

YC Partner Harjeet Taggar Gives Insights - niccolop
http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/02/08/y-combinator-partner-harjeet-taggar-gives-insights-interview/

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jazzychad
Harj started working with YC in W10 (my batch), and even 3 batches later, he
still responds instantly to our emails and hops on skype whenever we need
advice. Truly a stand-up guy and someone we really trust.

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patio11
_I’ve noticed that technical founders especially have realized that local
small business will pay you money for products_

This is true. They also pay a fair chunk of change with a very short sales
cycle (even no-touch in some cases -- though Hubspot and Groupon certainly
prove you can do well with higher touch sales), and they're not unwilling to
be billed monthly for software/services which demonstrably add value to the
business.

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yakto
> With all this experience, I asked about when he launches his next startup,
> what will he do differently? “I would definitely work on a problem or
> product that I personally was interested in and meant something to me. When
> I was working on Auctomatic, we bought all this stuff from China and tried
> to trade it on Ebay [Auctomatic was an auction and marketplace management
> system] to try and understand how power sellers work and the problems they
> faced. But it wasn’t the same as making something that I really resonated
> with."

So, so true. Trying to take this lesson to heart this time around, and build
something I want to use everyday.

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inmygarage
One of the most in-depth write-ups I've seen on YC anywhere on the web.

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simonw
I'm impressed with The Next Web.

I hadn't heard much about them before last week - when we launched
<http://lanyrd.com/> on TechCrunch they conducted an interview with us that
same day (through olark, our live-help chat widget) and posted their own
story, which was well written and had new information not covered by the TC
story: [http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/01/31/lanyrd-launches-to-
cha...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/01/31/lanyrd-launches-to-change-the-
conference-landscape-using-twitter/)

The Harj interview series has been excellent too.

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sskates
"At our stage companies fail because ... the founders don’t get along"

It seems that this is a serious but less talked about problem to watch out
for. Anyone have insight into how to avoid one of the less visible mistakes
beyond the obvious know your co-founders well and set expectations upfront?

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pg
Only start a company with people you've known for a while and worked on
projects with before.

If you don't know anyone like that, you can manufacture them. Find good people
and try working with them on projects that are not the startup. College and
(especially) grad school tend to create these situations, but you can also
make them happen deliberately, e.g. by collaborating on some open source
project.

The chances of us interviewing a team of founders who'd built some fairly well
regarded open source software together would be close to 100%.

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robg
This generalization seems to ignore teams who work together over time - say a
year or three - and while bootstrapping. Have you never seen a data point in
that direction?

Teams thrown together for the sole purpose of YC seem likely to have poor
records. But YC is a very, very special case. Bootstrapping takes time and
effort that either deepens relationships or destroys them. I don't see a
middle ground there, actually.

Have you ever looked at how long a team has known each other as a predictor of
success/failure? It seems your philosophy assumes more is better. Is there any
data to support that belief? What's the record for spouses?

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ryannielsen
A founding team who's already been working together for years or survived the
bootstrapping experience match, or at least approximate, the criteria pg's
looking for – a cohesive team that can handle stress well. My take is that the
advice he gives is suited for people looking to start a brand new company
during yc, not those who have already started and are applying to yc.

More importantly, I don't think pg's saying that length of relationship is a
deciding factor. Rather, he's highlighting that you need to know you work well
with your cofounders and the relationship – new or old – won't fall apart
under stress and trial.

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edw519
On the last picture on the page, I think there should be a bubble coming out
of pg's mouth, "One of you has betrayed me. Judas, did you add unnecessary
features before launch?"

</joke, don't mean to offend anyone>

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chr15
The first thing I thought of was that it looked strikingly similar to The Last
Supper.

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_pius
Well covered territory. :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=643741>

