Michael Seibel first joined YC as a founder (twice: w07, w12) — as soon as with the reside streaming service Justin.TV (which morphed into Twitch) and afterward Socialcam, one other streaming app. Michael later served as a bunch associate, managing director, and CEO of YC. The YC corporations Michael has labored with are price a mixed $192 billion.
Just a few weeks in the past Siebel introduced that he’s stepping down from Y combinator. So I assumed it’s time to share the video the place lists are the important thing learnings from YC on the best way to begin a technical startup:
- Begin with a robust technical co-founding group: You want two to 4 co-founders with at the least 50% engineering background. All co-founders ought to have roughly a yr’s price of very frugal dwelling bills saved up and will need to have give up their jobs. Notably, an preliminary thought isn’t a prerequisite at this stage.
- Collaboratively develop an thought targeted on private or recognized each day/weekly issues: Brainstorm along with your co-founders, because the preliminary thought typically comes from one individual however advantages from group enter. Prioritize fixing issues you personally expertise or are very conscious of. Concentrate on each day or weekly issues, as they provide extra frequent engagement alternatives than month-to-month or yearly ones.
- Conduct transient preliminary market analysis: Spend about an hour researching to find out if there’s a considerable market with billions of {dollars} being made. Additionally, strive utilizing your opponents’ merchandise.
- Launch a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) rapidly: Goal to get one thing into customers’ arms inside two months, whatever the preliminary state. Keep away from extreme iteration earlier than launching, as getting consumer suggestions is essential.
- Prioritize development as the first metric for fundraising: For Silicon Valley buyers, development is a very powerful issue, much more so than the group or previous expertise.
- Undertake a strategic strategy to fundraising: Solely begin fundraising while you don’t urgently want the cash, as this makes buyers extra . Construction your organization to reduce early bills, specializing in overlaying co-founders’ dwelling prices. Schedule investor conferences shut collectively in time (inside one week) to create buzz and a concern of lacking out (FOMO). Having development makes fundraising considerably simpler.
- Handle operations leanly: The most typical downside for startups is spending an excessive amount of cash. Scale back bills, pay yourselves much less, and go for a much less spectacular workplace to increase your runway. Often evaluate your month-to-month spending to determine areas for discount.
- Concentrate on rising common expertise with every rent and rent slowly: Your early staff ought to ideally be smarter and barely extra risk-averse than the founders. If a possible rent doesn’t enhance the corporate’s common intelligence, it’s a mistake. Hiring a lot of folks isn’t mandatory for early success; deal with the core founding group initially.
- Deal with Public Relations (PR) your self within the early levels: Keep away from spending cash on PR companies initially, as you may seemingly do it your self successfully. Deal with PR like enterprise improvement: search heat introductions, observe up, construct relationships with reporters, and supply newsworthy pitches (launches, funding, vital hires, offers).
- Incorporate within the US for simpler fundraising from American buyers: This can be a easy and cheap course of (round $250 by clerk.com) should you intend to lift cash within the US.
