Y Combinator
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Y Combinator publishes practical startup guidance on product building, fundraising, founder decision-making, and scaling high-growth technology companies.
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Included for practical education on practical startup guidance on product building, fundraising, founder decision-making, and scaling high-growth technology companies.
Showing 320 digests for Y Combinator.
Tech stack & software
YouTube
Apple Vision Pro as a startup platform: opportunities and timing
Y Combinator
February 21, 2024
Tech stack & software
8
Niche selection
7
MVP & prototyping
5
Killer apps will come from founders, not Apple — just like pull-to-refresh
Vision Pro's tech is closer to a self-driving car than a smartphone
Breakout companies may still be 5+ years away — you haven't missed it
Stop innovating on the wrong things
Y Combinator
February 15, 2024
Business models
8
MVP & prototyping
6
Identity & self-belief
5
You only have one miracle — spend it on product, not structure.
Weird pricing kills sales even when customers want to buy.
Save contrarian bets — tech stacks, rocket ships — for startup two.
AI strategy & adoption
YouTube
The truth about building AI startups in 2024
Y Combinator
February 8, 2024
AI strategy & adoption
9
Niche selection
8
Business models
6
Boring back-office automation is where the real AI opportunities hide.
Tarpet ideas like generic AI copilots attract founders but rarely find real usage.
Use GPT-4 to prototype, then train a smaller domain-specific model for production.
Bootstrapping vs. venture capital: how to choose the right funding path
Y Combinator
February 5, 2024
Bootstrapping
9
Fundraising & VC
8
Business models
6
VC is a narrow tool — most businesses shouldn't raise it.
Profitable bootstrapped software is a genuine win, not a consolation prize.
The bootstrapping-vs-VC debate is mostly manufactured engagement bait.
Founder interviews
YouTube
Tom Blomfield: building two billion-dollar fintech startups from scratch
Y Combinator
January 30, 2024
Founder interviews
10
Resilience & grit
7
Fundraising & VC
5
Left GoCardless after three years because the problem wasn't personal enough
Monzo reached 1m customers in 2.5 years with zero advertising spend
A £100m funding round collapsed 72 hours before close when COVID hit
Do technical founders need a business co-founder?
Y Combinator
January 11, 2024
Vision & mission
8
Hiring & recruitment
7
Appetite to do the work matters more than title or background.
Google, NVIDIA, Stripe — built without a business co-founder.
Investor advice to 'get a biz co-founder' hides the real problem.
Product-market fit
YouTube
Key metrics for consumer startups: growth, retention, and NPS
Y Combinator
January 6, 2024
Product-market fit
9
Retention & loyalty
8
Unit economics
7
Organic growth via viral loops compounds forever; paid ads stop working instantly
Negative unit economics at scale burns capital fast — fix before scaling
NPS below +50 means your product needs rethinking before you grow
Why founders should default to optimism about the future
Y Combinator
December 21, 2023
Motivation
9
Identity & self-belief
5
News consumption distorts reality — zooming out reveals dramatic progress.
Pessimism is incompatible with building; every change agent was default optimistic.
Technology always has tradeoffs — demanding perfection is magical thinking.
B2B startup metrics: revenue, retention, and gross margin
Y Combinator
December 15, 2023
Unit economics
9
Retention & loyalty
7
Business models
5
Revenue beats vanity metrics — GMV can hide a flatlined business.
Net dollar retention above 100% means cohorts grow without new sales.
Scale negative gross margin only after you have a plan to fix it.
Conversion rate optimisation
YouTube
How to design DevTool websites that convert developers
Y Combinator
December 7, 2023
Conversion rate optimisation
9
Branding
6
Put a live playground above the fold — not a waitlist signup.
GitHub stars and pricing signal trust before a developer reads a word.
Founders replying personally in chat beats any enterprise sales motion.
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
How to build a tech startup without technical skills
Y Combinator
November 30, 2023
Hiring & recruitment
9
Business models
5
Recruiting a great technical co-founder is the only real job.
Dev shops and freelancers make a software startup nearly impossible.
Pitch adventure and co-ownership — not your idea needing a builder.
How Casetext built a $650M AI legal product over ten years
Y Combinator
November 15, 2023
Case studies
9
AI strategy & adoption
8
Product-market fit
7
GPT-4 access turned months-long enterprise sales into single-month closes
A live demo compressing five days of legal work into fifteen minutes closed deals
Domain expertise built over a decade made Casetext ready when the model arrived
Equity & cap tables
YouTube
How to avoid being exploited as a technical founder or engineer
Y Combinator
November 1, 2023
Equity & cap tables
9
Identity & self-belief
7
Management
5
Unequal equity splits rarely have a legitimate justification — push back.
Being excluded from decisions while writing all the code is exploitation.
Asking for a seat at the table often fixes the problem immediately.
Conversion rate optimisation
YouTube
How to improve website conversion: design review of four startups
Y Combinator
October 26, 2023
Conversion rate optimisation
10
Copywriting
6
Customer discovery
5
Multiple CTAs on one page reduce the chance of any action being taken.
Cut every funnel step that sits before the user's aha moment.
High-stakes products need proportionally stronger social proof to convert.
When to leave your late-stage unicorn startup
Y Combinator
October 19, 2023
Valuation
8
Long-term planning
6
Two-thirds of unicorns won't IPO — your options may be worthless
Product analytics visible to employees beat any press signal
Early-stage company with same revenue, lower valuation is a better trade