Y Combinators Startup School
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Y Combinators Startup School 2009 was an incredible learning experience for new and experienced entrepreneurs alike. There are ten talks. Here are their key points.
1.Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator: What Startups Are Really Like
2.Greg McAdoo, Sequoia Capital
3.Jason Fried, CEO, 37signals: Funding and Charging for Your Product
4.Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired: Freemium
5.Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail and Friendfeed: What Ive Learned
6.Twitter Founders Biz Stone and Ev Williams: Q&A with Jessica Livingston
7.Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook: Q&A with Jessica Livingston
8.Mitch Kapor, Founder, Lotus: Startup Culture
9.Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos: Delivering Happiness
10.Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga: My Startup Experience
Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator: What Startups Are Really Like
Below are some key points about his talk, but there are a lot more great soundbites in his transcript of What Startups Are Really Like.
in his research, people have sometimes said that in a co-founder, character is more important than performance
expect failure with deals.
be optimistic about things you can control. you cant control deals, so dont be optimistic about them.
having a founder is like youre married but not fucking.
luck is a big factor in startups. founders/programmers are more surprised than normal founders because programmers are used to concrete cause-and-effect
sorry, guys: being a startup founder does NOT make you more attractive to women.
quitting your job to start a startup depends on the age. harder at 35 with wife and kids. but at 21, your entry-level job is useless anyway, so go start a startup.
Greg McAdoo, Sequoia Capital
the 70s and 80s economies performed just like the current economy: recession, unemployment on the rise, etc. however, Apple, Oracle, and many others came from it too
likewise, the 2001 crash spawned companies like A123, Rackspace, and Aruba and Zappos
its definitely possible to start a startup in a down economy, as some of the best businesses still around today started in recessions
the demand environment in a recession: your competition is less irrational in their purchases and doings
recessions create a lot of discipline.
in startups, you have to start small, and stay focused, especially in a recession.
good recession-era startups buy the cash register early, they execute their pay business model earlier to generate revenues earlier and bank earlier
Re: RIP Good Times: it didnt say that everything was fucked, but rather that you have to run your startup like other past recession winners, and cut and be lean
enterprise sales tip: promote and talk about the HARD DOLLAR ROI. its the most important thing to talk about. make them scared to reject your product. make them think if my boss ever found out we could have saved 50% on software X, he would be pissed. make them fear that the competition get the product in their hands and beat you out.
startups that gain revenue early are disciplined earlier, and get used to being an actual business earlier, and generally are better and more recession-proof
Jason Fried, CEO, 37signals: Funding and Charging for Your Product
the difference between a boostrapped and funded company is easy to understand.
the bootstrapped company starts off thinking: we need to make money.
the funded company starts of thinking: we need to spend money. these investors have given us x million dollarswe should spend it!
the funded company detracts away from doing final execution of the product and making revenues.
start as early as you can. you dont become fantastic at piano by starting at 20 or 25. you do become fantastic at piano if you started at age 5.
price forces you to be good and better than the rest. the pressure of price is very, very good.
pricing your product will give an avenue for the people buying your software to give you feedback on it.
if a product is free, you dont get that feedback.
if a product is free, its just good enough. people will take it and say its just good enough to use for free.
the most intimate transaction between people: money. Im giving you this money earned by hard work because you offer something that I want.
funding is like crack. its an addiction with names like Series C. Dont keep going back for more and more funding; itll make your addiction worse.
planning is GUESSING. figure out stuff as you go, because you never really know. plan some, but improvise a lot.
I promise youll still be using post-it notes in 20 years. Usefulness trumps innovativeness; usefulness stays while coolness deteriorates over time.
all the art in the world in one room wont make a museum. the fact that it rejects 99% of art makes it a museum. apply this to software features.
37signals byproducts include Getting Real, the job board, and more. they have generated 37signals more than $1M in revenue. the job board itself has made $1.5 million.
we apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you is the worst way to say Im sorry
the best are everywhere, even outside Silicon Valley, dont think you HAVE to be here. 37signals is based in Chicago.
sorry, failure is not a rite of passage. you dont have to fail. failing once doesnt prevent another. Fried thinks the idea of you have to fail once and having to learn about failure is ridiculous.
learning a lesson from failure is learning what not to do. learning what to do is a lot better than learning what not to do.
other peoples failures are other peoples failures. dont worry about them.
anyone know how to sell things for free? you cant. you can only sell things for money.
Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired: Freemium
freemium is a great way of marketing. 90% try 10% buy. digital freeloaders are affordable, too. the freeloaders are paid for by the paid users.
conversion from free to paid means loyalty. freemium conversions hold the lowest churn rates.
Club Penguin was free to play. children USE the service and SEE VALUE in it, and subsequently purchase the premium options. sold for $700 mil to Disney.
types of freemium: feature limited freemium. people already familiarized. ex. iPhone apps.
Anderson hates 30-day trials. ticking clocks discourage uptake. hmm.
capacity limited freemium. like Google or Flickr, for file storage limits. unfortunately doesnt work for all products.
when Gmail launched, the Gmail free was more than Yahoo! Plus. Yahoo! shat themselves, but it turned out that they had experienced low churn in that period: subscribers tend to stay. not the least of which reasons is that your email is on the provider still.
Bill Gates didnt crack down much on Chinese piracy because they were a developing country. they much rather would have people pirate their software than other peoples software, and Gates believed that they would pay later because of the then-majority of software being Microsoft. andthey did pay later and is now a huge market for Microsoft
(btw!) Jason Fried isnt against Chris Anderson. 37signals products are all based on freemium. the idea is to charge $!
make sure you articulate the free deal clearly to the customer. communication is the risk.
Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail and Friendfeed: What Ive Learned
limited life experience + overgeneralization = advice
Buchheit started working on Friendfeed at 30 years old
He worked at Google since 1999ish, after Intel, and did internships at Microsoft and Sun in college
working at Google was his best education he received from anywhere
after Google, he took a one-year retirement period to chill
however, he wanted to do things that mattered and started friendfeed
its toxic to think that when youre done with school, youre done learning
are you in startups for the money? if so, when (thats a when, not an if) the startup feels hopeless and the rollercoaster is at the low, youll give up easily.
if youre into startups not just for the money, youll focus on external rewards and harder to give up
if you really care about something, do it now.
Twitter Founders Biz Stone and Ev Williams: Q&A with Jessica Livingston
Obvious was bored of Odeo and wanted to do something new. they werent passionately engaged in the product and rarely used it
motivation behind Twitter: two week hackweek at Obvious. they built, used it over the weekend, and they were passionately engaged
Twitter was incubated in Odeo, then spun out. Fred Wilson was first investor. they were lucky: they were able to choose investors
SXSW 07 was big: people started using it for afterparties
one guy said that one bar was crowded and to go to another one and posted it. before he got there, the line was out the door
they realized WOW this product actually had users, people loved to use it too
some people said, its fun but its not useful. Ev responded: well, so is ice cream.
going public with Twitter a possibility, theyd like to go big
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook: Q&A with Jessica Livingston
addressed the audience as my people
first social hack: making an online study tool that had people fill in notes for him to pass a final
first version of Facebook was about 10,000 LOC, release early release often worked really well for Facebook (employees push a lot)
definitely build something people want. Facebook wasnt a business at start, was a tool and project
moving to Silicon Valley provided a lot of infrastructure for an early entrepreneur like himself
launched Facebook at the least receptive schools and they still caught on
Facebook is by definition is a naturally viral product: your friends are there. Lots of organic word-of-mouth happened at campuses.
Half of Dartmouth College joined in one night, probably due to an email that went out from the student government.
he says he never pitched Facebook a lot. Just got introduced to people because already had x00,000 users
we used register.com, which was a mistake
have to go through a lot of steps and iterate, no problem with mistakes, like being too perfect
Facebook was very focused on keeping the management technical, vs. nontech folks running the company
if a technology company has a management that isnt really technical, its not a tech company
keeping a smaller team means leverage. 300 mil users and 300 engineers. FB: a company composed of hackers. look elsewhere, and the ratio of engineers to users is incredibly different
cognizant of the fact that engineers tend to move around companies. Facebook is a place to learn; hes cool with moves.
he talked with classmates about big industry trends. One was more data and interaction.
sometimes you shouldnt listen to other people. Lots of people told him he had no experience etc
were trying to get the world to be more open. openness and transparency is going to be important in the future
not taking any risks is the riskiest thing you can do.
Values are worthless if theyre not controversial. What are you willing to give up for them?
Mitch Kapor, Founder, Lotus: Startup Culture
what kind of legacy do you want to leave? Its about having impact.
startups see themselves as more open, less politicky, but they arent actually better in some ways
startups have more public humiliation and bullying than regular companies, says research
some startups value face-time more than productivity, and some value rumors as the best source of info
lots of tech startups see themselves as meritocracies. Research : diverse teams are better
inaction is an action, too. Both what you do and dont do affects your startups culture
in startups, hold people accountable. Be serious about keeping a tight leash.
Angel investors are really disruptive. Characteristics: smaller chunks of money, more favorable terms, often entrepreneurs themselves
Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos: Delivering Happiness
sold LinkExchange because the culture with employees wasnt good.
the list of core values of Zappos was really important to culture and the co. Wish they did it at first
people tell us we should start an airline or run the IRS
Zappos has three Cs: Clothing, Customer Service (what they experience), Culture (and core values)
recommend Good to Great (Jim Collins) and Tribal Leadership (avail online at zappos.com)
chase the vision, not the moneyand the money will end up following you
what would you be passionate about doing for 10 years regardless of money made?
Inspire employees: culture and greater visions. Came up with Committable (!) Core Values.
Zappos Committable Core Values are grounds for hiring and firing, very serious about it
one hire that goes against the core values is fine, but making a habit of letting it slide all the time is detrimental
more important to have core values and committing to them, rather than the specific values.
vision and culture can inspire passion and performance (yes!)
Zappos aims to deliver happiness to customers AND employees AND vendors
When Zappos employees leave, they often go and hang out with other Zappos employees.
Zappos recommends that 10%-20% of time outside of office w/ coworkers, and Tony said that it improves communication and happiness by 20-100%!
what is your goal in life? then ask why? then ask why again? and again? it all leads to HAPPINESS
happiness components: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness, and higher vision/meaning
give bonuses every 6 months vs every 18. Equivalent but happiness higher
3 types of happiness: pleasure/rockstar, passion/flow (time flies), meaning/higher purpose (long lasting)
Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga: My Startup Experience
you probably have to have a screw loose if you want to be an entrepreneur
at one point he was funded and the funder wanted the company to be independently controlled (disaster)
they brought on an independent person on the board (would become CEO, independent person, and VC.) however, they realized that in a decision the independent person basically pointed to the VC and says, its their money.
what really matters is that YOU CONTROL YOUR BOARD. Mark Zuckerberg claps.
Who gives a shit what your valuation us? Only your ego!
A lot of the time, the people that are dealing with your startup on the board of directors are junior VCs.
if you go to the senior VCs, theyll understand what youre saying.
however, the junior VCs arent very smart, and theyll want to control your board a lot
to first-time entrepreneurs, theyll mark you as an investment risk and you lose more control. ironically, this is probably a first-time VC/board member as well.
at some point, youll have to hire someone to be COO. however, youll then find that the COO that you may find will look at you saying: youre a first-time entrepreneur. I dont want you managing me. I want to be CEO.
Fake CEO days: speaking at conferences, etc: he almost took one by speaking at Harvard Business School but instead went to Facebook and worked with his team to fix Zyngas problems
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