Lecture 1 - How to Start a Startup (Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz)

What Hacker News said

Strong rec karolsputo · 2021-04 · on “How People Get Rich Now”

Dustin Moskovitz presented that point in the invaluable How to start a startup series - [this video] A good resource when deciding on your future ambitions

Strong rec dgelks · 2023-01 · on “Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've ever seen?”

[this video] - How to Start a Startup 2014 by YC & Stanford Amazing set of speakers and pretty timeless advice for starting a startup

Recommends robertelder · 2016-08 · on “Ask HN: I am doing $2M annually as a solopreneur and need your help”

This lecture series specifically talks about the different problems faced at various stages of scaling, and it includes a lot of reputable people who have actually done it: [LINK] The YC series is of course good too: [this video] I'm not actually qualified to answer your question, but it sounds like you haven't discovered a bottleneck in your business yet, and until you do, you probably shouldn't hire any employees.

Cites mbesto · 2014-09 · on “Lecture 1 – How to Start a Startup [video]”

Dustin talks about Financial Reward and Impact of "why to do a startup" for examples like Facebook and Dropbox here: [this video] Are these values correct? If you join Dropbox as employee #100 with 10bp, you're 10bp is going to get massively diluted through subsequent rounds, no? Isn't it more like $1-2mil? And also this is wealth on paper, which means that you don't all of the sudden have $10mil sitting in the bank. I don't think he explains that but that's how it's portrayed, and is probably worth explaining, given the audience.

Cites 7Figures2Commas · 2014-10 · on “Show HN: Dating Ring (YC W14) – We do the work, you do the dating”

> Another solid YC investment at work. I actually think this is an interesting example of YC's investments, but not for the reason you seem to suggest. YC's public persona is all about "hyper-growth" and building "very large" companies[1]. But if you go through the list of companies it has funded, a good number would have a very difficult time making a prima facie case that they fit the profile of a business that can achieve significant growth and scale. Dating Ring is the perfect example of that. There are numerous challenges associated with breaking into the online dating space generally. First, the costs of customer acquisition are typically quite high because there's so much competition.

Cites 7Figures2Commas · 2015-05 · on “Why investors don’t fund dating”

[LINK] I offered similar thoughts when Dating Ring first launched: YC's public persona is all about "hyper-growth" and building "very large" companies[1]. But if you go through the list of companies it has funded, a good number would have a very difficult time making a prima facie case that they fit the profile of a business that can achieve significant growth and scale. Dating Ring is the perfect example of that. There are numerous challenges associated with breaking into the online dating space generally. First, the costs of customer acquisition are typically quite high because there's so much competition. That makes it very difficult for new services to gain traction without significant i

Cites bachback · 2016-08 · on “Ask HN: Optimal strategy to sell startup shares?”

Great question. An optimal strategy doesn't exist, because it is so circumstantial. The employee and founder (the seller) need a good idea about the price and probability of success. Making a buy/sell decision either way certainly effects outcomes, independent of the ultimate success. It really depends how the seller values the stock, and how that differs from the buyers valuation. Knowing a lot about (startup) stock valuation will certainly help. Probably its more political than anything, because the price of a 100M$ company can fluctuate wildly, and so being in similar situations should help as well. I don't know much about Silicon Valley, but there you have a lot of investor driven compan

Cites headcanon · 2020-11 · on “The Truth About Starting a Startup”

Thats a really cynical interpretation of YC - There's a ton of risk with starting any business, tech especially. You could say the same about any angel or early stage investor or accelerator program. PG and Sam Altman have always been upfront about the risk and expected returns from one of these - in the Startup Class, Altman even says that if your goal is highest expected returns you should go work at a FAANG [1] [1] [this video]