
Startup School – YC’s Online Class - piyushmakhija
https://blog.ycombinator.com/onlineclass/
======
estsauver
I'm very optimistic about this program, but I also wonder how much of the
success of the main program and the fellowship can be scaled into a MOOC.

I was part of YCF1 as AirPaper, and while I think it was an incredibly
valuable experience, most of the things the YC partners told us we're things
that we "knew." Most of the advice was available in one essay or another, but
it still felt very, very different to have one of the partners tell us
directly what we should be doing.

I actually think in a lot of ways the YC program felt a lot like therapy for
our startup. We'd talk in group office hours about the other successes and
problems other startups were facing. Individual office hours felt like one on
one therapy where we got very specific direction out of the partners, but most
of the time they were really helping my cofounder and I work out what the
solution to our biggest problem was.

While I think the information in this class will certainly be valuable, I hope
that the participants of this class really convince themselves that the advice
applies to them, right now. To get the most out of this class, I think you
need to abandon cynicism and let the message reach through the screen and grab
you and your cofounders by the lapels.

~~~
saycheese
>> "most of the things the YC partners told us we're things that we "knew."
Most of the advice was available in one essay or another, but it still felt
very, very different to have one of the partners tell us directly what we
should be doing."

This is really what will make a difference, that is building a network of
mentors that are doing one-on-one mentoring under the same process guided by
the same culture. YC should really have a 3rd option, that being to sign-up to
become a "certified" mentor.

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rgovind
I find it quiet surprising that none of these startup classes teach how to do
market research and market sizing. Yet when a new batch of startups demo every
six weeks, the first thing they talk of is, size of opportunity. Market
opportunity is one of the things to consider before deciding on a problem to
work on. Please consider adding this info to your classes.

Also, None of them teach how Sam or any YC partner or any VC would approach or
start thinking whether a startup is worth investing in or not. That would be
hugely beneficial to some of us as it will help us in channeling our thoughts.

~~~
sama
I am planning to cover both of those!

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ploggingdev
> Build a community of entrepreneurs who can encourage and teach each other

Working towards the mentioned goal can start right here on HN by adding a
navbar link titled "MOOC" like what YC did with "Apply HN". I am curious to
know if YC considered involving the HN community directly like they did with
the Fellowship. I remember the whole controversy involving pinboard and YC
receiving a lot of flak for it, but I hope that experience did not deter YC
from involving the HN community if they had considered involving the HN
community. I imagine there are a lot of enthusiastic folks around here willing
to give feedback to startups.

Sam Altman mentioned that somewhere (can't remember where) that they would
experiment giving funding to a few startups taking part in the MOOC. I wonder
why they pushed that to the next offering of the MOOC, why not start now?

Also, what happened to the Fellowship? I thought it was a great idea but I get
the impression (from having read comments about the Fellowship written by YC
partners) that YC felt it might not have been the best way to scale funding
new startups and so the MOOC was born.

Suggestion : the Fellowship was a great idea and so is this MOOC, why not make
the Fellowship a subset of the MOOC i.e fund a few startups taking part in the
MOOC with $20,000 or so and please find a way to involve the HN community
directly.

~~~
dang
Thanks, that's a great suggestion and it does seem like there should be ways
for the HN community to plug into this. It's probably also the case that we
should let the new thing grow a bit before trying to extend it. But I'll talk
with Sam about this the next time I see him.

------
ChicagoBoy11
I was laughed off of HN when I suggested a few years ago that YC was en route
to becoming the world's first true 21st century university.

Applying pg's question of "What Microsoft Is this the Altair Basic of" to YC
itself, the answer to me has always been a modern university. From the regular
cohorts, to nascent investment in basic research, to residential component, to
doing things that make a big impact on the world, to being highly profitable
(yes, elite higher ed. is a fantastic business), always seemed to me that all
the ingredients were there.

This is yet another small step in that direction.

~~~
yurisagalov
You would be happy to know that in fact I believe PG has said as much himself
:)

[https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/sam-altman-taking-over-
as-...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/sam-altman-taking-over-as-president-
of-y-combinator-replacing-paul-graham-at-the-helm/)

~~~
saycheese
Related text from the above link:

>> At a fundamental level, though, Graham says that the YC experience for
startups will largely be unchanged. “A big misconception is that Y Combinator
is Paul Graham,” he said. This change, he says, should finally dispel that
public perception and build a bigger future for YC modeled in part after
organizations that have stood the test of time.

>> “It’s rare for a company to last 100 years, but for a university it’s
nothing. The reason for the difference, I think, is that product companies
always have in their DNA some assumption about the kind of thing they’re
building, and about their market, and that eventually ends up becoming false.
But a university is just a nexus of people...people go there because of the
people that are there,” he said. “Now, I’m not claiming that Y Combinator is
going to last for centuries. But it could.”

------
r2dnb
This is a smart move by YC. This gives them a platform to assess promising
ideas and teams at no-cost. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point teams
become required to graduate from the program before being able to apply to YC.

I am not trying to be cynical here or downplay the value of their
contribution. I think that they will genuinely teach the best of what they
know to people. And what I am actually saying is that this is a good example
of healthy capitalism.

This is an example of the fact that it is possible to articulate your best
interests in a way that also helps people.

But I have to say that also admire the strategy itself. This is the kind of
things that get you thinking : "they should have done it a long time ago"
after you see the solution. Never thought about it either to be fair, but this
is how you recognize the best solutions : they shine through their simplicity.

Anyway, well found and wishing you the best with this, and hopefully this will
help and inspire many people to make the world a more pleasant place.

------
davidcaseria
The Startup School logo is really cool - a bunch of Y Combinator 'Y's forming
a tree. It fits what they seem to be going for with by calling the MOOC
'Startup School' and symbolizes the programming definition of Y Combinator.
Whoever came up with that design does good work. :)

------
god_bless_texas
I hope that there is some kind of 1:1 they can do here. We're part of a
startup in a non-techy city. We're a service business and although our
immediate future is bright, I have major questions about how to scale our
business outside of acquiring similar companies doing stuff close to what
we're doing and changing their strategy. Sure, there are mentors here who have
grown a business...but I want YC-enabled growth...

~~~
Finbarr
We hope to provide 1:1 and group office hours to as many companies as
possible.

~~~
god_bless_texas
That's great. I will fly to SF just to get the quality time.

------
urs2102
Are there any interesting insights learned from running the fellowship that
contributed to the development of the MOOC?

I definitely think the community would love to hear them!

------
viet_nguyen
Nice! I'm living in Vietnam and I'd love to learn from this program.

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adentranter
As someone who lives in a regional city in Australia, Im very excited to have
the opportunity to join the program.

Watching the lectures on Youtube offers a one way information transfer, which
while its an amazing amount of information im hoping that this MOOC will allow
a bit more of a two way communication.

So Thanks.

------
bootload
_" 30-40% of these will be recorded advice sessions with startups—we’ve always
heard from entrepreneurs that this is some of our most helpful content."_

Excellent. Learning online is best served by using video. Following the model
of getting the best on tape, distributing to a mass audience. cf: MIT online
6.001 lectures. I'm thinking the Hal Abelson lectures from '85)

 _" We’ll have an online community via Slack and email where you can connect
with other entrepreneurs in the class."_

Expedience. Not a fan of slack. Is a YC discussion/mooc platform being
planned?

 _" 4) At the end of the class, participants will have a chance to share what
they’ve built with a wide audience."_

How is this happening? Slack?

------
ThomPete
This is great, however I don't believe it will make you a better entrepreneur.

To me at least the only thing I ever learned from was doing it and make my own
experience which often would if not contradict what I read about then at least
illustrate that nothing beats doing.

~~~
kintamanimatt
I guess the idea isn't to teach people how to be an awesome entrepreneur, but
to point them in a good direction so they can earn the experience they need to
be an awesome entrepreneur.

~~~
mikekchar
A friend of mine once said, "There are things in life that you can only learn
through experience. There are also things that you should never learn through
experience -- like how to pack a parachute. Knowing the difference between the
two is key".

------
esseti
Nice, good to see that they also put 1on1, wondering how this can scale with
the "few" startups that may apply.

------
Peteris
The test is whether the core YC aspects can scale?

* How can we motivate people to build on a weekly basis?

* Can we be a credible source of advice so people can save time by not second-guessing it?

* Can we identify which problems need resolving and intervene at depth?

* Can we connect the community through this shared experience?

Lots of assumptions to test.

------
SmellTheGlove
Will there be an in-person start up school this year like the conference last
year?

------
everybodyknows
Dates of recording for the videos on the home page of startupschool.org? Would
be helpful to prospective students.

------
saycheese
>> "All rights reserved."

Really, is this the best YC is able to do?

Truly interested in knowingly why the course is not released under something
like one of the Creative Commons licenses:

[https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-
types-...](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-types-
examples/)

~~~
sandslash
Apologies for that, we were still in the process of drafting a Terms of Use
when we put up the site. That will be updated shortly to have more
information. We plan on releasing our content under the Creative Commons
license similar to Sam's previous Startup Class.

~~~
saycheese
Thanks for the update, glad to hear YC is going to address the issue and that
a terms of service will be added too; adding privacy policy would also be
nice.

------
ben_hall
Unable to sign up at the moment, getting a 522 from CF after entering email.

~~~
Finbarr
Sorry about that. We're really getting hammered. If you try again it should
work. We'll increase our capacity substantially before registration opens.

------
bobwaycott
Tried to sign up for notifications, and just see an endless spinner.

~~~
snowmaker
Thanks for letting us know - we're working on it.

------
fudged71
The registration form is not working. Click submit and it just spins

~~~
sjroot
Just had a similar issue. Refresh the page.

~~~
fudged71
fifth try's the charm :)

------
it_learnses
the conference site is timing out for me.

------
sama
Here's more info:
[https://blog.ycombinator.com/onlineclass/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/onlineclass/)

------
benrmatthews
Lots of analytics, advertising and tracking being used on the site:
[https://builtwith.com/www.startupschool.org](https://builtwith.com/www.startupschool.org)

Expecting to see lots of ads for this appearing soon.

~~~
Finbarr
We are absolutely not going to be advertising on the site. I'm not sure where
the tracking is coming from but am looking into it.

Also, I think that information is out of date. The Startup School Conference
site has been moved to here:
[http://conference.startupschool.org](http://conference.startupschool.org).

The new site is built with Ruby on Rails, React and Semantic UI.

~~~
aptwebapps
I think GP meant advertising FOR the site, not ON it.

~~~
Finbarr
Ah. We're not going to be advertising FOR it either. I'm mostly just surprised
as we haven't intentionally added any advertising tracking code to the site.

------
rexreed
There's a two-day in-person version of this on the East Coast on July 25-26,
2017 at Georgetown University called Startup Spectacular. Worth checking out
if you want an in-person version:
[http://www.startupspectacular.com](http://www.startupspectacular.com). Edit:
yes, just noticed this is not the same idea / concept. I was posting based on
the feedback that a MOOC doesn't seem to work for everyone for this sort of
thing.

~~~
saycheese
To be clear, the above appears to have no affiliation with YC, but is just
another startup course; one that does not appear to be a MOOC (Massive Open
Online Course), unlike the one referenced in the the post that's the subject
of this thread.

