index funds and maybe some real estate.

------
midway
Interesting: The title was changed ('57-Page' was removed) while the comment
which classified the prior title as close to click-bait was downvoted.

I didn't know that users could change the title of their submission. How is
this possible or is this actually a post by YC?

If latter, a hint would be great that this might be YC promoted content and
not actual user content.

~~~
paintbox
It is possible that an admin changed the title.

Folks probably downvoted you because they deemed your tone unwelcome here.

~~~
midway
> It is possible that an admin changed the title

Still strange. Why should an admin change the submission of a random user if
it doesn't breach any of HN's rules?

Maybe because it's not a random submission by a random user?

Guess I must be wrong but would love to hear what that admin who did the
change has to say.

~~~
imhoguy
> _If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous
> adjective, we 'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To
> Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the
> number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
midway
Catchy title with strong words ('57-page', 'YC'), no real click-bait but
close.

I skimmed the first pages and most of the advice is neither wrong or bad.
Still, reading a lenghty 57-note in order to learn is wrong.

You learn by doing. If _you_ want to start something stop procrastinating on
HN and execute the first step: found the legal entity for your endeavor. This
will keep you busy for the next days, and you learn.

Btw, you don't need to have a good or any idea or co-founder now. This will
all come. Just start, make mistakes, stop reading random advice.

 _Edit: Don 't downvote if you disagree, downvote if a comment doesn't add
anything to the discussion._

~~~
randomsearch
Don’t set up a legal entity.

Find the nugget of your idea. Do something to get market feedback.

Eg your idea is Uber for pet food - go interview people leaving a big pet food
store and ask them if they’re interested. Old school market research.

Or say your idea is a sports news site for minor teams. Set up an MVP that
serves for your local team and promote it, see how many many people go to the
site. MVP could be a stream of article links from other sites, or perhaps
better a newsletter via email. On site have sign up box for other teams.

Market feedback is key. Once you have a good signal, continue building and
gather more feedback.

~~~
midway
While I agree with most what you wrote, I still think that setting up a legal
entity is a good first step. Most wannabes struggle with starting. They wait
for the perfect idea, the perfect team and so on. They never start. Even if
you start with a crappy idea. Ideas will evolve, get pivoted, whatever. My
message is about to start and not wasting your time with inactivity like
reading random Google Docs by random dudes.

------
spencerwgreene
Google Docs is already showing "Some tools might be unavailable due to heavy
traffic in this file."

I predict this posts hits 100 points and then it crashes. (Currently at 31.)

~~~
sdrothrock
At 47 and had issues loading it, so I printed to PDF and hosted a copy on
Docdroid -- I hope that's ok. If not, I'll delete it.

[https://docdro.id/tOVflQx](https://docdro.id/tOVflQx)

------
TravelAndFood
"How do you tell which markets are growing fastest? Use instincts as a young
student."

Welp, I'm over 22, guess I'm never starting a company.

------
Zigurd
The Airbnb interview question “if u were diagnosed with 1 year left to live,
would you work at airbnb?” sounds to me like "I want to date a stalker." No.
No I don't. I don't want an insane employee who may go postal, either.

------
namaljayathunga
I like to read summaries. This is amazing, thanks for sharing.

------
mluggy
wow, great stuff. i was starting to do the same after watching dozens of yc
videos. you made it better :)

~~~
charleswzx
Thanks for the kind words! Hope it helps.

------
poirier
Nice job on the formatting. Looks great with an auto-outline.

Appreciate the share.

~~~
charleswzx
Very welcome!

------
suzairshah
This is amazing, thanks for sharing

~~~
charleswzx
You're very welcome :)

------
thebentarrow
TY!

