Lecture 3 - Before the Startup (Paul Graham)

Hi HN, I was the technical co-founder of a couple of startups that showed early promise but didn’t ultimately succeed. After my last attempt, I started digging into the reasons why, and found that YC pretty much has all the advice I wish I had from the start. One thing that really stood out was their list of “What not to do as a startup” (aka “Typical Startup Mistakes”). It’s a goldmine of advice that could have saved me a lot of headaches. I’ve put these insights together in a presentation and thought this would be the right place to share them. --- For convenience, I’ve added the presentation content as text below. --- Y Combinator Advice Authors - Michael Seibel (YC Partner and Managing Director) - Paul Graham (YC Co-Founder) - Jessica Livingston (YC Co-Founder) - Dalton Caldwell (YC Partner) - Kat Manalac (YC Partner) Definition of a Startup - "A startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model." [The Startup Owner's Manual, 2012]. Definition of Product/Market Fit - "The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make it -- or usage is growing just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up in your company checking account. You're hiring sales and customer support staff as fast as you can." [Marc Andreessen] Working on the wrong thing - You don't personally know 10 people with the problem - You solve a problem you don't care about - You solve a problem for people you don't care abo

Paul Graham gave a talk to college students that covered this: ▶ this video In short: build things you are interested in with people who are also interested in those things. Don't call it a startup at first; just make projects.

There's No Speed Limit [0] How I Became The Honest Broker [1] Running with Bruce Lee [2] This excerpt from Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman [3] Before The Startup [4] (also available in video form[5]) [0] link [1] link [2] link [3] link [4] link [5] ▶ this video

This is especially interesting, as pg uses a very creative variation on "Um"[1] (as a method of making people focus on the poigniant/funny statement he just made). I'm not sure if this is a case of someone weaponizing their verbal tic, but I think pg should probably add it to his actual writings. 1. ▶ this video

After seeing how PG treats people when the filter's off, I don't think I want to be in YC: ▶ this video

PG decided this: ▶ this video was the right way to shut down a question he didn't think was up to snuff so I guess I'm not going to take his opinion on what is/isn't "mean" too seriously

Hey guys, I believe this is from the "How To Start A Startup Lecture 3", so if you'd like to hear it go here... ▶ this video

I share pg's distaste for the mouthful that is "entrepreneurship" ( ▶ this video ). How about resurrecting the root, and using "enterprise" instead? Moving a language as big as English is a Brobdingnagian task, but few people are as well-positioned as pg to (re)introduce "enterprise" as a more economical alternative to "entrepreneurship".