One Line
Y Combinator provides advice and resources to startup founders to help them create products that meet user needs and delight users.
Key Points
- Y Combinator looks for founders who understand a group of users and can make what they want, rather than those who are good at exploiting people.
- The most powerful motivator for ambitious undertakings is genuine interest in the project.
- YC interviews are not pitches; they are short and designed to give founders as much of a chance to get funded as possible.
- Billionaires Build is an essay collection exploring topics such as the need to read, alien truth, heresy, good taste, how to work hard, raise money, and get startup ideas.
- Airbnbs had a strong relationship between founders and were determined, resilient and good at building things.
- The biggest flaw in most startup ideas is the lack of people who want what is being built, even though the company is small.
Summaries
97 word summary
YC partners assess whether a startup has an initial market and if it can satisfy a need. YC interviews are not pitches, but a chance to show founders can meet user needs. To succeed, founders must be authentic and focus on delighting users. YC's motto is "Make something people want". Essays such as "The Venture Capital Squeeze" and "What You'll Wish You'd Known" provide advice on startups and funding. The collection "Billionaires Build" covers a range of topics from reading to angel investing. Other topics include working hard, post-medium publishing, persuasion vs. discovery, and how to disagree.
475 word summary
Billionaires Build is an essay collection exploring topics ranging from the need to read, alien truth, heresy, good taste, and beyond to more practical topics such as how to work hard, raise money, and get startup ideas. It also covers the future of startup funding, the acceleration of addictiveness, post-medium publishing, Apple's mistake, persuasion vs. discovery, subject: Airbnb, founder control, and how to be an angel investor. Other topics include: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss, A New Venture Animal, Trolls, Six Principles for Making New Things, Why to Move to a Startup Hub, The Future of Web Startups, How to Do Philosophy, News from the Front, How Not to Die, Holding a Program in One's Head Stuff, The Equity Equation. An Alternative Theory of Unions; The Hacker's Guide to Investors; Two Kinds of Judgement; Microsoft is Dead; Why to Not Not.
Hacker News essays include: What I've Learned from Hacker News, Startups in 13 Sentences, Keep Your Identity Small After Credentials, Could VC be a Casualty of the Recession?, The High-Res Society, The Other Half of "Artists Ship", Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy, A Fundraising Survival Guide, The Pooled-Risk Company Management Company, Cities and Ambition, Disconnecting Distraction, Lies We Tell Kids, Be Good, Why There Aren't More Googles, Some Heroes, How to Disagree.
Funding a Startup essays include: The Venture Capital Squeeze, Ideas for Startups, What I Did this Summer, Inequality and Risk, After the Ladder, What Business Can Learn from Open Source, Hiring is Obsolete, The Submarine, Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas, Return of the Mac, Writing Briefly, Undergraduation, A Unified Theory of VC Suckage, How to Start a Startup, What You'll Wish You'd Known, Made in USA, It's Charisma Stupid, Bradley's Ghost, A Version 1.0.
Surprisingly, two essays about acing a Y Combinator interview and debunking the idea that billionaires exploit people are actually the same. Y Combinator looks for founders who understand a group of users and can make what they want. This is so important that it's their motto: "Make something people want." A startup must Most startups lack an initial market, but Y Combinator (YC) partners assess whether there is a need and if the startup can satisfy it. YC interviews are not pitches—they are designed to give founders the best chance of getting funded. To do this, they rely on the founders to tell them about their users. The best way to succeed is to answer questions candidly and honestly. YC looks for authenticity in founders and rejects those whose motives seem exploitative. Billionaires become so because they keep working on their project, not because of exploitation. The most reliable way to grow a company and become a billionaire is to focus on delighting users. YC partners have experience doing this and can often see paths that the founders haven't seen yet.
1034 word summary
Founders who want to make money with a startup should focus on delighting users. That is the most reliable way to grow a company and become a billionaire. YC partners have experience doing this, and can often see paths that the founders haven't seen yet. It is understandable to feel bad about people having more money than others, but there is no correlation between how badly someone behaves and how much money they make. Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Geoff Ralston, and Harj Taggar for reading drafts of this. Billionaires are often seen as exploiting people, but this is not the defining quality of billionaires. Y Combinator (YC) looks for authenticity in founders, and rejects those whose motives seem exploitative. The most powerful motivator for ambitious undertakings is genuine interest in the project. YC's cereal story is evidence of this: founders who show resourcefulness and determination are likely to succeed on a large scale. Money and seeming cool are weaker motivators than genuine interest. Billionaires become so because they keep working on their project, not because of exploitation. The Airbnbs had a strong relationship between founders and were determined, resilient and good at building things. This, combined with their expertise in the domain and market potential, made them a good candidate for seed funding.
In a YC interview, the partners want to know about the founders, the idea and the competitors. They expect you to be thoughtful and honest, rather than trying to sell them. It's better to be candid than to try to bullshit them.
People who are interviewed successfully don't always know what to expect. The best way to do well is to answer questions candidly. If asked about potential risks, it's better to go into detail than to say "nothing". And if you don't know the answer, say so and explain how you'd find it. YC interviews are not pitches; they are short and designed to give founders as much of a chance to get funded as possible. The partners need to figure out, through indirect evidence, whether the founders know what they're talking about and aren't lying. To do this, they rely on the founders to tell them about their users. The most convincing answer is "Because we and our friends want it," followed by news of a prototype. The partners will dig into who the first users are, as all techniques require some initial seed group of users. The biggest flaw in most startup ideas is the lack of people who want what is being built, even though the company is small. This need can be satisfied by targeting an initial market that already exists, such as one's peers, or a regional market. Y Combinator partners assess whether there is a need and whether the startup can satisfy it. They also assess whether there is a path to a huge market, such as if Boom manages international airlines. The conversation during an YC interview must be about something new and uncertain, as if the need and the ability to satisfy it were certain, there would be no room for the startup. Surprise! Two essays about acing a Y Combinator interview and debunking the idea that billionaires exploit people are actually the same. Y Combinator looks for founders who understand a group of users and can make what they want. This is so important that it's their motto: "Make something people want." In a market economy, it's hard to make something people want that they don't already have. A startup must create something that genuinely delights its customers to get off the ground. Big companies can force unsuitable products on unwilling customers, but startups don't have this power. YC looks for founders who understand this, not those who are good at exploiting people. The Bubble Got Right: The Age of the Essay, The Python Paradox, Great Hackers, Mind the Gap, How to Make Wealth, The Word "Hacker", What You Can't Say, Filters that Fight Back, Hackers and Painters, If Lisp is So Great, The Hundred-Year Language, Why Nerds are Unpopular, Better Bayesian Filtering, Design and Research, A Plan for Spam, Revenge of the Nerds, Succinctness is Power, What Languages Fix, Taste for Makers, Why Arc Isn't Especially Object-Oriented, What Made Lisp Different, The Other Road Ahead, The Roots of Lisp, Five Questions about Language Design, Being Popular, Java's Cover, Beating the Averages, Lisp for Web-Based Applications.
Funding a Startup: The Venture Capital Squeeze, Ideas for Startups, What I Did this Summer, Inequality and Risk, After the Ladder, What Business Can Learn from Open Source, Hiring is Obsolete, The Submarine, Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas, Return of the Mac, Writing Briefly, Undergraduation, A Unified Theory of VC Suckage, How to Start a Startup, What You'll Wish You'd Known, Made in USA, It's Charisma Stupid, Bradley's Ghost, A Version 1.0.
Hacker News: What I've Learned from Hacker News, Startups in 13 Sentences, Keep Your Identity Small After Credentials, Could VC be a Casualty of the Recession?, The High-Res Society, The Other Half of "Artists Ship", Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy, A Fundraising Survival Guide, The Pooled-Risk Company Management Company, Cities and Ambition, Disconnecting Distraction, Lies We Tell Kids, Be Good, Why There Aren't More Googles, Some Heroes, How to Disagree.
Other Topics: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss, A New Venture Animal, Trolls, Six Principles for Making New Things, Why to Move to a Startup Hub, The Future of Web Startups, How to Do Philosophy, News from the Front, How Not to Die, Holding a Program in One's Head Stuff, The Equity Equation. An Alternative Theory of Unions; The Hacker's Guide to Investors; Two Kinds of Judgement; Microsoft is Dead; Why to Not Not Billionaires Build is an essay collection exploring topics ranging from the need to read, alien truth, heresy, good taste, and beyond. It also delves into more practical topics such as how to work hard, raise money, and get startup ideas. Other essays examine the future of startup funding, the acceleration of addictiveness, post-medium publishing, Apple's mistake, and more. Finally, Billionaires Build covers topics such as persuasion vs. discovery, subject: Airbnb, founder control, and how to be an angel investor.