Y Combinator

Building a startup and trying to break into an established market is very difficult, especially if you’re trying to do it alone! That’s why it’s critical to find the right co-founder for the journey. In this episode of Startup School, YC Group Partner Harj Taggar explains why you need a co-founder, when to bring them on, where you can find one and how to maintain the relationship.

Whether it's for sales, recruiting or making new connections, cold outreach is a necessary tool for helping build your startup. But as you probably know, most cold emails either are ignored or end up in the trash. So what can you do to make sure your emails break through the noise? In this episode of Startup School, YC Group Partner Aaron Epstein shares expert advice on how to write cold emails that have all the right ingredients to get noticed and convert new customers.

At YC our motto is make something people want. But how do you actually know if you’ve accomplished that in the early days? One of the best ways to measure successful growth is a concept called cohort retention, which tracks the fraction of new users that come back time and time again to use your product. In this episode of Startup School, YC Group Partner David Lieb explains how to define cohorts, track active users and determine the appropriate time frame for measuring successful retention rates.

In order to get your startup off the ground it's critical to keep your co-founders motivated. One of the best ways to do that is to figure out a fair co-founder equity split. In this episode of Startup School, YC Group Partner Michael Seibel explains the ins and outs of co-founder equity, why it's important to be generous with that equity, and how to avoid bad advice that can lead to co-founder breakups.

After co-founding the successful Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus, Carl Pei felt the tech industry was missing the fun and wonder he remembered as a dedicated gadget fan growing up in Sweden. Pei decided to launch a new smartphone brand, this time with an increased focus on thoughtful user interface and stylish yet practical designs. In only two years, the brand known as "Nothing" has gained a cult following and gone to $600 million in annualized revenue. On this episode of The Main Function, Pei reflects on the highs and lows that have come with the journey of pursuing excellence in hard tech.

If you're a startup founder, how much should you charge for your product or service? It's a simple question that can make many lock up. What number should you pick? In this episode of Startup School, YC Group Partner Tom Blomfield guides you on how to come up with a price and then justify that number to customers.

Launching a company is often pictured as a big splashy event with lots of media attention and hype. This can be scary! It also often results in founders delaying their launches, which then stalls the crucial lessons they could be learning. In this episode, YC Partners discuss this common hesitation and why it can be harmful to the journey and growth of a startup.

Y Combinator Partner Pete Koomen led his startup, Optimizely, to $100M ARR. In this video, Pete breaks down the enterprise sales funnel and shares his top tips on how a technical founder can start closing real deals for their startup.

A little over ten years ago Paul Graham published the essay "Do Things That Don't Scale." At the time, it was highly controversial advice that spoke to the drastically different needs of an early startup versus the needs of a much larger, more established company. YC Partners discuss PG's essay, its influence on Silicon Valley, and some prime examples of YC founders that embraced the mantra "Do Things That Don't Scale." Read Paul Graham's essay here: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Over the past decade crypto has been declared dead hundreds of times. But with the price of Bitcoin surging over the past few months it’s clear that there are still enormous opportunities in this space. And few people know that better than Chandan Lodha, the co-founder of CoinTracker (W18), a crypto asset management and tax filing platform. He and his team have navigated several boom and bust cycles over the years and in this latest episode of The Main Function, you’ll hear about how they built their company, the time it nearly fell apart, and how they used a crypto winter to retool and emerge stronger than ever.

In this episode of Startup School, YC Partner Tom Blomfield dives deeper into the metrics that matter most for consumer startups. Tom discusses paid and organic user growth, unit economics, net promoter scores, and the "magic moment" in your product that is most important to track.

When you’re making important decisions as a founder — like what to build or how it should work — should you spend lots of time gathering input from others or just trust your gut? In this episode of Dalton & Michael, we talk more about this and how to know when you should spend time validating and when to just commit. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs

One trait that many great founders share is conviction. In this episode of Dalton & Michael, we’ll talk about finding confidence in what you're building, the dangers of inaccurate assumptions, and a question founders need to ask themselves before they start trying to sell to anyone else. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs

Startups need to innovate to succeed. But not all innovation is made equal and reinventing some common best practices could actually hinder your company. In this episode, Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel discuss the common innovation pitfalls founders should avoid so they can better focus on their product and their customers. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs

Within the world of startups, you'll find lots of discourse online about the experiences of founders bootstrapping their startups versus the founders who have raised venture capital to fund their companies. Is one better than the other? Truth is, it may not be so black and white. Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel discuss the virtues and struggles of both paths. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs

Based on the thousands of companies YC has funded over the years, the biggest common element between all successful startups is having technical talent on the founding team. But what do you do if you don't know how to code? You may think you can get by using no-code tools, part-time consultants, or dev shops to bring your startup idea to life. But that thinking is wrong. In this episode of Dalton & Michael, we’ll discuss exactly why that is and why recruiting a technical co-founder is the single biggest way to create value as someone trying to start the next big thing. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs

In this episode of Startup School, YC Group Partner Tom Blomfield discusses one of the most important elements of running any startup: metrics! Tom shares what key metrics to track and how to use them to make the best decisions for your company. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/SUS-apply Work at a startup: https://yc.link/SUS-jobs

Social media often promotes a doom and gloom outlook about our future society. But is that worldview accurate? In this episode, Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel discuss the best ways for founders and aspiring founders to think about weighing optimism and pessimism in their day to day lives. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs

Casetext started out in 2013 as a crowdsourced law library — a sort of “Wikipedia meets Reddit” for the law. Ten years later, Casetext is one of the biggest wins to date in AI, capable of turning weeks of arduous legal work into hours or minutes. Just months ago it was acquired for $650 million dollars. What happened between those two points? For this episode of Main Function, YC President Garry Tan sits down with Casetext co-founder Jake Heller to learn the real story of their 10-year “overnight” success: the 3 a.m. origin story, how the company evolved as fast as tech would allow, and the “magic demo” that helped turn Casetext into a rocket ship. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/MainFunction-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/MainFunction-jobs

The stories are true: technical founders (and early technical employees!) often end up with the short end of the stick when starting a company. In this episode of Dalton & Michael, we’ll discuss the questions and best practices that an aspiring technical founder should think about — whom to start a company with, and how to think about things like equity split and division of responsibilities. Know what you are worth and act accordingly! Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs