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.
Founder interviews
YouTube
How Domonique Fines built a career in tech events without a tech background
Y Combinator
March 11, 2019
Founder interviews
8
Identity & self-belief
7
No tech background required — curiosity and hustle got her to YC
Bringing Oakland communities into Silicon Valley by starting very small
Reframing 'I'm just one person' to 'I am the person'
How Zapier built a 200-person fully remote company from day one
Y Combinator
March 6, 2019
Remote teams
10
Processes & SOPs
7
Culture building
6
Remote fails on culture, not tools — fix that first.
Hiring for 'default to action' predicts remote success better than anything.
Async written communication beats synchronous collaboration at scale.
How Cover built a national insurance brokerage on $3.2M
Y Combinator
February 27, 2019
Case studies
9
Business models
8
Bootstrapping
6
49 states, 30 carriers, one layer of the stack — on $3.2M
Why attacking distribution, underwriting, and claims at once burns companies
Free defensive driving school as a top-of-funnel with 480,000 users
How to shut down a startup with integrity: lessons from Poppy's founder
Y Combinator
January 30, 2019
Post-mortems
10
Pivoting
6
Unit economics
5
Monthly investor updates made the shutdown conversation almost painless.
Shutting down cleanly is a skill — and it can be done with integrity.
Grief after closing a company is real; building in recovery time matters.
How VIPKID built a global edtech marketplace from four students
Y Combinator
January 16, 2019
Case studies
9
Business models
7
Product-market fit
6
Internet dissolved China's English-teacher supply shortage overnight
Product-market fit took 18 months, four students, and three content iterations
Customer success must dominate your calendar, not just your mission statement
Founder interviews
YouTube
Vinod Khosla on building ambitious companies through people and equity
Y Combinator
January 9, 2019
Founder interviews
9
Hiring & recruitment
8
Fundraising & VC
6
A company becomes the people it hires, not the plan it makes.
Keep 15% founder equity — use the rest to hire founder-quality early employees.
70% of investors add negative value; treat them like employees you can't fire.
How AptDeco built a trusted furniture marketplace from a Craigslist pain point
Y Combinator
December 14, 2018
Case studies
9
Processes & SOPs
7
Management
6
Adding delivery to a Craigslist listing got an immediate, full-price sale on day one.
Warehousing kills furniture marketplace unit economics — same-day pickup-to-delivery doesn't.
People management from corporate careers prevents the team implosions that kill startups.
MVP & prototyping
YouTube
A practical order of operations for finding and launching a startup idea
Y Combinator
November 28, 2018
MVP & prototyping
8
Customer discovery
7
Niche selection
6
You don't need a great idea first — start with a real personal problem.
Brainstorming with co-founders beats solo ideation every time.
Outsourcing development without a technical co-founder quietly kills startups.
Customer discovery
YouTube
How to identify and remove users who hijack your product
Y Combinator
November 28, 2018
Customer discovery
9
Niche selection
7
Paying hijackers are still worth cutting — revenue isn't the test.
How Twitch emerged from recognising valuable edge-case users at Justin.tv.
Hijackers don't just waste time — they corrupt your product roadmap.
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Should you start a startup? Honest self-assessment over hype
Y Combinator
November 28, 2018
Identity & self-belief
9
Vision & mission
5
Only ~2% of people are genuinely suited to the founder path
Being a craftsman does not make you a founder — the opposite, usually
Everyone advising you on this has a hidden agenda; discount accordingly
Why your startup deserves more money — and when it doesn't
Y Combinator
November 28, 2018
Bootstrapping
8
Product-market fit
7
Fundraising & VC
6
Spending $2M without product-market fit earns no right to more money
Break-even beats fundraising: revenue replaces investor dependency and fear
When you stop needing investors, they suddenly want to fund you
Founder interviews
YouTube
Work, dignity, and technological determinism with Andrew Kortina
Y Combinator
November 20, 2018
Founder interviews
8
AI strategy & adoption
6
Business models
5
Dignity tied to work was a scarcity tool — it may now exclude people.
Silicon Valley sells meaning the way Wall Street sells money, less honestly.
Fin uses human workers to deliver AI-level assistance today.
How Instapaper survived two acquisitions and spun out as an independent product
Y Combinator
November 14, 2018
Case studies
9
Exit strategy
7
Product-market fit
6
A $399 app went free in one week — and never looked back
An eight-figure acquisition deal collapsed in week six of due diligence
Spinning out from Pinterest: one person, $80k, nights and weekends
Founder interviews
YouTube
Werner Vogels on scaling Amazon, building AWS, and engineering culture
Y Combinator
November 11, 2018
Founder interviews
9
Processes & SOPs
8
Culture building
6
Shared databases killed Amazon's velocity — removing them created AWS.
Working Backwards: write the press release before writing any code.
Security built in from day one; retrofitting it later is a nightmare.
Sam Altman on focus, risk, and choosing what to work on
Y Combinator
November 8, 2018
Goal setting
9
Productivity & habits
7
Resilience & grit
5
Why feeling busy for a decade can mean zero real progress
The deferred life plan almost never works — pick one thing now
Long-term wasted potential is the real risk, not short-term failure