YC’s Essential Startup Advice | Y Combinator

YC’s Essential Startup Advice

A lot of the advice we give startups is tactical; meant to be helpful on a day to day or week to week basis. But some advice is more fundamental. We’ve collected here what we at YC consider the most important, most transformative advice for startups. Whether common sense or counter-intuitive, the guidance below will help most startups find their path to success.

Key Advice

Launch Immediately

The first thing we always tell founders is to launch their product right away; for the simple reason that this is the only way to fully understand customers’ problems and whether the product meets their needs. Surprisingly, launching a mediocre product as soon as possible, and then talking to customers and iterating, is much better than waiting to build the “perfect” product. This is true as long as the product contains a “quantum of utility” for customers whose value overwhelms problems any warts might present.

Do Things That Don’t Scale

Once launched, we suggest founders do things that don’t scale. Many startup advisors persuade startups to scale way too early. This will require the building of technology and processes to support that scaling, which, if premature, will be a waste of time and effort. This strategy often leads to failure and even startup death. Rather, we tell startups to get their first customer by any means necessary, even by manual work that couldn’t be managed for more than ten, much less 100 or 1000 customers. At this stage, founders are still trying to figure out what needs to be built and the best way to do that is talk directly to customers.

Look for the 90/10 Solution

Talking to users usually yields a long, complicated list of features to build. One piece of advice that YC partner Paul Buchheit (PB) always gives in this case is to look for the “90/10 solution”. That is, look for a way in which you can accomplish 90% of what you want with only 10% of the work/effort/time. If you search hard for it, there is almost always a 90/10 solution available.

Prioritize the Right Tasks

As companies begin to grow there are often many potential distractions. We always remind founders not to lose sight that the most important tasks for an early stage company are to write code and talk to users. These tasks should occupy almost all of your time/focus. For great companies this cycle never ends.

Choose Customers Wisely

When it comes to customers most founders don’t realize that they get to choose customers as much as customers get to choose them. A small group of customers who love you is better than a large group who kind of like you. Some customers can cost way more than they provide in either revenue or learning.

Understand Growth

Growth is always a focus for startups, since a startup without growth is usually a failure. However, how and when to grow is often misunderstood. If you have not yet made something your customers want, it makes little sense to grow.

Focus on Doing Less

Startup founders’ intuition will always be to do more whereas usually the best strategy is almost always to do less, really well. It is vital that very early a startup choose the one or two key metrics it will use to measure success, then founders should choose what to do based nearly exclusively on how the task will impact those metrics.

Embrace Imperfection

Founders often find it surprising to hear that they shouldn’t worry if their company seems badly broken. It turns out that nearly every startup has deep, fundamental issues, even those that will end up being billion dollar companies. Success is not determined by whether you are broken at the beginning, but rather what the founders do about the inevitable problems.

Avoid Competitive Obsession

It is very difficult as a new startup founder not to obsess about competition, actual and potential. Spending any time worrying about your competitors is nearly always counterproductive.

Fundraising Advice

Raise money as quickly as possible and then get back to work. Understanding that valuation is not equal to success or even probability of success is also crucial.

Take Care of Yourself

It is also important to stay sane during the inevitable craziness of startup life. Ensure you take breaks, spend time with friends and family, get enough sleep and exercise between bouts of intense work.

Importance of Relationships

Open, honest communications between founders make future debacles much less likely. Being nice can greatly impact your startup’s success.

The Pocket Guide of Essential YC Advice