Pocket Guide of Founder Advice

This post is a present on Matt’s birthday, you should give one too.

I recently saw this summary of Y Combinator advice on X. And I thought it was too good not to share. Went straight into my review folder.

  1. Launch now
  2. Build something people want
  3. Do things that don’t scale
  4. Find the 90 / 10 solution
  5. Find 10-100 customers who love your product
  6. All startups are badly broken at some point
  7. Write code - talk to users
  8. “It’s not your money”
  9. Growth is the result of a great product not the precursor
  10. Don’t scale your team/product until you have built something people want
  11. Valuation is not equal to success or even probability of success
  12. Avoid long negotiated deals with big customers if you can
  13. Avoid big company corporate development queries - they will only waste time
  14. Avoid conferences unless they are the best way to get customers
  15. Pre-product market fit - do things that don’t scale: remain small/nimble
  16. Startups can only solve one problem well at any given time
  17. Founder relationships matter more than you think
  18. Sometimes you need to fire your customers (they might be killing you)
  19. Ignore your competitors, you will more likely die of suicide than murder
  20. Most companies don’t die because they run out of money
  21. Be nice! Or at least don’t be a jerk
  22. Get sleep and exercise - take care of yourself
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