
Startup advice, briefly - taylorwc
http://blog.samaltman.com/startup-advice-briefly
======
DenisM
One suggestion I would give Sam is to provide for each of the "bullet points"
a couple of relevant stories about YC companies.

Most public advice is devoid of context where it originated and unless stated
very precisely is wide open to misinterpretation, forming a cargo-cult, or
being ignored as too generic. Only a few people in the world can be that
precise (I know just two), but adding a relevant story is available to any
diligent thinker and it works nearly as well. The best stories are either
those that gave rise to the advice, or those where the advice was applied with
a visible outcome.

~~~
jusben1369
yes sadly this could be one bullet point. "Avoid acting in a meaningful way on
advice in any startup advice post" Case in point here:

1) In general, avoid the kind of stuff that might be in a movie about running
a startup—meeting with lawyers and accountants, going to lots of conferences,
grabbing coffee with people, sitting in lots of meetings, etc.

then 2) "Don’t underestimate the importance of personal connections"

so make sure you're working and nurturing personal connections but don't do
that by grabbing coffee with people or going to conferences. Wait what?!

I'm picking on Sam and that's not really fair because _every_ list of startup
advice has these seemingly contradictory bullet points throughout. My advice
would be understand whether you're an extrovert or introvert and technically
gifted or market understanding gifted. Go work for someone who has that same
profile and watch what they do. Then go cofound with someone who is the
opposite of your profile (an extroverted market understanding individual if
you're an introverted developer) where you know you'll mutually respect each
others differences and won't murder each other after 6 months. With the two of
you (or 3 possibly) covering those 4 bases you'll build the right product for
the market and will build a culture where a broad range of employees feel
comfortable and will always have someone to work with investors and customers
and someone else making sure you're not taking your eyes off the critical
internal stuff.

Work out if you're the Edge or you're Bono and then find your other half. The
rest is all gut and while you'll screw some things up you have the building
blocks to succeed.

~~~
outericky
I think by grabbing coffee, he was referring the time wasting that can happen
when everyone becomes aware of your startup. Would be investors (as they
should) want to meet, press, and a slew of others. The vast majority of those
meetings will be a huge time suck. Better to focus internally first.

------
tomasien
DON'T WORK WITH PEOPLE YOU HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT: I can not stress how
dogmatically this should be adhered to enough.

~~~
pan69
This is probably the biggest piece of non-advice in the entire article.
Feeling is bullshit. If I had followed this advice throughout my career...

I've been introduced to people who I'd instantly hated but a weeks later had
become my best mates and I've been introduced to people who I'd loved at first
sight (oh, so social, funny and well spoken..) and they turned out to be
completely useless.

It often takes time to get to know someone, don't let a first impression be a
lasting but judge on the second, third and forth instead. You'd might be
missing out.

~~~
tomasien
It's not about first impressions - it's about people you have a bad feeling
about but work with anyway because you assume it's going to be worth it. Don't
do that. That's not what you're describing.

~~~
pan69
It's exactly what I'm describing, I've worked with people in the past who I'd
initially greatly disliked (i.e. had bad feelings about) who then turned out
to become great friends.

------
kirinan
Maybe Ive read too many blogs. Maybe its because I watched the class but Im
starting to feel like this is the "generic" advice for startups. It doesn't
make it any less true or valuable, but everytime I read it I feel somewhat
empty; as if there is something critical missing that everyone but me knows
but doesn't write down because it feels like common sense. I'm not sure other
people feel this way or how to not feel this way. It seems really obvious,
almost too obvious that you should work really hard on ideas that other people
want. Maybe thats all there is too it; It just feels hollow.

~~~
sama
that really is all there is to it. if you've read enough that all of this
strikes you as obvious, then you don't need to read anymore--get to work! :)

i wrote this because i think it's useful for people thinking about startups
for the first time to have an outline of the advice all in one place--the
startup class i did last fall is good but long.

~~~
rcorin
My problem with this isn't that the advice is obvious, but rather obvious
_only in hindsight_: "The best startup ideas are the ones that seem like bad
ideas but are good ideas.", "the fast-growing market is going to be important
but others dismiss it as unimportant"

these aren't obvious at all before they happen, not just for first-time
startup people but everyone.

~~~
danko
Exactly. One could easily come up with a corollary: "The worst startup ideas
are the ones that seem like bad ideas and really are." Which is a truism that
probably applies to most startup ideas.

~~~
larrys
""The worst startup ideas are the ones that seem like bad ideas and really
are."

Based on the original thought "The best startup ideas are the ones that seem
like bad ideas but are good ideas."

That one for sure is culled from a list of outsized successes (because they
didn't make sense or had a large amount of barriers to success) but doesn't
provide balance in the sense that bad ideas are more typically bad ideas. VC's
like to hide behind this type of thinking often but they get around it by
making bets on many companies whereas the person starting their own company
has more of a reason to worry about the downside of a stupid idea.

I don't think for a second that it makes any sense that "best startup ideas
are ones that seem like bad ideas but are good ideas".

Facebook wasn't a bad idea

Linkedin wasn't a bad idea

Amazon wasn't a bad idea (selling books to start)

So how do you define "bad idea"?

Is airbnb a bad idea because "who would want to rent out their apartment to
strangers"? Or is it a bad idea because "you will never get regulatory
clearance" (ditto for Uber).

~~~
santoriv
This is just my opinion but

Facebook was a bad idea because MySpace had already won.

LinkedIn was a mediocre idea b/c it would be very difficult to get enough user
adoption to be valuable.

Amazon was a mediocre idea b/c people want to go to a bookstore and look at a
book before they buy it (usually). Also, that business has no moat (anyone
could sell books online).

You're right though - ideas that seem bad are more typically bad ideas. I
still think Twitter is a bad idea. :-P

Really the corollary to this is that all the obviously good ideas are already
being executed by huge corporations with massive resources and its very hard
to compete when you are severely outgunned.

Also, it seems like it's important to have an understanding of the domain that
is somewhat counterintuitive and contradicts the common understanding that
people have about it.

Also, be lucky. Your "understanding" might be insanity.

~~~
larrys
The other thing about "bad" ideas is this:

1) The public, reading about the idea doesn't know the full idea or the future
plans.

2) The bad idea can allow a pivot into a good idea, once you have money and
resources.

3) Impossible to predict the future and what will happen. Twitter is a good
example of this (celebrity mention, mainstream media mention, civil uprisings,
etc.)

------
Disruptive_Dave
I always wonder about this: "Obsess about your growth rate, and never stop.
The company will build what the CEO measures. If you ever catch yourself
saying “we’re not really focused on growth right now”, think very carefully
about the possibility you’re focused on the wrong thing." There was a point in
my current startup where it wasn't prudent to focus so much on growth, as we
were transitioning from MVP to v1 product. Being bootstrapped and with a small
team, spending money and time on acquiring users for the MVP would've been a
bit of a waste. Maybe that's b/c we don't buy into the vision to grow fast and
sell faster.

------
coralreef
_The best startup ideas are the ones that seem like bad ideas but are good
ideas._

I've thought about this one a lot. Obviously we can't apply these one liners
to everything, for example Dropbox and Stripe seemed like plainly obvious good
ideas (to me).

You can make them seem like bad ideas in retrospect ("Oh, personal file
hosting in the cloud? Been done a million times!") but I think even the
traction of Dropbox's first HN post showed it was a good idea.

Is there a better way we can phrase this rule to be closer to an absolute
truth?

~~~
remarkEon
I think what Peter Thiel says about secrets[0] is much closer to the "truth"
than "build something that seems like a bad idea but isn't".

[0][http://blakemasters.com/post/22866240816/peter-thiels-
cs183-...](http://blakemasters.com/post/22866240816/peter-thiels-
cs183-startup-class-11-notes)

------
ukigumo
"Have a strategy. Most people don’t. Occasionally take a little bit of time to
think about how you’re executing against your strategy. Specifically, remember
that someday you need to have a monopoly "

Remember to ask yourself 4 questions:
[https://blog.ukigumo.eu/content/images/2015/02/governance-
qu...](https://blog.ukigumo.eu/content/images/2015/02/governance-questions-
cycle-1.jpg)

(sorry for the bad image quality btw)

------
j4pe
It it contradictory to recommend that a founder a) prefer making something a
small number love to making something a large number like but also b) obsess
over growth? I took these to be valid for different stages - first a), then
b).

Obviously this is all very insightful and has been discussed before as these
ideas were developed. Nice to have the 20k ft view in one place.

~~~
sama
as you said, it's first a and then b. if you build something a small number of
users love, you'll find growing is far, far easier than if you don't do that
first.

------
chetanahuja
_" The best startup ideas are the ones that seem like bad ideas but are good
ideas."_

Great tip. So it's easy then. Find an idea that seems like a bad idea but is
good. Also, if an idea _seems_ like a good idea... throw it away. It's shit.
Find one that _seems_ bad. But is good.

------
Alex3917
Great list. I finally watched all of the YC Startup Class lectures this week,
and I was hoping that someone would compile something like this.

------
pitchups
Great advice for startups. Except I would say start with a problem rather than
just an idea - a problem that no one is solving and that you think is
important. That would hopefully lead to building something people want.

------
pskittle
"Be a relentless execution machine." I wish it was as easy as it sounds.
thanks for the one pager on tips .

------
bonn1
It's hard to compress so much advice into one blog post and let is sound
reasonable if context is missing.

However, I agree with all points except this one:

 _> In general, avoid the kind of stuff that might be in a movie about running
a startup—meeting with lawyers and accountants, going to lots of conferences,
grabbing coffee with people, sitting in lots of meetings_

In general a successful CEO is 30% of his time networking and 70% working on
hiring and leading the team and working on the product the product. Looking
out for peers and spending time with them is important because...

\- It changes your mindset, from being an employee to a real founder, this
takes quite some time and your old employed friends are not the right peers
anymore

\- You learn a lot, small information exchanged on a conference can help you
with fund raising; usually every meeting with a new person has some value, in
particular at the beginning of your journey

\- Especially lawyers—the good ones—are extremely well connected and sometimes
help you with the first introductions

There are some CEOs who are real networking animals and do 100% networking and
0% working on their product, that's for sure not the way and I guess Sam
referred to them.

------
graphene
_Figure out a way to get users at scale (i.e. bite the bullet and learn how
sales and marketing work)._

Any pointers for reading material on this?

~~~
ollieglass
From Andrew Chen: "There’s only a few ways to scale user growth, and here’s
the list" [http://andrewchen.co/theres-only-a-few-ways-to-scale-user-
gr...](http://andrewchen.co/theres-only-a-few-ways-to-scale-user-growth-and-
heres-the-list/)

~~~
pronoiac
Huh. There's a pop-up that blocks the text, and I couldn't even dismiss it
from full screen - I had to zoom out first. And I couldn't leave a comment
there.

------
david927
Thanks, Sam. This is is a nice list. I would only add, don't listen to advice.
For example, "make something people want" is fine, since most startups fail
because no one wanted what they made. But it's also all too similar to a music
industry exec asking for artists to "make what people want to hear." That's a
great strategy to get more Top 40 hits but there's a risk of turning a whole
generation of musicians into Michael Bubles producing well-received, cheaply-
conceived pop music. I think I would say, "Be conceited enough to have a
vision and, if money interests you, be humble enough to potentially throw some
of it out to meet the market half-way."

------
halfcat
_> In general, avoid the kind of stuff that might be in a movie about running
a startup—meeting with lawyers and accountants_

Where is the line that says you move from "project" to needing to have your
legal ducks in a row? All business advice I have ever heard says if you are
doing business then you need to have a real business, with associated costs of
legal, accounting, insurance, and so on.

It seems very risky to start making $500/mo while risking my house in the
event a patent troll decides to sue me. Am I too paranoid on this front?

"Fuck you pay me" covers this [1].

[1] [https://vimeo.com/22053820](https://vimeo.com/22053820)

------
dude_abides
Honest question: Who is the intended audience for all these startup/advice
articles? Wouldn't the best founders be too busy building stuff instead of
reading articles on the web. Wouldn't the majority of the audience of these
articles be procrastinators (like me)? If so, wouldn't the best advice for
such people be to stop procrastinating on the web, and to build stuff instead?

PS: The advice by Sam is great. I'm questioning the medium.

~~~
diminish
Honestly, startup advice articles are lead collection tools for ycombinator
and other accelerators targeting "fresh" audiences. You may see similar advice
articles from VCs too; blogging makes them more visible and help attract
entrepreneurs.

~~~
TopEntrepreneur
You hit the nail on the head. As a top entrepreneur I spend a lot of my time
reading VC blog posts. It's the best way to filter the investors I'm going to
bless with the opportunity to invest in my next home run.

~~~
isthisforme
I can't tell if you are being serious or not, but I actually completely agree
that "filter the investors I'm going to bless with the opportunity to invest
in my next home run" is the right way to think about raising capital.

------
RavneetGrewal
I like the end. "Keep doing this for 10 years". :)

------
steven2012
The last point that should be made:

Even if you follow all of the above, there is a 90% probability you will still
fail. Startup success is still largely dictated by luck.

~~~
DenisM
Luck is random, but not uncontrollable. Successful people manufacture their
own luck: live in the place where things happen, go to places where right
people hang out, make yourself known and useful to well-connected people,
attack the market where chances are tilted in your favor, be approachable,
partner with people different from you so as to maximize your "luck surface
area", the list goes on and on.

Chance favors the prepared mind.

~~~
31reasons
All the things you described can also increase your bad-luck surface area. You
are confusing bad-luck with inaction, which is not the same. You might end-up
meeting wrong people, work on wrong ideas, hire wrong people, get wrong
publicity, wrong timing etc etc.

------
mojuba
I believe running a startup is like playing jazz. It's all about
improvization. You are given a rhythm (company laws) and you are given the
main theme (industry, markets). The rest is up to you. Think at least a few
notes ahead and see if others like what you are doing. No other advice is
valid in jazz, neither is it valid in startups.

~~~
marcusgarvey
Well said!

------
Cymen
I wish more founders had experience working in annoying corporate environments
with a variety of managers (on the "good" "bad" scale) before starting a
startup. I believe that would result in picking better management. And that
management would more closely align with the culture.

------
avelis
My general advice to anyone reading the article:

1\. Ensure the list of tips are easily accessible. (The advice will do nothing
for you if you can't find it when you are making critical decisions.)

Once you have solved the distribution problem, now comes the real opportunity:

2\. Follow through with the list. :-)

------
dreamdu5t
> The best way to start a company is to build interesting projects.

The best way? Lots of successful entrepreneurs would disagree, and did set out
to build a business to make money. And outside of the SV bubble people don't
imply that is The Wrong Way.

------
emvein
Just do it for 10 years, and comment after that. I can guess that 2 from 10
will be still negative about this "generic advice", but other will reach
success. Another strange thing - definition of success in general.

------
known
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." \--George Bernard Shaw

~~~
icebraining
From the same work, _Maxims for Revolutionists_ :

"Civilization is a disease produced by the practice of building societies with
rotten material.

Those who admire modern civilization usually identify it with the steam engine
and the electric telegraph.

Those who understand the steam engine and the electric telegraph spend their
lives in trying to replace them with something better."

[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26107/pg26107.txt](http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26107/pg26107.txt)
(Thanks to the Gutenberg project)

------
franklinho
I feel like this post boils down the hundreds of posts that I've seen on YC
into one small digestible reference. It's pretty nice.

------
capex
Would be great if someone could say how they got their personal connections to
work for their startup in a meaningful way.

------
ykumar6
I wonder if there are counter-examples of successful companies that ignored
some of these rules?

------
ku5e
Startup advice - make sure what you do is not something someone else does!

~~~
jqm
Or do it better to the point that someone else doing it doesn't matter? Google
wasn't the first search engine after all....

------
onedev
Not taking any advice is the best advice.

------
curiously
what if you have an mvp, you are gettin feedbacks from paying users, and you
are trying to make them happy. what is this processed called formally and
where would it be on the startup map?

------
CamperBob2

       Don’t waste your time on stuff that doesn’t matter (i.e. 
       things other than building your product, talking to your 
       users, growing, etc.).  In general, avoid the kind of 
       stuff that might be in a movie about running a startup
       —meeting with lawyers and accountants, going to lots of 
       conferences, grabbing coffee with people, sitting in 
       lots of meetings, etc.  Become a Delaware C Corp (use 
       Clerky or any well-known Silicon Valley law firm) and 
       then get back to work on your product.
    

First you tell me not to waste a lot of time with lawyers and accountants,
then you tell me to start a subchapter-C corp. Okaaaay.

~~~
lbearl
I think there was an underlying theme that this post was about a progression
in time. At the beginning, its all about ideas, no companies (you shouldn't
need lawyers and accountants for a small project). Later on its a Sub-chapter
C corp, with all of the associated lawyers and accountants.

~~~
CamperBob2
But the text that I quoted has absolutely no hint of that.

It's ridiculous advice, unless you just enjoy paying your taxes twice. Start
with a cheap, simple LLC, then sell the business to a newly-formed sub-S or -C
corp when you need to seek outside funding.

