YC Startup Talk for Students, 2022

Summary

这段视频脚本由一位前YC创始人分享，他介绍了自己在不同规模初创公司的经历，并强调了YC如何帮助初创公司起步，包括建立产品、筹集资金和招聘团队。他分享了在初创公司工作的经验，包括快速成长和对业务的深入影响，以及如何选择适合自己的初创公司阶段。此外，他还讲述了YC寻找的初创公司特质，包括对行业的热爱和专业知识，以及如何通过YC的资源和网络帮助创始人成功。

Takeaways

• 🚀 创业者应该加入YC（Y Combinator）这样的加速器，以帮助他们的初创企业在早期阶段获得发展。
• 🛠️ 创业过程中最困难的三件事是：构建产品、筹集资金和组建团队。
• 💼 初创公司倾向于雇佣多面手，即愿意承担多种角色的通才。
• 🔍 初创公司与大公司不同，它们提供更高的可见度和更快的决策过程。
• 👥 在初创公司工作可以快速获得责任和经验，有时甚至超出个人能力范围。
• 🏢 大公司通常拥有更多客户，但初创公司可以更深入地了解和影响客户。
• 🤝 加入初创公司的一个好方法是与创始人建立联系，并找到一个你感兴趣的团队。
• 🎓 对于想要了解初创公司的学生，最好的学习方式之一就是直接加入一个初创公司。
• 💡 YC寻找的创业者特质包括对行业的热爱、领域经验以及快速学习和适应的能力。
• 📈 YC为创业者提供的帮助包括产品构建指导、个性化建议、网络资源和资金支持。
• 🌟 成功的初创公司案例包括Dropbox、Stripe、Airbnb和Instacart等，它们都曾是YC的成员。

Q & A

YC是什么组织，它如何帮助初创公司起步？

YC，全称Y Combinator，是一个知名的创业孵化器。它通过提供资金、指导和资源帮助初创公司在早期发展，包括但不限于建立产品、筹集资金和组建团队。

Dropbox、Stripe、Airbnb和Instacart这些公司有什么共同点？

这些公司都是在早期阶段通过YC孵化器获得支持和发展的，它们现在都已成为各自领域的领先企业。

为什么说在初创公司工作可以学到很多关于创业的知识？

在初创公司工作可以让你亲身体验和参与到创业的各个环节，如产品开发、市场推广、团队建设和决策过程，这种实践经验是非常宝贵的学习机会。

在初创公司工作与在大型公司工作有什么不同？

初创公司倾向于雇佣多面手，即愿意承担多种角色的通才，而大型公司则倾向于雇佣专家。此外，初创公司的决策过程更快，员工可以看到自己工作对公司产生的直接影响。

为什么说在初创公司工作有低风险？

相比于成为初创公司的创始人，作为员工加入初创公司的风险较低，因为员工不需要承担公司失败的全部财务后果，同时也能获得宝贵的工作经验。

YC的“Work at a Startup”平台是什么？

“Work at a Startup”是YC运营的一个招聘平台，它连接求职者和初创公司，帮助双方找到合适的匹配，目前平台上有800多家公司和6000多个职位。

在初创公司工作时，为什么理解业务和衡量影响是重要的？

理解业务可以帮助员工更好地融入公司，知道如何为公司的发展做出贡献。衡量影响则可以让员工明确自己的工作成果，为未来的职业发展提供有力的证明。

YC在选择支持的初创公司时，最看重什么？

YC在选择初创公司时，最看重的是创始团队的素质，包括对行业的热爱和专业知识、快速学习和迭代的能力，以及强烈的决心和韧性。

YC提供的500,000美元的启动资金有什么特别之处？

这笔资金是YC为入选的初创公司提供的无条件资金支持，目的是帮助他们在没有外部压力的情况下专注于产品开发和市场验证。

为什么说在初创公司工作可以为将来自己创业打下基础？

在初创公司工作可以让员工深入了解创业的各个方面，包括产品开发、市场定位、团队协作等，这些经验对于未来自己创业是非常有帮助的。

YC的校友网络为初创公司提供了哪些帮助？

YC的校友网络为初创公司提供了一个资源共享和经验交流的平台，包括提供指导、建立合作关系、提供招聘渠道等，这对于初创公司的成长至关重要。

Outlines

00:00

🚀 创业经历与YC使命

视频脚本的第一部分介绍了演讲者的背景，作为Y Combinator（YC）的前创始人，其在初创公司和大型公司的工作经验。YC是一个帮助初创公司起步的机构，提到了通过YC孵化的一些知名公司，如Dropbox、Stripe、Airbnb和Instacart。接着，演讲者讨论了创业的三个难点：产品开发、资金筹集和团队招聘。他分享了自己在大学后的职业选择，强调了在初创公司工作可以学到很多东西，尤其是在技术和团队管理方面。此外，还提到了在不同阶段加入初创公司的经历，以及这些经历如何帮助他成长。最后，演讲者讨论了初创公司与大公司的不同之处，特别是在员工角色和对业务影响方面。

05:00

🔍 选择适合的初创公司

第二部分深入讨论了如何选择适合自己的初创公司。首先，介绍了初创公司的四个阶段：种子期、早期、成长期和扩展期，每个阶段都有其特点和对人才的需求。例如，种子期的公司可能还在寻找产品市场契合点，而成长期的公司可能已经拥有一定的市场份额。接着，演讲者建议在加入初创公司时要考虑的因素，包括了解业务、衡量个人影响以及如何通过具体指标来展示自己的贡献。此外，还强调了在初创公司工作的风险和潜在回报，以及如何通过实习或工作来学习创业。

10:01

🛠️ 创业原则与YC的期望

第三段内容聚焦于创业的基本原则，特别是YC寻找的创业团队特质。强调了对行业的热爱和专业知识的重要性，因为这些可以帮助创业者在长期的竞争中获得优势。此外，讨论了技术团队成员的价值，以及在某些情况下非技术创始人如何成功。还提到了原型的重要性，以及YC对创业团队的期望，包括快速迭代、与用户交流和解决实际问题的能力。通过一个案例研究，展示了Airbnb如何从一个小规模的特定市场起步，最终发展成为一个全球性的平台。

15:03

📈 YC如何支持创业者

第四部分详细介绍了YC如何帮助创业者建立和发展他们的公司。包括提供一对一的咨询、分享YC二十年的知识经验、提供网络资源和工具，以及通过各种活动和程序来加强创业者之间的联系。此外，还提到了YC提供的财务支持，如投资和折扣优惠，以及如何帮助创业者筹集资金和建立团队。这部分内容强调了YC不仅仅是一个短期的加速器，而是一个长期的合作伙伴，为创业者提供持续的支持和资源。

20:05

🤝 YC的资源与创业者的旅程

最后一部分总结了YC为创业者提供的各种资源，并概述了创业者在创业旅程中可能需要做的事情。提到了YC的校友网络、后续阶段的程序、筹款和团队建设的帮助。此外，还强调了YC的网络效应，以及如何通过校友和投资者的介绍来增加成功的机会。最后，演讲者提供了自己的联系方式，表示愿意帮助那些对创业感兴趣的人。

Keywords

💡YC

YC，即Y Combinator，是一个知名的创业加速器。它为初创公司提供资金支持、指导和资源，帮助它们快速成长。视频中提到YC帮助初创公司从早期阶段开始，例如Dropbox、Stripe、Airbnb和Instacart等知名公司都曾是YC的成员。

💡初创公司

初创公司指的是刚刚成立，正在寻求市场立足点的企业。视频中强调了加入初创公司可以快速学习并承担重要责任，如早期工程师在Salesforce的经验，以及在Zora公司迅速成为工程团队负责人的例子。

💡产品市场契合度

产品市场契合度是指产品是否满足市场需求并吸引用户。视频中提到，当产品开始吸引用户，有需求时，就表明找到了产品市场契合度，这是初创公司成长的关键阶段。

💡招聘平台

招聘平台是帮助求职者和雇主相互联系的工具或服务。视频中提到YC运行的'Work at a Startup'是一个招聘平台，它连接了800多家公司和6000多个职位，帮助人们在初创公司找到工作。

💡全栈工程师

全栈工程师是指能够处理软件应用的前端和后端开发的工程师。视频中提到，初创公司倾向于招聘全栈工程师，因为他们能够处理多个方面的工作，如在Salesforce的经历。

💡技术创始人

技术创始人是拥有技术背景并能在初创公司中担任技术角色的创始人。视频中提到，虽然YC过去倾向于技术团队，但现在也支持非技术创始人，并通过Startup School等项目帮助他们找到技术合作伙伴。

💡创业学校

创业学校是YC运营的一个项目，旨在教育和指导创业者。它提供在线课程、讲座和工具，帮助创业者了解如何构建产品、获取用户和增长业务。

💡影响

在视频中，影响指的是个人对公司或项目产生的积极变化。无论是在营销、销售、产品还是工程领域，视频中都强调了理解业务并衡量个人影响的重要性。

💡种子阶段

种子阶段是初创公司发展的早期阶段，此时公司可能还没有产品或收入。视频中提到，种子阶段的初创公司可能正在寻找多面手的工程师，他们需要能够处理各种任务。

💡增长阶段

增长阶段是指初创公司已经找到产品市场契合度并开始扩大用户基础的时期。视频中提到，在增长阶段，公司可能会招聘更多专业角色，如运营、客户支持等，以支持业务的扩展。

💡规模化

规模化是指公司在已经建立的市场基础上进一步扩大规模，可能是通过国际扩张或建立合作伙伴关系。视频中提到，规模化阶段的公司可能会招聘各种职位，以支持全球市场的扩展。

Highlights

YC（Y Combinator）是一个帮助初创公司早期起步的机构，曾孵化出Dropbox、Stripe、Airbnb和Instacart等知名公司。

YC的工作平台是一个招聘平台，帮助人们找到工作。

创业的三大难题是产品构建、资金筹集和团队招聘。

在初创公司工作是了解创业的最好方式之一，因为它提供了低风险的实践经验。

在Salesforce的早期工作经历让演讲者学到了很多关于全栈工程和团队管理的知识。

在初创公司工作可能会让你承担超出你能力范围的责任，但这是成长的机会。

与上市公司相比，初创公司倾向于雇佣多面手，即愿意承担多种角色的人。

初创公司的客户影响力更深，因为团队规模较小，可以直接与客户交流和理解需求。

初创公司相较于大公司，具有更高的可见度和更快的决策过程。

选择初创公司工作时，要考虑公司的阶段，包括种子期、早期、增长期和扩展期。

在初创公司工作应该关注业务理解、衡量个人影响力，并确保所做的工作能够对业务产生积极贡献。

YC寻找的初创公司特质包括对行业的热爱、领域经验、快速迭代能力和强大的创始人团队。

YC提供的帮助包括产品构建指导、一对一咨询、网络资源和资金支持。

YC的校友网络为初创公司提供了强大的支持和资源。

YC的投资不仅仅是初期的125k到500k美元，还包括后续的大规模投资和指导。

YC通过各种活动和程序，帮助初创公司构建团队、筹集资金和扩大业务。

初创公司的创始人需要具备构建产品、筹集资金和招聘团队的能力，YC在这些方面提供了大量资源。

Transcripts

[Music]

so a little bit about me I'm a former YC

founder I've worked at startups

basically my entire career both small

ones and large ones and me and my team

run YC's work at a startup which is a

hiring platform a great way to find a

job and we'll be touching upon that a

little bit more in a bit

if you don't know about YC we help

startups get their early start and just

to name a few of the companies that have

gone through YC Dropbox this is Ashton

and one of the founders in the very very

early days you know kind of your garage

moments stripe when it was a little

further along where there's like a team

of eight or ten

um Airbnb when they were working out of

their own apartment and instacart so we

work with startups when they are two to

three people just the founders and there

are a number of ways in which we help we

talk about three things that are the

hardest things about starting a startup

they are building a product and making

something people want raising money and

hiring a team so I framed this a little

bit from your input but also what I wish

I knew way way way back when along my

career even coming out of college you

know a lot of people ask what's the best

way to learn about startups but one of

the best ways to actually learn about

startups is to just go work at one right

you're not going to be able to

experience that unless you really go

find one that is interesting you you

find one where you get along with the

founders and you work at one if you have

multiple years to try different things

then going and working it in startup is

one way to learn about startups with a

very low risk if there's

um anybody who would be a postage child

for this for better or worse it's me I

was an early engineer at Salesforce I

graduated from college and I got the

chance to join you know a seven person

team work with the founders work with

Mark benioff and work with this

gentleman right here Parker Harris he's

one of the co-founders of Salesforce he

taught me a lot about just full stack

engineering about running teams about

managing people and I really got to work

with someone who's very very experienced

so I got to be pretty darn Technical and

build the apps top to bottom and that's

something that you get to do at a

startup from there I then got to be an

engineer at a company called Zora and

within a year I ran the engineering team

and you know one thing that we say about

working at startups is we're going to

start up sometimes meetings you get more

responsibility than you deserve and so

in this case I got to run an engineering

team in China I got to manage this

gentleman named Lei Jin who was just one

of the most talented Engineers I'd ever

met with and sometimes I'm like you

could be my boss but I'm glad that we're

doing this together and I felt in some

ways over my skis but you know I grew a

ton through that experience and that's

what working at startup often gives you

this is a picture of me with the head of

engineering at Lyft and that woman Amy

Farrow who is amazing CSO at one point

of Lyft and so I got to work with these

two people to help take a company public

and the last thing is I started my own

startup in YC this is me and my

co-founder Kendall at the YC office back

in the day when we did our stuff he got

like 125k or something like that and now

YC is getting half a million dollars

half a million dollars to start doing

you got a great idea and you're really

passionate about it all right so a lot

of people don't know how startups are

different from Fang

um or don't know enough about startups

and channels so I want to share some of

the things and like both the good and

the bad a fan companies a lot of times

you have Specialists right and that's by

Design because if you literally have

five thousand eight thousand ten

thousand a hundred thousand people at a

company you don't get the bigger picture

you don't get to see how the business is

doing you don't get to understand 360

all the things that are going on

um startups they tend to hire

generalists people who are willing to

wear many hats the one caveat I've seen

to that is that in order to compete as a

startup oftentimes they start in a very

specific Niche and so we have motion

detection motion image creation API or

API startups that need Specialists that

meet people in deep machine learning and

so forth and when we say generalists

it's like well can you also put together

a website because we might need you to

have a landing page so people can sign

up

paying companies have lots of customers

billions of customers high impact but

that high impact is like potentially a

small impact across those billions of

customers where's the startups you have

fewer companies but you get to know the

com customers and you have a very deep

impact right it starts you get to talk

to the customers you get to understand

what they want and build what they want

things definitely has lower visibility

slower decision making there's a whole

organizational structure or chart

convincing politics I saw that at

Twitter and I saw that at Lyft and it's

not a bad thing that's what it takes to

run an organization at that scale but

versus startups higher visibility faster

decision making process you get to see

the creation that you make like the next

day because you can ship it

mentorship is kind of toss-up I think

mentorship is not a function of like

large company or small company it's a

matter of who you'll be working with so

it's up to you to learn who you'll be

working with and to in some ways

interview the people interview your

manager to know what projects will I be

working on what things do you think are

interesting what are you an expert at

that by the end of my summer internship

or by working with you for two years am

I going to learn bang is low risk uh you

know there's no doubt about that

especially in this economy that said

some of them are having layoffs and

that's hard to track and startup sites

here low to medium risk people say that

startups are high risk and I will say

that if you're a Founder yes it's high

risk could you pick the right one low

medium if you pick one that's like later

staged and growing and we'll share some

of those not really risky at all and

another consideration because it's not

just you in a vacuum uh fan companies

you know your family will be very very

happy and it's startups your family

might not be so happy unless it takes

off

hard to determine and then they're gonna

be stoked so how do you choose a startup

but one of the things is trying to find

the right stage startup for you right

not all startups are the same they get

lumped into a bucket people think that

the startup that you saw on Silicon

Valley is what a startup is and I think

we're here to debunk a bit of that myth

and help you find one that might be good

for you

we talk about startups in these four

categories one is the seed stage startup

and this is the one that's most close to

the TV show Silicon Valley it's

pre-product they might not have

customers pre-revenue you know our

startups raise one five million dollars

so if you're trying to work at a startup

um they can pay your salary uh the only

challenges that like you know is a five

person a two-person startup a good fit

for you maybe maybe not

um in the case of I think it was Kyle at

Cruz he used to work at twitch and I

think he was like fresh out of college

and he was one of the first early

employees

um he thought it was a good fit but not

everyone is a good fit for these early

early stage companies also early stage

companies are looking for engineers a

bit more of a jack of all trade and

sometimes Ops so if you're looking for

Ops roles or something that is more like

operational

um imagine instacart in the early days

they need people running around doordash

they need people running around doing

deliveries talking to restaurants right

um it's a matter of you selling what you

can do for them but like they're those

opportunities where operations keep a

good fit you know you have fewer sales

you have fewer product roles and that's

because we tell the founders to do it

themselves

serious days where it gets a little

bigger

um it's where they've raised maybe five

to twenty million dollars we can see

some that are like 30 or 40 at this

these days

um you know the companies are a little

larger there is a hint of something

possibly working and that's like a hint

called Product Market fit like does the

product actually have customers and is

there enough demand that instead of you

trying to get it out there pushing

people your products selling people our

product the entities actually pulling

you along with it uh you're getting

inbound calls and asks to like hey can I

use your product hey can I you know

where do I pay for this thing and then

we have two other categories of which

are growth and scale

um growth is definitely where this

product Market fits so it's like how do

we get all the customers that we know

that are out there using our products

maybe it's 50 to 500 people and this is

where they're hiring for like so many

roles Ops customer support more

specialization and scale is Market

expansion we usually think like going

International or using Partnerships to

like find new ways to get new customers

members 500 people you're getting like

half a billion dollars of investment and

they're hiring for everything

okay if you're able to get a job what

should you focus on at your job slash

internship the number one thing number

one thing I say is understand the

business and measure your impact too

many people go in and don't know

anything about the business don't want

to know anything about your business and

that's a missed opportunity especially

if you're at a startup and the second

thing is if they give you something

media to work on you want to be able to

measure that so you can put it back on

your resume for your next job that

you're trying to land right and why

wouldn't you want to know that you're

actually having a positive contribution

so Roll by roll if you're in marketing

you know your responsibility is you're

supposed to build a pipeline for sales

or growth so the more that you can

measure the number of companies you

reach out to the number that actually

connect and the number that go into a

sales funnel or if you're going out and

doing you know driver acquisition for

doordash or Lyft the number of people

that you talk to a number of Flyers you

hand out the number that converts to an

actual user and the number that actually

activate and drive marketing is about

pop a funnel and that's what you should

be measuring please do not make it about

social and about Instagram and the

number of posts the number of likes

unless it converts in a way that you can

measure right

sales is about Revenue you are trying to

get sales for the company if you can get

people to buy and pay then that's where

sales is that's where your role of sales

is going to shine

products and I'm not going to be late at

this point there are different types of

product roles there are different types

of things that product people do but

ultimately if you were a mini CEO you

care about the growth of the business

maybe that's the conversion funnel of

the number of people that turn into

drivers and help you make money maybe

it's retention because they're using the

product over and over again and you're

an ads company so that means that

eyeballs equals ad revenue or maybe it's

literally just about revenue and so

product is a bit the most variant

because it really is tied to again

understanding the business and making

sure that you are measuring and

improving the business

engineering it's about impact and this

is a tricky one because I think

Engineers are the only ones who can work

at a company not have an impact and

still get promoted because they did what

the product manager said even if the

product manager was wrong sounds crazy

but it's true

um that said even still focusing on the

impact that you're having to the

business impactingly having the systems

making them more efficient processing

more tickets whatever the case might be

will benefit you because then you can

say that you have a demonstrable impact

to the product you understand that and

startups love that kind of stuff

startups love people who can understand

the product understand the business talk

to customers because it just helps

things move faster versus like oh you

need to build a PRD and then we're going

to split this up over like the next nine

months in order to build these things

and if we're wrong oh it's not my fault

that's not where if that's how you want

to work and that's how you're used to

working at larger companies definitely

don't work at a startup

if you're working in support and some

people like it's a great first job you

can be the first person to support and

then I'm running all the support at a

large later Stage Company NPS which is

net promoter score how many of your

customers actually love what you're

offering number of responses or percent

responses in 24 hours

um how can you make process or system

improvements so you can actually process

more requests with the same size team or

you can process them faster which

improves MPS or retention you know maybe

there's a correlation between good

support and actually reducing customer

churn

now let's go a bit more into starting

your own company with YC has these very

three basic startup principles make

something people want right uh

it seems obvious but when you start

working on a startup

um it's tempting to follow side paths or

side quests sort of think hey maybe if

we pull on this little thing we'll

unlock all these other users

um but then you lose your focus on

making something that people want and

you find yourself three six months later

you that you don't even remember what

you were starting to start for in the

first place so number two talk to your

users talk to your users if you're lucky

to have users even before you have users

talk to them understand what problem it

solves understand the pain Point

understand how they feel iterate with

them on a regular basis to get a sense

of like whether or not you're getting

closer and closer what they want

um and never stop talking to them and

the last thing is do things that don't

scale right talking to users does not

scale sending emails to all the students

on here does not scale but I do it

because I want to get feedback I want to

understand what you're looking for and

how it can help and be able to crack

slides and talking points that are

useful to you we'll take a case study

Airbnb I don't know if you guys have

seen these slides or anything like it

before at this point everyone knows what

Airbnb is but this was their first

website it was hyper hyper Niche it was

actually a website for sharing a air bed

and maybe breakfast for a design

conference on what is it October

something 2007 right in San Francisco

this is the website it almost looks more

like a marketing website than an actual

app the V2 was actually just a place

where people could post almost on a

Google spreadsheet and this is what it

looked like you know this is an actual

like early air bed and breakfast

experience and you know

a lot of people think that you have to

have a ton of stuff built you have to

have the whole product you just need to

have the hustle and the grit to get the

proof that this might be a real thing

all right why does YC look for in a

startup and I'll share some things

um and an oversimplified version but

number one is domain experience and a

passion for an industry

if you start a startup you got to be

willing to Duke it out for 10 years you

got to be willing to work with the same

team or the same Founders for like five

to ten years and so having that passion

for the industry passion of like wanting

to work with your friends and especially

domain experience because maybe that

gives you an advantage are things that

are super helpful for you to have and be

an expert on when you start a startup

otherwise you're competing with people

who probably already have this

experience anyway

let's see also likes technical members

of the team but there's a question mark

there because in the past it used to be

really really helpful to have a startup

where it is all technical team one of

the reasons is you can live longer if

you're burning money you're burning less

money if everyone is technical

especially if you have to Pivot and

start over again we have people who are

founders and their sales experts and

they know so much about the sales

process and they've already made 10

million dollars in annual recurring

revenue and then hiring an engineering

team once they've raised 20 million

dollars is a lot easier so we have a lot

of startups now that are non-technical

and if you are not Technical and looking

for a Founder you should check out

startup school which is run by YC and we

have this program called co-founder

matching that might help you find a

tactical founder

do you need a prototype it turns out

that you don't need a prototype but the

question mark slash caveat is it's if

you're passionate about the idea and

you're technical why haven't you built a

prototype to try it out to go to

customers to get feedback to iterate

I'll play another thing that YC is not

looking necessarily for the next billion

dollar business we're looking for strong

Founders who can build things who can

talk to customers who can iterate

quickly and eventually grow into a

billion dollar business right and it

sounds weird but this is a team that did

it it's a team called stagnant and their

first

product actually which targeted at

professors at universities and they

found out that professors hated it

professors said I couldn't tell if

students were looking at Facebook or

paying attention to me so the team went

back to YC these four gentlemen said oh

we learned that we needed to build a lot

of analytics a lot of instrumentation to

understand whether or not our product

was useful

and then they said why don't you go

build that as a product and ship it they

launched on Hacker News it blew up the

GitHub repo got so many pull requests

they came back to yct all of YC ended up

using it and they started building a

real business and a few years ago they

sold it for six billion dollars to

twilio those are the types of things

that we're looking for in YC Founders a

lot of great a lot of determination

talking to users learning quickly and

being willing to iterate as necessary

um how do you learn more about startups

mentioned this before but they're

startup School startup school is almost

like a pre-wyc you go on to Startup

school and you can take your idea and

run it through the program there's

software to help keep you accountable in

terms of your metrics your analytics

there's lectures both live and recorded

to help you think about product users

getting more users whether or not you're

on something or whether or not you

should start over and now startup school

also has tools to help you find a

co-founder if you want to learn more

about startups but you maybe don't have

an idea or you're like on that cost

definitely check out startup school and

all the content there

and then there's work at a startup right

we talked about working at a startup to

learn more about startups YC runs a job

platform with I think 800 plus companies

6 000 jobs

and you know working at a startup might

actually help you start your own startup

one day if that's your interest does

anybody know just in the chat any of

these people at all whatsoever

uh Brian Armstrong is the founder of

coinbase he used to work at Airbnb as a

product manager right actually as an

engineer Kyle vote was an early employee

at twitch and he started Cruise uh Logan

head who is the CTO and founder of

whatnot which is now like a you know

three billion dollar company in two

years used to work at a YC company

called goat

um is it Mutiny but she used to be at uh

Gusto doing growth and um rajul who is

the founder of zip uh was a product

manager at Airbnb so lastly and I said

I'd come back to this of like what does

YC do to help and what are the things

you will need as a founder of a startup

number one you will need help building

your product part of that is

personalized advice with one-on-one

office hours from like Founders former

Founders and YT Partners who have done

it before and talked to tens of

thousands of companies and have pretty

good pattern matching of like what works

and doesn't work we have a secret

startup handbook with 20 years of YC

knowledge no joke it keeps getting

better it's so much better even than the

one I did when I see eight years ago

there's a YC network of sorry 8 000 Alum

um there's a secret bookbase software ah

secret kind of secret where it's like a

social network it's a fundraising tool

the whole batch is run on our software

um you know startups are hardened so

these are the types of things that YC

offers that gives startups an advantage

um there's five hundred thousand dollars

in discounts and offers from Amazon from

Google from other YC companies to help

you get your startup off the ground and

then YC isn't just three months like

there's alumni events there's workshops

there's conferences we actually just ran

an alumni event for all YC alumni we

rented out spark social in San Francisco

it was an awesome time you'll see a lot

of people who tweeted about it and then

we have later stage programs if you're

lucky enough or you know skilled enough

to build a startup that goes through

series a or growth we have programs

where we re-batch Founders to make it

feel feel like a smaller YC but with

people who are CEOs of like half a

billion billion dollar companies

we help you raise money so we offer 500

000 right off the bat which we used to

do 125 but now five hundred thousand

dollars it's a pretty compelling option

an alternative to working at another

company and some people are like oh

that'll actually help a ton most of our

companies raise two to four million plus

even in this economy

um and then we have the ability to write

hundred thousand hundred million dollar

checks on later to teach companies demo

days where we bring thousands of

investors to your doorstep to invest we

give you pitch practice we give you

advice to make intros and then we have a

pretty wide investor Network to help you

raise we also do this other thing that

when other Founders in your batch finish

their fundraising we asked those

Founders to make intros to the other YC

companies

um and that works really really well so

the network effect is real in YC and

lastly we help you build your team uh we

do team building training we have hiring

conferences we run Hacker News so we

help use Hacker News in terms of Hacker

News launches and access to slash jobs

to help you hire only what I see

companies can do that we run work at a

startup we run these events internship

programs Tech talks Expos and these are

the things that are the hardest the

three hardest things about starting a

startup Building Product raising money

and hiring a team and YC helps on all

fronts so

if that's not going to convince you to

apply to YC know that this slide right

here are the things that you're going to

need to do as a Founder on your journey

and uh you know YC certainly has a ton

of resources to help you do so

that's my email right there if you want

to shoot me a note again more than happy

to help in whatever you're looking for

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