Should You Start A Startup? | Startup School

Summary

本视频讲解了是否应该创业的决定,讲师认为创业者最重要的素质是抗压能力。他分享了自己在YC工作的经历,认为初始动机不太重要,更重要的是随着时间的推移,你是否仍然对这个问题感兴趣并喜欢与合作伙伴合作。他建议首先评估最坏的情况,然后找到聪明的人讨论想法,启动副项目获得经验。如果你享受这个过程并找到喜欢合作的人,可以考虑辞职创业。

Takeaways

• 🚀 成为创业者并没有固定模板，成功的创始人背景各异。
• 💡 创业需要的最重要品质是韧性，而不仅仅是学术或职业上的成功。
• 🤔 并不是所有人都适合创业，但很难提前知道谁最适合。
• 👥 寻找合伙人和创意应当同时进行，而非分开处理。
• 🎯 初期动机不必太过担心，因为动机会随时间变化。
• 💼 创业失败并不意味着职业生涯的终结，反而可能是一个宝贵的学习经历。
• 📈 早期用户的反馈比数量更重要，追求少数热情用户胜过大量冷漠用户。
• 🛠️ 开始创业之前，尝试将想法转化为实际项目来积累经验。
• 🔍 评估最坏情况能否接受是判断是否应该开始创业的一个好方法。
• 🌟 和你享受共事的人一起创业，这种合作关系的珍贵性不容忽视。

Q & A

胡吉格老师认为对创业者来说最重要的品质是什么?

胡吉格老师认为对创业者来说最重要的品质是抗压能力和弹性。创业的过程中难免会遇到大量的拒绝,这对创业者的抗压能力是一个考验。只有足够抗压和弹性的人才能在创业的低谷期挺过去。

学历和工作表现能预测一个人创业的成功吗?

不能。胡吉格老师最初也这么认为,但后来发现学历和工作表现与创业成功关联不大。创业需要血泪辛劳来说服用户,这需要的是抗压能力而不是好学历。

有哪些动机去创业是正常的?

任何原因都没关系,比如想赚大钱,想满足好奇心,都可以。重要的是这些动机会随着时间改变,真正需要的是长期的动机,比如对解决某问题感兴趣,喜欢和队友一起工作。

做最坏打算,创业失败后果有多严重?

这个因人而异。对刚毕业的学生影响不大,但对在大公司任职多年的人就严重得多。所以要认真评估自己能否承受最坏结果。

即使创业失败,会带来什么收获?

创业的过程中会学到很多东西,体验不同类型的工作。所以创业失败也会让你对自己的兴趣和擅长有更清晰的认识,帮助规划职业发展,这也是创业的重要收获。

还没有想法或合伙人,应该如何准备创业?

和有想法的聪明人多交流,把想法变成实验性项目试试。同时学习编码能力。当发现特别喜欢与某人合作时,即使项目反响一般也要考虑创业。

如何判断自己的创业实验性项目是否有前景?

最重要的是你自己是否喜欢这个项目的开发过程,而不仅仅是项目结果。如果项目能让一些用户产生强烈共鸣,即使用户很少也很有希望。

当知道自己喜欢和某合伙人合作且都想创业时,应该怎么办?

这已经是一个很好的创业条件。建议选择立刻辞职全职创业,因为能找到理想的合伙人是非常难得的机会。

对想要创业的人,老师有什么总体建议?

不要太在意创业的初衷,好奇心就够了;考虑最坏情况如果创业失败的后果;和聪明人多交流想法并做实验项目;找到喜欢合作的人就可考虑创业。

YC见过最成功的公司都是如何招聘人才的?

他们喜欢招聘之前创业失败的人,因为这类人能证明自己有主动性和能力带领项目,所以更适合创业公司。

Outlines

00:00

🚀 是否应该创业

Hodge Tiger，一名Y Combinator的合伙人，讨论了是否应该创业的问题，针对的是那些尚未准备好但未来可能想要创业的人。他将这个问题分为两部分：首先，探讨了哪些类型的人更适合成为创业者，并试图帮助你判断自己是否属于这类人；其次，讨论了如何为将来成为一名创业者做准备。Hodge指出，虽然人们常根据著名创业者的形象来设想创业者，但实际上成功的创业者有多种类型，不仅仅是像马克·扎克伯格或史蒂夫·乔布斯那样的人才能成功。他强调了韧性是创业者最重要的品质之一，即使在面临拒绝和挑战时也能坚持下去。Hodge通过自己的经验分享，说明了为什么创业是一个复杂且不可预测的旅程，同时也提供了一些关于如何评估自己是否适合创业的见解。

05:05

🌱 创业的动机与挑战

在第二段中，Hodge分享了关于如何区分具有创业韧性的人与不具备该特质的人的思考，以及正确的动机对于创业成功的重要性。他指出，尽管很多人认为为了金钱而创业是一个不稳定的动机，但实际上，想要通过创业致富是完全合理的。Hodge强调，创业初期的动机可能会随着时间的推移而变化，而持久的动力来源于对所做工作的真正兴趣和与团队的紧密合作。他还讨论了冒险创业的最坏情况分析，鼓励潜在的创业者考虑自己是否能接受最坏的结果。通过分享Benchling创始人Saji的故事，Hodge展示了即使面对困难和挑战，韧性和适应性如何帮助创业者取得成功。

10:09

📈 创业经验与职业发展

第三段强调了创业经验对职业发展的积极影响，即使创业项目未能成功。Hodge用Nick Grandy的经历作为例子，展示了即使第一个创业项目失败，也可能为个人带来宝贵的学习经验和更好的职业机会。他指出，创业不仅能提供学习和成长的机会，还能让人们探索自己对不同工作类型的喜好，这些经验在长远来看可能对职业有极大的帮助。Hodge还提到，许多公司和YC成功公司都倾向于雇佣具有创业经验的人，因为这显示了他们具有自我启动和领导项目的能力。

15:14

🔍 准备创业的实际步骤

在最后一段中，Hodge提供了一些实际的建议，帮助那些考虑创业但尚未准备好的人如何为未来做准备。他建议寻找和讨论想法的合作伙伴，将想法转化为侧面项目，以及学习编程或找到能够编程的合伙人。Hodge鼓励将想法实现为实际项目，并通过这个过程来判断何时准备好全职创业。他重申，对创业的初始动机不必过分担心，因为这些动机会随时间发展和改变。关键是要享受创造和实现想法的过程，以及与合作伙伴一起工作的经历。

Keywords

💡创业公司

创业公司,也称为初创公司,通常指的是刚成立或正在快速发展的新公司。视频中多次提到,讨论是否适合创业及如何准备创业。

💡韧性

创业过程中面临许多失败和挫折,需要强大的韧性才能持续前进。视频认为韧性是创业者最关键的品质。

💡动机

视频中提到,初始创业动机可能会变化,不必过分担心最初的动机,因为后来会形成持久的动机,比如对所解决问题的兴趣,以及喜欢与合伙人合作。

💡最坏后果

考虑创业可能带来的最糟糕结果,如果可以承受,那么至少要尝试一段时间。这有助于判断是否真的准备好创业。

💡学习价值

即使创业失败,通过创业也可以学到很多东西,这些经验对未来发展很有帮助。所以在评估最坏后果时,也要考虑学习价值。

💡获得关注

产品获得极少数人的高度关注和喜爱,比大多数人的冷淡反应更有价值,更可能成为有前途的创业点子。

💡转变想法

周末做的副业项目获得混合反馈不重要,重要的是自己是否喜欢这个转变想法为现实的过程,和合作伙伴是否投入并获得工作快乐。

💡编码能力

对非程序员来说,需要学习必要的编码能力,才能将想法转变为产品原型。至少要掌握构建第一个版本产品的技能。

💡找合伙人

找聪明人讨论想法,启动副业项目很重要。理想的合伙人应该是你喜欢与之讨论想法并一起工作的人。

💡是否跳槽创业

当白天的主职工作越来越疲惫,而利用晚上或周末开展自己的副业项目有活力时,可能是考虑全职创业的时候了。

Highlights

创业者最重要的品质是抗压能力。

自信不能衡量创业者的抗压能力。

初始动机不重要,重要的是这些动机会随着时间的推移而改变。

想要创业,问自己“我有什么可失去的”。

即使创业失败,创业过程中获得的学习也很有价值。

赚钱是创业的完全正当动机。

好奇心也是创业的好动机。

要找到共同创业者,需要选择一个环境,周围有潜在的合伙人。

和聪明人讨论想法,启动边际项目,获得把想法变为现实的经验。

找到一个你真正喜欢合作的人,这是一个退出工作开始创业的好理由。

一个粗糙原型的单个充满激情的用户,意义重大。

When your side projects give you energy, but your day job drains you, it may be time to quit.

Don’t overthink your initial motivations to start a company. Curiosity is enough.

Having a great co-founder who wants to do a startup is a fantastic reason to start one.

Think less about how your side projects are going and more about how much you enjoy working on them.

Transcripts

foreign [Music]

I'm Hodge tiger one of the group Partners at y  combinator today I'm going to talk about whether  

you should start a startup because YC invests  in startups so early I've spent a lot of time  

with people who aren't yet sure if they should  start a company or not I've helped many people  

including my own friends and family think about  this decision at my intended audience for this  

talk is anyone who doesn't feel ready to start  a startup today but thinks they may want to one  

day in the future I'm going to break down the  topic of whether you should start a startup into  

two parts first we'll talk about which types of  people seem best suited to being startup Founders  

and help you figure out if you might be one of  them second we'll talk about how you might best  

prepare yourself for becoming a startup founder  in the future let's start by helping you figure  

out if you're the kind of person who should become  a startup founder or not I really wish there were  

simple test you could take that would give you a  clear and correct answer to that question I've now  

worked with almost a thousand startup Founders as  a group partner at YC and I still get surprised by  

which people take to Startup life like a duck  to water and which ones struggle to adapt now  

you might find this surprising if your image of  startups is based on the way famous Founders are  

often depicted in books or movies these depictions  can make it seem that if you're not a ruthless  

brilliant programmer like Mark Zuckerberg in The  Social Network movie or a charismatic product  

genius like Steve Jobs in one of the many books or  movies about him you probably aren't cut out to be  

a startup founder now I can't deny it that being  a brilliant programmer or a charismatic product  

genius will certainly make it easier to be a  successful startup founder but I can say that  

after working with many successful Founders  there are many more different types of people  

who succeed as startups with different strengths  than just those stereotypes as an investor my job  

is to pick which people will make great startup  Founders and yet even after 15 years of starting  

and investing in startups I still get surprised  by who turns out to be a great startup founder  

that means it's going to be hard for you to know  for sure if you're suited to being one you might  

think you could just look at how well someone has  done in school or at work and assume success there  

will lead to success of startups that's definitely  what I thought when I first started working at YC  

in 2010 and began reading YC funding applications  for the first time after I started working with  

more startups though I realized that these signals  mattered much less than I'd expected they would  

when you're working on a startup you have to  put in Blood Sweat and Tears to convince even a  

single user to care about trying your product let  alone convincing the first 10 or 100 you have to  

push through a lot of rejection to get there and  because this is your startup all of that rejection  

feels very personal in a way it doesn't when  you're working at a Fan Company building a product  

for someone else it takes a lot of resilience  to make it through this initial struggle to get  

your early users and that's the quality I think  is most important for startup Founders to have  

resilient people are suited to startups and should  definitely become Founders but how do you know if  

you have enough resilience to be a startup founder  when I first started working at yce I thought I  

could use confidence as a proxy for resilience I'd  assume that if someone projected confidence like  

speaking with conviction being high energy during  our funding interviews they were likely to be a  

resilient founder the more Founders I worked with  though the more I realized this was also wrong  

it turned out that someone could appear very  confident initially but not be resilient when  

their startup hit roadblocks conversely some of  the quietest and least confident seeming Founders  

at first turned out to be the most resilient  Founders I'd go on to work with many eventually  

taking their companies public this is Saji the  founder of benchlink I met him when we funded  

benjling in 2012. benjling is now worth over  six billion dollars and Sagi has grown into  

a formidable founder and CEO but I remember when  we first interviewed him and his co-founder Corey  

they were both softly spoken engineers and we  were all concerned they wouldn't be suited to  

working on benchling because benchling's idea  was to sell software to biotech companies and  

pharmaceutical companies to make money and we  weren't sure that they would be good at that  

kind of Enterprise sales this concern was  shared by investors at demoday who worried  

that they wouldn't be able to get those biotech or  pharmaceutical companies to pay for the benchling  

software and benjling struggled to raise very  much seed funding at demoday sales did turn out  

to be a real struggle for benchlink in fact over a  year after they'd graduated from YC benchling was  

still not making any Revenue though they did  have some enthusiastic grad students as free  

users and the product continued getting better  it took them almost another year that's now two  

years after ycee to start doing sales and making  any Revenue now benchling is on calls to become  

a public company someday and has many of the  world's top biotech and pharmaceutical companies  

as customers looking back I always had confidence  that Sagi was a good engineer but I could not have  

predicted back when we funded him in 2012 that he  would have the resilience to overcome that amount  

of rejection and transform himself into the leader  of a company that took many years to become great  

at Enterprise sales but what I haven't shared  with you are the stories of many other Founders  

who seemed equally talented at first when we  first funded their companies but turned out  

not to have the same amount of resilience as these  Founders did I've thought a lot about how to tell  

the difference between people who have this kind  of startup resilience and those who don't I've  

wondered if maybe having the right motivations or  reasons to start a company mean you're more likely  

to have this special resilience over time though  I've decided that this also doesn't matter as much  

as I had thought I think there are many perfectly  legitimate motivations to start a company for  

example it's become popular to say that you  shouldn't start a company just to make money  

that's considered a somewhat flimsy motivation but  I actually think it's fine to start a startup to  

become rich startups are one of the few ways  to make life-changing amounts of money in a  

relatively short period of time if the desire to  make money gets you started then great go for it  

I also think that simply being curious about  what it's like to found a startup is a fine  

initial motivation to start one actually doing  a startup is the only way to know for sure if  

you'll enjoy it the reason I have conviction  that your initial motivations don't matter so  

much is that I've seen motivation to change over  time I've seen Founders who started out a company  

with a plan to sell it within a year change  their mind as they kept working the company  

and they're still working on that same startup  a decade later and it's now a public company  

this means that your initial motivations to  start a startup aren't as important as what  

those motivations might change into over time in  order to keep working on a startup and keep going  

through those dark periods that every startup  experience is you need enduring motivations  

and I think the best ones are to be genuinely  interested in the problem you're working on and  

love the people you're working with we'll talk  more about finding those later so instead of  

introspecting too much on if you'll make a good  startup founder I'll offer some practical advice  

if you are curious about what it'd be like to  start a company start by asking yourself what  

do I have to lose now I mean this question not  as a rhetorical one but as a very practical one  

figure out what the worst case scenario looks  like if you started a startup and decide if  

you can live with that it's probably going to  take at least a year for you to have enough  

data to tell if the startup you're working  on is promising enough to keep working on  

in the worst case you'll shut down the company  without having earned much or any salary for  

that year can you live without worst case  the calculus here is different for everyone  

if you're about to graduate college taking a year  after graduating to work on a startup is not a big  

deal those job offers will still be waiting for  you in a year but if you've been a Fang employee  

for the past nine years and you're in line for a  big promotion this year then maybe you stand to  

lose a lot by spending the next year working on a  startup instead asking yourself if you can handle  

the worst case is the best way to know if you  should start a startup be honest with yourself if  

you can't actually handle the worst case then your  own constant anxiety will probably self-sabotage  

your startup efforts when you're thinking about  the worst case scenario of working on a startup  

you should Factor something else into the equation  you will learn a lot from starting a company I  

don't think enough people factor in how valuable  this learning is when they're doing their worst  

case scenario analysis as a startup founder you're  responsible for making everything happen and that  

means you get to do lots of different types  of work you'll have to do some amount of sales  

product and customer support all at once this can  be very clarifying in helping you figure out what  

type of work you enjoy and where you might want to  focus your career even if the startup doesn't work  

out some people start a company that doesn't work  and then they jump straight back into starting  

another one because they want to learn from their  mistakes others decide they actually really enjoy  

specializing in doing one thing really well and  they join a company where they can do just that  

the startup experience can really improve your  career opportunities even if the startup doesn't  

succeed my second startup triple bite use software  to help companies identify and hire great people  

I work with hundreds of employers as they search  for the best talent and I found that many of them  

were explicitly looking to hire people who  had previous startup experience they believe  

they showed evidence of being a self-starter and  being able to take initiative and Lead projects  

some of the most successful YC companies have  actually built their hiring processes around this  

knowledge Rippling a 10 billion dollar company  founded by Parker Conrad also a YC company hires  

former Founders and puts them in charge of entire  product divisions usually we love hiring former  

Founders to run specific product lines and and  build them and and really run them as general  

managers we've been you know really successful at  recruiting I think we have Lao now probably around  

50 former Founders that work at rip Lane at YC  we often see startup Founders leave this thought  

up if it doesn't work out and go on to join a  more successful YC company this is Nick Grandy  

YC funded his first startup wonderbar in 2008.  that startup shut down but he went on to join  

another YC company you may have heard of Airbnb  as his first employee that of course worked out  

great and after many years at Airbnb he left  to start another YC company out school which  

is now valued at over 3 billion I share these  stories to show how career progressions are  

not always perfectly linear introducing some  Serendipity and meeting smart ambitious people  

can completely transform your career and being  a startup founder is a great way to do exactly  

that okay so let's say you do decide you can  live with the worst case of doing a startup but  

you're not ready to do one right now how can you  best prepare yourself to start one in the future  

to actually start a company you'll want two things  an idea and a co-founder now sometimes an idea and  

co-founder both come to you quickly and you're Off  to the Races there's lots of great startup content  

out there about how to start a company once you're  ready but let's talk about what to do if it will  

take you some time to get to that point I'd start  by encouraging you to not think of finding ideas  

and co-founders as two separate tasks it's hard  to think up good ideas yourself also your ideas  

will start out being vague and fuzzy more like  a hunch or an Impulse than a clearly formed idea  

and you'll go through seven iterations of fleshing  it out into something more tangible and concrete  

having someone to talk through that initial  idea or impulse with and debate and discuss  

is important and the best person to do that with  is your co-founder I find my best ideas come to  

me during conversations with smart people so I'd  start by thinking about who do you know that you  

enjoy talking about ideas with in college these  are often the people you'll go to when you're  

stuck on a hard problem or they are the people  you most enjoy working on group assignments with  

at work these are the colleagues who you find  make you the most productive and help you do  

your best work I'd see these people out and start  having conversations with them about ideas or  

technologies that you find interesting talk about  products you use every day that you admire or are  

frustrated by talk about Technologies  you think are underrated today and why  

flesh your thoughts out and debate them spend  the time between these conversations doing your  

own reading and research to learn more about the  topics you find interesting if you're a curious  

person this will seem natural to you anyway all  of this primes your mind to more easily notice  

and think of potential startup ideas and it helps  you get to know your friends or colleagues better  

as potential co-founders if you're struggling to  think of people you enjoy talking about ideas with  

then you probably need to change your environment  and meet some new people if you really want to  

start a company one day it's best to choose an  environment where you will be around many people  

who might someday be your co-founder I think the  best environment for this is working at a startup  

you both get to see how a startup works from  the inside and your colleagues will be less  

risk-averse than the average Fang employee so  if you're in college I'd recommend finding a  

startup to work at after graduation or if you had  a fan company now think about leaving to join a  

startup as an intermediate step to starting your  own someday once you're around smart people who  

you enjoy talking about ideas with I'd recommend  you start experimenting with turning these ideas  

into side projects at some point during these  conversations you'll eventually say something  

like huh like it'd be cool if someone built X and  that's the moment to stop and think about how you  

could be the one to build X is there a simple  first version you could build over a weekend or  

can you find other people who might be users and  Pitch them on the idea to see how they react keep  

pulling on this thread until you've come up with a  plan to turn this idea into something real however  

small it is right now you're not trying to launch  the next unicorn you're just getting used to the  

experience of turning ideas into reality and  experiencing the thrill of launching something  

turn your idea into something real you'll  need the skills to actually build them  

if you're not a programmer then either you need  to learn how to program or find a co-founder who  

is a programmer my advice speaking from experience  is someone who started his first startup without  

being able to code you start learning to code you  only need to learn enough to build a version one  

of your ideas once you're around smart people  and you're working on some side projects  

how do you know when it's time to take the leap  and quit your job to start a company while it'd  

be great if one of your side projects started  getting explosive traction and made the decision  

easy for you you can't rely on that happening if  you're serious about starting a company someday  

even if you launch your side projects and get some  early users the feedback you get will be mixed  

it's not uncommon for the early use of any product  to span the spectrum of being delighted appalled  

and indifferent towards a product to judge how  promising your side project is as a startup idea  

I'd use some advice from my y combinator partner  Paul bukhai he says that it is better to make a  

product that a few people really love than one a  lot of people are indifferent Awards if your side  

project elicits a deep reaction from someone the  kind where they can legitimately say that doing  

something very differently as a result of your  product existing then you may be onto something a  

single passionate user of a crude prototype that  was hacked together in a weekend means so much  

more than a million sign-ups on a waitlist for  something that doesn't exist yet my main advice to  

you would be to think less about how well your  side projects are going and think more about  

how much you enjoying the process of thinking up  ideas and turning them into something real are you  

learning new things and finding yourself energized  contrast this feeling with your day job if you  

find your job is draining but you have energy  to work on your side projects on evenings and  

weekends that's a sign it may be time to quit and  work on your own ideas pay particular attention to  

how much you enjoy working with your side project  collaborators if you enjoy working with them and  

you both want to be startup Founders recognize how  rare that is having a great co-founder who wants  

to do a startup is a fantastic reason to quit and  start one to finish my advice is one don't worry  

too much about your initial motivations or reasons  to start a company those can change over time  

simply being curious about the experience  of starting a startup is enough to get going  

think about the worst case scenario if you did  start a company and be sure you can live with that  

if you don't yet have an idea or co-founder start  looking around for smart people to talk about  

ideas with and launch some side projects  with actually launch those side projects  

however small to get the experience of turning  ideas into reality and if you find someone you  

really enjoy working with side projects with and  you both want to start a company make the jump  

I really hope you do and I hope we get to work  together at YC Community someday thanks so much

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