The Exchanges

Q What does that entail, and what level of interaction do you have with the founders?

A You know, it's, I think it's different startup by startup in terms of how much involvement we have, but there's a pretty basic framework for how we interact. Um, you know, at Y Combinator, we have a pretty Hands off approach in a lot of ways to our companies. Our opinion, our perspective, I guess, is that the startups are adults, right? The founders are adults. It's their business. They have to run the company, but we want to be there as a resource. And so the way YC is structured is that during the course of the three month program, every Tuesday night we have a dinner where we have a guest speaker and people like Mark Zuckerberg or Brian Chesky Really inspirational founders who have done really cool things and, and grown small startups and been successful. And so that's dinner, and that's pretty much the only required part of the calendar. Um, and then we have office hours where companies will set up one-on-one office hours with a partner when they're having trouble with a specific issue or closely related set of issues. And those are the main interaction mediums. And then we also have something called group office hours where Two partners will sit down with a small group of companies and sort of work through some problems with them together so that they can kind of learn, you know, at the same time from each other, because it turns out they can solve each other's problems qu…

AI assessment note: “we have office hours where companies will set up one-on-one office hours with a partner”

Q What does that entail, and what level of interaction do you have with the founders?

A You know, it's, I think it's different startup by startup in terms of how much involvement we have, but there's a pretty basic framework for how we interact. Um, you know, at Y Combinator, we have a pretty Hands off approach in a lot of ways to our companies. Our opinion, our perspective, I guess, is that the startups are adults, right? The founders are adults. It's their business. They have to run the company, but we want to be there as a resource. And so the way YC is structured is that during the course of the three month program, every Tuesday night we have a dinner where we have a guest speaker and people like Mark Zuckerberg or Brian Chesky Really inspirational founders who have done really cool things and, and grown small startups and been successful. And so that's dinner, and that's pretty much the only required part of the calendar. Um, and then we have office hours where companies will set up one-on-one office hours with a partner when they're having trouble with a specific issue or closely related set of issues. And those are the main interaction mediums. And then we also have something called group office hours where Two partners will sit down with a small group of companies and sort of work through some problems with them together so that they can kind of learn, you know, at the same time from each other, because it turns out they can solve each other's problems qu…

AI assessment note: “there's a pretty basic framework for how we interact”

Q And then, and then what do you think the future holds for YC? Where, where are we going to see another funding round for YC? You know, you've raised funds before. Uh, is that on the cards, do you think?

A You know, I don't think about steps for YC in terms of us raising funding again. It's just not really how we think about what YC becomes. I think when we think about the future of YC, we think about What kind of companies we're funding and what we're doing for those companies and how we're helping those companies and how the wider community of YC and our alumni base is evolving and growing and getting better. And so I think that, you know, over the last year or two, we've expanded the kinds of companies we fund, you know, we're doing, we funded aerospace companies and nuclear power companies and biotech, and I think we'll continue to expand that universe as Sort of the cycles of software continue to eat more industries and work their way deeper into new industries.

AI assessment note: “I don't think about steps for YC in terms of us raising funding again.”

Q And how do you get them to do that with that laser focus then?

A You know, I think a lot of it is just trying to be objective about the issues they're facing, and making sure that we're not getting ourselves too involved in, um, Not, not involved, but, you know, making sure we know that it's their company, right? As soon as you start to think that, hey, this is my company, and I know what's best, I think you, you start to run into problems. So it's very rare that I give very, very specific, you have to do this thing, because that rarely happens that the answer is so black and white. It's more of, hey, have you thought about trying it this way, or here's how I might think about this problem. And so getting the founders, I think, to think, About some new perspectives that they haven't thought of themselves, I think ends up being incredibly, incredibly valuable. And then the three months of YC itself is such a great time for founders to be able to push off everything else, right? It's this great excuse to focus. Anyone who wants to talk to you that isn't a customer who you need to talk to or a user you need to talk to, you can say, hey, you know, I'm doing this three month thing. I really need to focus right now and ship product. That's all I'm going to do. I have to write code and I have to talk to my users. That's it. Right. That's a really powerful forcing function, honestly.

AI assessment note: “I think a lot of it is just trying to be objective about the issues”

Q a little about product market fit and growth, and with regards to testing, what's YC's opinion on testing a large audience and getting kind of mass feedback, or as Paul Buchheit said in, Your interview with him actually on the YC podcast with the Gmail, and he had a hundred people and looked for really targeted feedback. Which one does YC support more as being more effective, do you think?

A It depends on the stage of the company. Um, a company needs to start out doing unscalable things, which means getting five, 10, 20, a hundred users, and you might know them all personally, right, or you should know them personally by the time you're done with that phase of your business, because it's only from a small base that you're going to really learn What it is that your product is, and what people want, and if you, if you hit that perfectly, then it's going to expand fairly rapidly, and you know, this is different in things like social products, maybe, than it is in a SaaS product, where a social product, once it starts working, you, you might not even realize that you had the right thing, when all of a sudden it starts growing like crazy, and then you just kind of gotta hang on, um, You know, I think that you, you look at sort of the success of Instagram. I don't think that those guys knew exactly what they had on their hands until it was as big as it was. I don't think that, you know, necessarily Zock knew exactly what was on his hands before it grew as crazily large as it did. He did an incredible job building it and having the vision to sort of take it, but it, you know, it grew so fast, and I've watched our attempts to invest in social products, and I've watched my friends try to build Social things and stuff that works, you never realize it's going to work until it…

AI assessment note: “It depends on the stage of the company. Um, a company needs to start out”

Q And then, and then what do you think the future holds for YC? Where, where are we going to see another funding round for YC? You know, you've raised funds before. Uh, is that on the cards, do you think?

A You know, I don't think about steps for YC in terms of us raising funding again. It's just not really how we think about what YC becomes. I think when we think about the future of YC, we think about What kind of companies we're funding and what we're doing for those companies and how we're helping those companies and how the wider community of YC and our alumni base is evolving and growing and getting better. And so I think that, you know, over the last year or two, we've expanded the kinds of companies we fund, you know, we're doing, we funded aerospace companies and nuclear power companies and biotech, and I think we'll continue to expand that universe as Sort of the cycles of software continue to eat more industries and work their way deeper into new industries.

AI assessment note: “I don't think about steps for YC in terms of us raising funding again.”

Q There's always time. Um, how would you recommend that founders go about attaining those mentors?

A You know, I think the only way to decide whether or not a mentor is good for you or not is to actually meet them and talk to them and spend some time with them. Um, and the best way to do that, just email people. I think people are consistently too intimidated by, you know, mentors or people they think are going to be mentors and just don't try. Uh, and you don't know until you try, right? Sending an email, what if it doesn't get responded to? Okay, your email didn't get responded to. What if someone says no? Okay, they don't say no. No is just a start of a conversation. Um, I know that I have people I email with fairly regularly who I keep saying no to, but they keep asking questions. I keep answering the questions. Maybe I'm a sucker, but, you know, I try to answer everyone who emails me. Um, look, if someone is rude, then I probably won't respond, but I find that People who just keep asking good questions, um, or who iterate and get better over time, those are the ones who end up forming great relationships with mentors, because I think the mentors start to see, you know, progress and feel like they're doing something good.

AI assessment note: “and the best way to do that, just email people.”

Q There's always time. Um, how would you recommend that founders go about attaining those mentors?

A You know, I think the only way to decide whether or not a mentor is good for you or not is to actually meet them and talk to them and spend some time with them. Um, and the best way to do that, just email people. I think people are consistently too intimidated by, you know, mentors or people they think are going to be mentors and just don't try. Uh, and you don't know until you try, right? Sending an email, what if it doesn't get responded to? Okay, your email didn't get responded to. What if someone says no? Okay, they don't say no. No is just a start of a conversation. Um, I know that I have people I email with fairly regularly who I keep saying no to, but they keep asking questions. I keep answering the questions. Maybe I'm a sucker, but, you know, I try to answer everyone who emails me. Um, look, if someone is rude, then I probably won't respond, but I find that People who just keep asking good questions, um, or who iterate and get better over time, those are the ones who end up forming great relationships with mentors, because I think the mentors start to see, you know, progress and feel like they're doing something good.

AI assessment note: “and the best way to do that, just email people.”

Q a little about product market fit and growth, and with regards to testing, what's YC's opinion on testing a large audience and getting kind of mass feedback, or as Paul Buchheit said in, Your interview with him actually on the YC podcast with the Gmail, and he had a hundred people and looked for really targeted feedback. Which one does YC support more as being more effective, do you think?

A It depends on the stage of the company. Um, a company needs to start out doing unscalable things, which means getting five, 10, 20, a hundred users, and you might know them all personally, right, or you should know them personally by the time you're done with that phase of your business, because it's only from a small base that you're going to really learn What it is that your product is, and what people want, and if you, if you hit that perfectly, then it's going to expand fairly rapidly, and you know, this is different in things like social products, maybe, than it is in a SaaS product, where a social product, once it starts working, you, you might not even realize that you had the right thing, when all of a sudden it starts growing like crazy, and then you just kind of gotta hang on, um, You know, I think that you, you look at sort of the success of Instagram. I don't think that those guys knew exactly what they had on their hands until it was as big as it was. I don't think that, you know, necessarily Zock knew exactly what was on his hands before it grew as crazily large as it did. He did an incredible job building it and having the vision to sort of take it, but it, you know, it grew so fast, and I've watched our attempts to invest in social products, and I've watched my friends try to build Social things and stuff that works, you never realize it's going to work until it…

AI assessment note: “a company needs to start out doing unscalable things, which means getting five, 10, 20, a hundred users”

Q And then, with regards to growth, and growing that product from the one customer, what are YC's requirements on growth? Do you have any specific requirements for your startups? I heard, uh, I don't know if it's a rumor, or a mention that 10% is the recommended weekly growth target. Is that correct? I mean,

A Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the answer is that growth isn't the goal. Um, and I think this is something that people sometimes get a little backwards. Growth is the result of having the right product and the right market, right? It's because you did the other things right that you get growth. You can't invent growth out of thin air. You can a little bit if you just start spamming people, but that's unsustainable. Um, so when we talk about growth goals on a weekly basis, those are once you have a product that starts working. Um, and that's how you know it's working. That's how you know it's growing at the pace that a startup needs to grow, right? If you think you have fit in your market, and it's just growing one percent a week, you might have a great business on your hands, but it's probably not startup scale. And if you do want a startup, then you need to know what that looks like.

AI assessment note: “when we talk about growth goals on a weekly basis, those are once you have”

Q And then, with regards to growth, and growing that product from the one customer, what are YC's requirements on growth? Do you have any specific requirements for your startups? I heard, uh, I don't know if it's a rumor, or a mention that 10% is the recommended weekly growth target. Is that correct? I mean,

A Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the answer is that growth isn't the goal. Um, and I think this is something that people sometimes get a little backwards. Growth is the result of having the right product and the right market, right? It's because you did the other things right that you get growth. You can't invent growth out of thin air. You can a little bit if you just start spamming people, but that's unsustainable. Um, so when we talk about growth goals on a weekly basis, those are once you have a product that starts working. Um, and that's how you know it's working. That's how you know it's growing at the pace that a startup needs to grow, right? If you think you have fit in your market, and it's just growing one percent a week, you might have a great business on your hands, but it's probably not startup scale. And if you do want a startup, then you need to know what that looks like.

AI assessment note: “when we talk about growth goals on a weekly basis, those are once”

Q Absolutely. And then talking about kind of you have to and taking advice, how should founders know what's the right advice to take when there is quite a lot on offer sometimes? And for those that are looking for a mentor, who and what would you recommend?

A Yeah, I think mentorship is a really challenging thing, um, both to find and to decide how to work with best, and I think it's different every, in every case, but I think at the end of the day, advice is just advice, right? It's just someone who has some understanding of your company, your situation, offering, you know, their best guess at a solution, um, or at a path forward, and from what I've seen, the best founders take that best guess and And they integrate it with their own knowledge, and they make their own decision. And so if you're, you know, if you're talking to a whole bunch of different people that have different opinions and different ideas of how to move forward, that's fine, as long as you don't get, you know, into the analysis paralysis thing, where you say, oh my god, all these people are offering conflicting advice, I don't know what to do next. It's often better to try something than to sit there thinking for too long. Because if you try something, and you're measuring it carefully, and you're measuring the results, You'll know pretty quickly whether or not that was the right thing to do, and you can switch gears.

AI assessment note: “best founders take that best guess and And they integrate it with their own knowledge”

Q And how do you get them to do that with that laser focus then?

A You know, I think a lot of it is just trying to be objective about the issues they're facing, and making sure that we're not getting ourselves too involved in, um, Not, not involved, but, you know, making sure we know that it's their company, right? As soon as you start to think that, hey, this is my company, and I know what's best, I think you, you start to run into problems. So it's very rare that I give very, very specific, you have to do this thing, because that rarely happens that the answer is so black and white. It's more of, hey, have you thought about trying it this way, or here's how I might think about this problem. And so getting the founders, I think, to think, About some new perspectives that they haven't thought of themselves, I think ends up being incredibly, incredibly valuable. And then the three months of YC itself is such a great time for founders to be able to push off everything else, right? It's this great excuse to focus. Anyone who wants to talk to you that isn't a customer who you need to talk to or a user you need to talk to, you can say, hey, you know, I'm doing this three month thing. I really need to focus right now and ship product. That's all I'm going to do. I have to write code and I have to talk to my users. That's it. Right. That's a really powerful forcing function, honestly.

AI assessment note: “That's a really powerful forcing function, honestly.”

Q Absolutely. And then talking about kind of you have to and taking advice, how should founders know what's the right advice to take when there is quite a lot on offer sometimes? And for those that are looking for a mentor, who and what would you recommend?

A Yeah, I think mentorship is a really challenging thing, um, both to find and to decide how to work with best, and I think it's different every, in every case, but I think at the end of the day, advice is just advice, right? It's just someone who has some understanding of your company, your situation, offering, you know, their best guess at a solution, um, or at a path forward, and from what I've seen, the best founders take that best guess and And they integrate it with their own knowledge, and they make their own decision. And so if you're, you know, if you're talking to a whole bunch of different people that have different opinions and different ideas of how to move forward, that's fine, as long as you don't get, you know, into the analysis paralysis thing, where you say, oh my god, all these people are offering conflicting advice, I don't know what to do next. It's often better to try something than to sit there thinking for too long. Because if you try something, and you're measuring it carefully, and you're measuring the results, You'll know pretty quickly whether or not that was the right thing to do, and you can switch gears.

AI assessment note: “the best founders take that best guess and And they integrate it with their own knowledge”