
How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014 - atomroflbomber
http://startupclass.samaltman.com/
======
wj
Another great resource from Stanford on startups is their Entrepreneurial
Thought Leaders lecture series.

[http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html)

Talks have been given by some of the same people (including Marc Andreessen,
Aaron Levie, Reid Hoffman, and Marissa Mayer) and many others.

This talk on negotiation is one of the best lectures I've ever heard and I've
recommended it to people dozens of times:

[http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1573](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1573)

~~~
jseliger
_This talk on negotiation is one of the best lectures I 've ever heard and
I've recommended it to people dozens of times:_

Has someone written a transcript?

~~~
bnjs
Very rough first transcript, I'm ironing out the typos and formatting:
[http://www.bnjs.co/2014/09/25/transcript-lecture-1-how-to-
st...](http://www.bnjs.co/2014/09/25/transcript-lecture-1-how-to-start-a-
startup/)

------
crazypyro
I am beyond jealous. That instructor list is unreal. Students at Stanford get
another peg up on the starting ladder...

(Also there is only 90 universities signed up for watch parties, yet copy
lists "hundreds")

~~~
sama
it's online! don't be jealous; watch the talks.

~~~
reduce
Unfortunately, there's a huge difference in the psychological impact of seeing
role models in-person, versus only on a screen.

I've experienced this many times while living outside of the US, in recent
years. All of the people you'll read about in blogs, or see in videos --
they're perceived like movie stars or legends that must have been greatly
distorted on their journey to the opposite end of the world. Keep in mind that
many small countries have never seen a single big tech-startup success happen
within their borders. Even suggesting a remote possibility of successes, will
be met with the argument that every successful person they've ever known
hasn't followed what they call the "American" startup way.

In-person role models -- can't underestimate the psychological impact.

~~~
kijin
> _many small countries have never seen a single big tech-startup success
> happen within their borders_

That sounds more like a difference caused by economic and cultural
circumstances than whether you've met a rockstar in person.

If Country X is unable to produce viable startups, it's probably because it
doesn't have the economic and cultural infrastructure to support startups yet,
not because Peter Thiel has never graced that country with a royal visit.

> _every successful person they 've ever known hasn't followed what they call
> the "American" startup way._

Of course they haven't. The "American startup way" is optimized for the
specific economic and cultural circumstances that are only found in certain
parts of the United States. Some aspects of it may be generalizable, but most
of it isn't. Following it to the letter in any other country will probably
earn you nothing but ridicule and bankruptcy.

~~~
reduce
The countries I'm talking about have produced many startup founders. They move
to the US and never move back. The successful role models don't exist in that
country, because as soon as people start becoming successful they move out and
never return.

------
staunch
The fact that this information be made available online on the same day is
quite a gift. That will take some effort. Thank you.

I would humbly suggest that early on you should address what YC means by
startup. PG's essay on growth is by far the most well conveyed explanation. I
think it would clear up a lot of confusion people have about Startups vs small
businesses.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html)

~~~
idlewords
The fact that people disagree on the definition of "startup" isn't a sign of
confusion. Rather, it reflects the fact that there are genuine differences
between people in our industry about how to develop new business models, and
how to define success. Graham has articulated one side of that debate with his
essay, but calling it an explanation is disingenuous.

------
Eduardo3rd
"That’s why each lecture will be available via YouTube and iTunes Connect
shortly after they happen, and associated reading materials and assignments
will be linked to on the course site. To keep in touch with others following
along with the lectures from afar, there will be a forum and Facebook group
available to discuss their content and provide further opportunities to learn
from those involved in startups."

So, not quite a MOOC, but still pretty close. I wonder if this is the MVP for
scaling YC beyond the individual batches.

~~~
jacquesm
The batches are the secret sauce. (Well, not that secret.) Doing YC without
the batches would be a very impressive feat to pull off. It would turn the
piston driven machine they have now into the equivalent of a turbine.

~~~
untog
What does that even mean?

~~~
jacquesm
Apologies for using a metaphor. Let me try to clarify. Batches allow you to
look at a bunch of companies at roughly the same point in time. So you now get
to look at the companies against the backdrop of all the other companies in
the same batch. Rather than having to make a one-shot decision about a single
start-up you make a decision about which N of the 100's of applicants you like
best which will give you a statistical advantage.

But it is possible that YC now has crunched enough data and has enough people
in the alumni network that they can abandon the batch model and get the _same_
kind of quality without having to use the batch model.

The 'late' applications were a hint in this direction, if they get rid of the
batch model entirely they will have potentially a huge benefit both in load
(batches will create temporary overload) and in total throughput.

So instead of having two 'strokes' per year they'd be moving at an ever
accelerating pace until they run at the maximum rate at which viable
applicants can apply and be processed.

------
bbrunner
It's interesting that this is inside of the computer science department and is
limited to engineering students considering YC has really been expanding the
companies it's accepting. E145[0], an existing and highly sought after
technology entrepreneurship course, is just a general engineering class and
isn't limited to traditional engineering majors, as far as I'm aware.

Tons of great founders of tech companies come from disciplines outside of
engineering and manage to learn enough on their own. I would wonder if it's a
function of keeping it from getting oversubscribed or possibly a way to allow
the curriculum to be narrowly focused towards how to build a scalable software
business.

Exciting stuff regardless!

[0] [http://e145.stanford.edu/](http://e145.stanford.edu/)

~~~
akbar501
Quote from: [http://e145.stanford.edu](http://e145.stanford.edu)

> All undergraduate students at Stanford University of any major are
> encouraged to join us (no graduate students please)

So, enrolment appears to be open to any Stanford undergrad.

~~~
imkevinxu
There's a class called E245 that's only for graduate students, no undergrads

------
startupfounder
This is an amazing recruiting tool for YC and is a page out of JOEL SPOLSKY's
book:

"So if the top 1 percent never apply for jobs (aka get startup funding), how
can you recruit them? My theory is that the best way is to find them before
they realize there is a job market (aka startup funding)--back when they're
still in college."[0]

[0] [http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070501/column-
guest.html](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070501/column-guest.html)

~~~
staunch
In 2006 YC ran this ad in The Stanford Daily. I always thought it was funny.

[http://i.imgur.com/HuQxIXT.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/HuQxIXT.jpg)

~~~
mqsiuser
Sergey and Larry actually "just got a job" after graduation: Researchers at a
university pursuing a phd. They used THIS JOB to develop the technology for
their (later) company. Then they FIRST tried to SELL the (search-)algorithm
and when they didn't find someone (to pay a couple of millions) they started
Google. AND... Larry is/was the driving master mind taking Sergey (and a lot
of others) with him to success. Well... it's an add.

------
jordhy
Honestly this is like having "The Justice League" give a course about "How to
be a Superhero". Congratulations to the team that has put this together. Best
round up of speakers in any startup course that I can remember.

This is great news for the community.

------
sethbannon
In some sense, this seems to represent an open sourcing of YC. I bet this will
become a foundational resource for aspiring entrepreneurs for years to come.

------
amix
The list of speakers looks fantastic! This said, I think the list lacks
diversity. I think it would be great to have someone outside of SV in it (e.g.
Jason Fried, Jeff Bezos etc.) One of the better Startup School talks I seen
was from DHH (that presented another way of building a successful company).

~~~
petercooper
But then they'd have to cover stuff like focusing on sales from the start of a
business, developing a business model, and making money (from customers) ASAP.

 _(In case of confusion, I have my tongue in cheek ;-) These topics will
surely be covered in the content somewhere if it 's about building a
business.)_

------
rkaplan
What's fantastic about this is that even though the class is at Stanford,
everyone from around the world can follow along just as easily. Stanford is
opening up more and more of its opportunities to the general public, which is
awesome. Another one I'd recommend taking advantage of is Stanford's Hacking
Hours:

[https://www.facebook.com/groups/750201348380852/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/750201348380852/)

This is a weekly on-campus meetup where people hack on their projects in a
collaborative environment. It's open to the general public, and anyone nearby
with code to write is welcome to come work on it at Stanford.

~~~
wasd
That's awesome. Is the wifi network open for non students? This is an issue at
UC Berkeley :(.

~~~
rkaplan
Absolutely, there are guest codes for everyone who shows up.

------
pptr1
Just finished reading Peter Thiel's Zero to One; and it is interesting that
both him and Marissa Mayer are going to teach. He sort of disses her in the
book. This is a quote from his book.

"Beginning with brand rather than substance is dangerous. Ever since Marissa
Mayer became CEO of Yahoo! in mid-2012, she has worked to revive the once-
popular internet giant by making it cool again. In a single tweet, Yahoo!
summarized Mayer’s plan as a chain reaction of “people then products then
traffic then revenue.” The people are supposed to come for the coolness:
Yahoo! demonstrated design awareness by overhauling its logo, it asserted
youthful relevance by acquiring hot startups like Tumblr, and it has gained
media attention for Mayer’s own star power. But the big question is what
products Yahoo! will actually create. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he
didn’t just make Apple a cool place to work; he slashed product lines to focus
on the handful of opportunities for 10x improvements. No technology company
can be built on branding alone."\- [1]

[1] - Zero to One Book by Peter Thiel

~~~
lee
I don't really see the "diss" in that passage. I see more of an honest
question.

~~~
arfliw
Same. He certainly leaves open the possibility that she is creating those
products as we speak.

------
comatose_kid
This is great. Someday if/when the lectures are streamed real-time, consider a
reddit group for remote students to ask good (upvoted) questions to the
lecturer.

------
rokhayakebe
YC is on a tear.

I have a feeling these guys were testing a model up until this year, and now
they are just ready to get started and blow things up.

------
krrishd
A MOOC I'd definitely recommend taking along side this is the Startup
Engineering from Stanford, taught by Balaji Srinivasan and Vijay Pande.

I've taken a lot of MOOCs but that was one that truly changed a lot of things
in terms of how I approached tech and startups, and it actually says in it's
description that it's somewhat of a sequel to CS183 (this new course is
CS183B).

[https://www.coursera.org/course/startup](https://www.coursera.org/course/startup)

~~~
tew28
I'll second this sentiment. Balaji's class goes into real-world implementation
and if you learn everything packed into the dense curriculum, you'll come out
much more powerful and capable. This new class seems only to extend upon the
theory of the original CS183.

------
graphene
Seems surprising that Paul Buchheit is not on the list?

His Startup School Europe talk was amazing, although to be fair it was more
"why to start a startup" than how.

------
andyidsinga
i hope blake masters will take notes.

~~~
reledi
Context for those who don't get the reference:

Blake Masters took notes for Peter Thiel's Startup course at Stanford. [1] The
notes quickly become popular.

He actually released a book on startups with Peter Thiel today. [2]

1: [http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-
cs183-startup](http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup)

2:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804139296](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804139296)

------
brianstorms
Nice, but, very few of those individuals have started a startup in the past
five years, or even ten years. What exactly do they KNOW that is going to help
you, the founder?

I don't think this is the ideal lineup for a day of talks about How to Start a
Startup in the fall of 2014. The past few years have been particularly brutal
for starting a startup. Mostly because there are so many others doing the same
thing, and most of them are vying for the same funding dollars you're vying
for.

Thousands upon thousands of people are trying and have tried, and most have
failed, and all have stories to tell. That is the norm, that is the most
likely outcome: failure. Instead, you'll hear from billionaires and
superachievers and tech celebrities none of whom have been hungry, driven with
a vision, struggling to build something new, fighting the good fight, any time
recently. They're disconnected, imho.

Go ahead and downvote, I know, it's YC heresy, but so be it.

~~~
_sentient
I can't speak for the rest of the lineup, but I know that YC partners see
hundreds of startups run through their program each year. The aggregate value
of that is significant, and there are very few patterns they haven't already
encountered.

Having seen so many iterations of the startup process, I'd argue that they are
eminently qualified to give advice on the subject.

I'd certainly prefer it over some random, anecdotal account from a founder who
just happened to be in the trenches recently.

~~~
muneeb
+1 to this. YC partners are in a unique position

------
penfold26
Thats a whos who of the startup world which is fantastic. I hope you can
motivate students in not only on just the web side to change the world. Sort
of a great way to teach future entrepreneurs the requirements, structure and
path of a successful startup.

------
selmnoo
This is a fantastic move by the YC folks. Doing the class at Stanford raises
their profile in just the right place -- now more of just the right and able
individuals will apply to YC (especially because YC basically "teaching" at
Stanford has earned them validation as a place to go for Stanford students,
who up til now may have had any reservation about joining YC, or just simply
hadn't considered the possibility, or just didn't know of YC). I hope to see a
lot of good come out of this.

I hope the next class comes to us in the East coast? :) (Harvard and MIT,
producer of Drew Houston, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.)

~~~
sillysaurus3
_now more of just the right and able individuals will apply to YC_

Do those people care about Stanford? The founders of neither Dropbox nor
Airbnb attended Stanford, for example. Evidence thus far seems to indicate
that elitism isn't the right metric to optimize for. That said, there's
certainly a large talent pool concentrated at Stanford.

Keeping YC a meritocracy seems important, so hopefully it won't become
something else.

------
lifeisstillgood
I have spent quite some time and effort (failing) to get an open source
company into open source contracts in the UK government. Bu I want to because
things like the GDS (grand father of USGDS) are saying open source is the
future of government

And this is one more tick in that argument - what YC is doing is
industrialisation of startup founding - and now they are "open sourcing" the
how to, I would think that any government not stealing these ideas and
throwing money that otherwise would languish in bureaucratic purses is missing
a huge opportunity.

------
jackosutherland
I am very excited to have a chance to listen in on this course. I currently
attend a state university in Illinois that has a small entrepreneurship
program and I am working hard to get every student involved in the startup
space in Chicago where I know they will gain the most knowledge and
experience. This course that Sam and YC are making available will be a huge
resource to myself and my fellow students this semester. Appreciate the hard
work and thought. Can't wait!

------
hackerews
This is really powerful and good for the world.

If you work incredibly hard over a short period of time and watch these
videos, you are emulating quite a bit of YC.

------
hkailahi
Wow this is exciting and unexpected! I am curious to see if the students who
take this course end up being more likely to dropout afterwards.

~~~
bdcs
Interesting idea! Though, my guess is few. Many of the "startup-dropouts"
probably already have. It sounds like this course doesn't bring any new
information to the table, but, rather, is the most concise one can get with
1000 minutes.

As an interesting corollary, Virgil Elings taught an entrepreneurship course
at UCSB wherein the first day he assigned the following homework assignment:
Drop out and work-for/start-up a company. I didn't take attendance (neither
did he, for that matter!), but it seems nobody dropped out.

~~~
hkailahi
Happy coincidence - I'm a current UCSB undergrad, and I'm taking the
entrepreneurship class this Fall.

------
danvoell
Do all of these people actually come in to Stanford to teach the class? I
can't even imagine having a class instructor list like this.

~~~
sama
yes, they are. all of these will be recorded and available online same-day.
we'll also post all other material (readings, etc). it should be pretty good--
i really tried hard to get the very best people i know on each topic.

~~~
frankdenbow
Very cool. Maybe a talk about bootstrapping as well in the TBA slots? There
are many entrepreneurship paths.

~~~
jarek
> Maybe a talk about bootstrapping as well in the TBA slots?

So the YC course would talk to people about advantages of not going into YC?
Hm.

~~~
mindcrime
Why not? People aren't stupid, and I expect most people realize that some
businesses aren't meant for YC for one reason or another. Trying to obscure
that fact doesn't make YC better, or more appealing. I'd actually say that
covering that material would make YC _more_ appealing, because it would hammer
home the point that the YC people are on-the-level, straight-shooters who
don't try to distort the truth to favor themselves. Who wouldn't rather do
business with somebody like that? It's basically about trust.

You could almost make a comparison by analogy the old saw about how "the best
way to get customers to use your product is to make it easy for them to leave
your product".

------
kibaekr
Wow this list is unreal. It's the Olympic lineup of the startup world. So
jealous of the students that get to attend in-person.

------
dalek2point3
Let me also plug this short essay "Entrepreneurs Need Strategy" \-- very
helpful in thinking about startups.
[http://mbasys.lingnan.sysu.edu.cn/resource/upload/upkimg/201...](http://mbasys.lingnan.sysu.edu.cn/resource/upload/upkimg/2013/0513/20130513074848_31242.pdf)

------
asenna
I live pretty close to Stanford but I am not a student. Is it possible for me
to just "sit in" for a couple of lectures? :)

[http://www.quora.com/What-does-Stanford-do-about-non-
Stanfor...](http://www.quora.com/What-does-Stanford-do-about-non-Stanford-
students-sitting-in-on-classes)

------
porter
YC leading the pack of incubator followers yet again. Excited to watch this!

~~~
espitia
Yup. The network is a true competitive advantage. What other incubator can get
this caliber of speakers? Amazing.

I'm truly thankful for this.

------
mathattack
It takes guts to open source yourself. It also highlights that so much of the
value comes from the in person meetings - sharing of ideas and networking.

------
droob
"37 Proven Systems to Win Powerball"

------
cperciva
Marginally related: Anyone know when startup school invitations go out? I
believe the application deadline was last week.

~~~
TheMakeA
Somewhere it was said that invitations would go out about a week after the
deadline, so I would expect them by September 19th.

~~~
katm
Yes - they should go out by midnight Friday PT.

~~~
jtcchan
I don't know I missed this - but any chance I can apply late? :(

------
codeonfire
Why is everything like this at Stanford? Why not some other schools for a
change?

~~~
wj
Because most of the speakers live within driving distance of Stanford?

I would love for more schools to offer course on entrepreneurship. I'm not
sure if I was ready for one while I was in college though.

------
Firecracker
Any word on why the Stanford class is marked as closed to signups?

------
icu
Thank you! I'm really looking forward to following online!

------
crixlet
truly amazing list. So this is a class specifically for the Stanford computer
science program?

~~~
akbar501
Yes, the in person course is only for Stanford undergrads:
[http://e145.stanford.edu/](http://e145.stanford.edu/)

Every who is not enrolled at Stanford can access the same material here:
[http://startupclass.samaltman.com/](http://startupclass.samaltman.com/)

EDIT: Correct link to CS 183b:

[https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filt...](https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filter-
coursestatus-Active=on&page=0&catalog=&q=CS+183&collapse=)

~~~
crazypyro
I think the class you linked is different course number? Sam's class is CS
183B, according to the website.

------
mrdiran
Thank you for doing this.

------
liz_062
another great information..cool post!

------
michaelochurch
Three cheers for the furthering concentration of privilege and access!

~~~
jacquesm
You're not doing yourself any favours with comments like these. YC is going
out of their way to make this stuff accessible and privilege has nothing to do
with it whatsoever. Please, don't do this.

~~~
michaelochurch
Perhaps it wasn't the most useful comment I've written, but I think I have a
strong point.

It's not the information or know-how that makes YC a game-changer. It's the
connections and seal of approval, which are scarce by definition. And now the
Stanford -> Funded pipeline is even stronger, which means that everyone else
is slightly (imperceptibly) more an outsider fuckhead employee on 0.04%.

I don't begrudge YC, really. It's a brilliantly run business and it's probably
done a lot of good for the world. It's just fun to snark about these things
because, honestly, most of the people "out there" (the ones who actually think
protesting Google Buses makes some kind of sense) are going to react more
harshly than I do. I just make fun of shit.

~~~
jacquesm
> It's not the information or know-how that makes YC a game-changer.

YC is composed of equal parts capital, smarts and process. That's not taking
into account the connections or the seal of approval, those are _results_ not
inputs! You could claim they are inputs now but it wasn't always like that.

> It's the connections and seal of approval, which are scarce by definition.

Connections are not scarce at all. You - and anybody else - have the power to
reach out to those that you want to reach. Assuming you play at 6 degrees for
a bit you'll find a link to whoever you want to reach. What makes the
difference is that once YC gives you that coveted 'seal of approval' (and
that's also not that scarce, vast numbers of start-ups have received it) that
some people will throw money at you.

But that's a curse and a blessing at the same time, for many of those
recipients will receive the 'curse' and only a few will eventually see it as a
blessing. But all of them agree: the experience alone was well worth it.

Now I'm not a YC alumnus, nor will I ever be one but I think that if a very
large number of people that go through a program think it is worth it then
that has my vote.

The seal of approval is something that VCs that do not wish to do their own
vetting have come up with, they have basically outsourced their vetting to YC
because YC does _so much better_ a job of this than they could ever do by
themselves that they might as well try to get in on the feeding frenzy aka
demo day.

And YC has forever been expanding the size of their batches based on capacity
available for processing. So the scarcity element would seem to be under
control and reducing.

> And now the Stanford -> Funded pipeline is even stronger, which means that
> everyone else is slightly (imperceptibly) more an outsider fuckhead employee
> on 0.04%.

On the contrary, _all_ the material will be made available, so _you too_ can
benefit from this.

Stanford is merely a convenient vehicle.

> I don't begrudge YC, really.

I'll take your word for it. But it seems as if you _do_ hold some kind of
grudge and a pretty deep one.

> It's a brilliantly run business and it's probably done a lot of good for the
> world.

So why all this negativity then? It's like walking around on a square
attempting to insult random people for either being successful, connected,
part of some perceived secret cabal or some other figment of the imagination.
That's a strange line to walk.

> It's just fun to snark about these things because, honestly, most of the
> people "out there" (the ones who actually think protesting Google Buses
> makes some kind of sense) are going to react more harshly than I do. I just
> make fun of shit.

Well, it's good to have that on the table then because I honestly believed
that you were serious in the way you present yourself. You're obviously a
pretty smart fellow, the bit that I did not understand is if you're so jealous
of all this why are you hurting your personal rep at this level. But if you're
just 'making fun of shit' then that explains things sufficiently for me, I
tried to make sense of it. My mistake.

~~~
michaelochurch
I used to be much angrier about the non-meritocracy of the Valley, but in
2014, we're near the end of the bubble cycle anyway. I've decided to be
forward-thinking and wait for the crash.

After the crash hits and the carpetbaggers leave, it'll be up to people like
me to rebuild the technology world. I hope that, when we do it, we create one
in which engineers and scientists and makers matter again.

~~~
jacquesm
> I hope that, when we do it, we create one in which engineers and scientists
> and makers matter again.

There has _never_ in the history of mankind been a time when engineers,
scientists and makers mattered more than they do today.

~~~
thisrod
Our hosts are betting that Michael is right about part of this, the part that
is far enough removed from their lives that they might be considering it
objectively.

[http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#science](http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#science)

