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.
How to find and evaluate startup ideas: a YC framework
Y Combinator
November 17, 2022
Niche selection
9
Customer discovery
6
Business models
5
Boring, hard-to-start ideas with competitors are often the best opportunities.
Founder-market fit matters more than idea quality in the abstract.
Organic ideas beat brainstorming — expertise and lived problems are the source.
Resilience & grit
YouTube
How to decide if you should start a startup
Y Combinator
November 1, 2022
Resilience & grit
9
Identity & self-belief
7
Long-term planning
5
Resilience predicts founder success far better than confidence or credentials
Living with the worst case — one low-pay year — is the real readiness test
Find a co-founder by building side projects with people who energize you
What Y Combinator actually is and how it protects founders
Y Combinator
October 28, 2022
Fundraising & VC
9
Equity & cap tables
7
Business models
5
YC flips fundraising: founders name the price, investors cold-email them.
40% of a recent batch entered with just an idea — early is better.
Friendly early-stage investors are often the most exploitative.
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
First-time founder advantages over second-time founders
Y Combinator
September 15, 2022
Identity & self-belief
8
Customer discovery
7
Niche selection
6
No expert network means you talk to users instead of startup friends.
Having nobody to impress makes it easier to pick bold, contrarian ideas.
Fundraising constraints force first-timers to build great products from day one.
Resilience & grit
YouTube
Balancing optimism and pessimism as a startup founder
Y Combinator
September 9, 2022
Resilience & grit
9
Identity & self-belief
6
One bad signal is not proof your startup is broken
Magical thinking: believing normal cause and effect doesn't apply to you
The best founders hold pessimism and optimism simultaneously
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Zero-sum vs positive-sum thinking for founders and people
Y Combinator
September 1, 2022
Identity & self-belief
8
Vision & mission
6
Zero-sum players only learn when they blow up — no gradual feedback.
FOMO from watching others 'win' obscures whether they're actually cashing out.
Rich and unhappy is real; legacy and money are not the same thing.
Selling software to startups: when it works and when it doesn't
Y Combinator
August 26, 2022
Niche selection
9
B2B sales
6
Product-market fit
5
Startup customers churn when the buyer persona changes at scale
Self-serve flows are not a sales strategy — they're avoidance
Stripe and Gusto show the only two legitimate startup-first strategies
Resilience & grit
YouTube
Lifestyle habits that help founders survive and recover from setbacks
Y Combinator
July 22, 2022
Resilience & grit
10
Communication
6
Poor sleep, diet, and exercise compound into founder burnout over years.
Salary should fund your life, not savings — equity is for upside.
"Do nothing" is a legitimate play; the best founders use it constantly.
How early-stage startups waste money before product-market fit
Y Combinator
July 7, 2022
Bootstrapping
9
Product-market fit
6
Paid ads can mask zero organic growth for years, then collapse.
Ask would-be advisors to invest instead — most will say yes.
Spend only after PMF; until then, do the work yourself.
Scaling a startup while evacuating your team through a war zone
Y Combinator
June 23, 2022
Case studies
9
Management
6
Resilience & grit
6
A pre-invasion plan was the only thing that prevented total paralysis.
Hired 'kamikaze drivers' to extract team members from occupied cities.
Resumed operations on day three — foreign revenue as economic resistance.
When and why to start charging your users
Y Combinator
June 1, 2022
Pricing strategy
9
Product-market fit
7
Business models
6
Free users mask whether anyone will actually pay you
Pricing can change anytime — perfectionism is just fear
Not charging enterprise prospects signals you might not survive
Resilience & grit
YouTube
How to deal with setbacks as a startup founder
Y Combinator
May 25, 2022
Resilience & grit
9
Fundraising & VC
5
Case studies
5
Setbacks are not anomalies — they are the game itself.
Failed Series A rounds are common; no one announces them.
Your reaction to a punch is entirely within your control.
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
Common hiring mistakes founders make before product-market fit
Y Combinator
May 19, 2022
Hiring & recruitment
9
Product-market fit
7
Business models
5
Most startup hiring advice is written for the wrong stage.
Hiring before product-market fit accelerates death, not growth.
Over-hiring is the leading cause of runway death post-YC.
Conversion rate optimisation
YouTube
Critiquing startup landing pages: design lessons from Instacart's first designer
Y Combinator
May 10, 2022
Conversion rate optimisation
9
Copywriting
8
SEO
5
Use your users' exact words in headlines, not your internal vision.
One call to action above the fold always beats a cluttered page.
A 15-second customer video builds more trust than paragraphs of text.
Cash flow management
YouTube
Default alive vs default dead: how to survive as a startup
Y Combinator
May 6, 2022
Cash flow management
10
Pivoting
7
Processes & SOPs
6
Default alive founders survive macro shocks; default dead ones don't.
Investor incentives are structurally misaligned with founder survival.
Justin.tv went from near-death to $1.2M profit in four months.