2. What makes Silicon Valley special?
⢠Relentless belief in the future
⢠There are people who take wild ideas
seriously, instead of mocking you
⢠No âTall Poppyâ syndrome
⢠High density of talented people working on
startups
⢠A culture of paying it forward
3. What makes founders special?
⢠âI always ďŹgure it outâ and âI never give upâ
⢠Focus, self-belief, personal connections
⢠Clear vision, thought, and communication
⢠Ability to attract people to work on the
company
⢠Ability to get a huge amount of work done
themselves
4. Idea
⢠Idea ďŹrst; startup second
⢠Original thought
⢠Notice problems in your own life
⢠Great Wave
⢠Easier to start a hard company than an easy
company
5. Co-founders
⢠Co-founders are really good, but a bad
cofounder is worse than no co-founder
⢠Shared history
⢠Select for determination
⢠Values ďŹrst, aptitude second, speciďŹc skills
third
⢠Humble, not entitled
6. Product
⢠Small number of users that love you
⢠Retention; frequency of use
⢠Nothing but a great product will save you;
you can get everything else right and it still
wonât work
7. Getting your ďŹrst 100 users
⢠What does âtalk to usersâ actually mean?
⢠Expect to do this manually. Some ways:
- You email people you already know and ask
them to be customers. Call in your favors and
actually charge for your product.
- You research to ďŹnd people you think might be
customers and contact them via email, phone
or in person. Conversion rates are low.
8. Getting your ďŹrst 100 users
⢠Some more ways:
- Social media outreach, posting to HN, forums,
PR, etc. Look for sustainability.
- Buy ads and point them at your website. This is
the âlaziestâ technique and usually a bad idea.
- Get over your fear of asking people to buy your
productâsales!
9. Company
⢠Get to know your users really well
⢠Short cycle time
⢠Make a long-term commitment
⢠Stay lean until everything is working really
well
⢠The team you build is the company you
build
10. Company
⢠Relentless execution
⢠Startups are about not giving up; one of
the companies from the last YC batch got
in on their 7th time applying
⢠Fiduciary duty to take care of yourself
⢠Clear mission