Hsu claims 95% of Y Combinator advice is in Paul Graham essays
David Hsu · 20VC: Retool Founder, David Hsu on Why YC Is Helpful Pre Product-Market Fit but Not Post and Why VCs Are Not Helpful Pre-Product Market-Fit but are Post, Why it is Difficult to Become Unprofitable if You Set Yourself Up For Profitability Early & Why VC Th · Dec 17, 2020 · at 10:13
David Hsu, founder and CEO of Retool, shares his perspective on the value of Y Combinator's educational content for founders.
0:00 / 0:16exact quote · 16.2s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Almost everything YC tells you is available online. If you just go read every PG essay, you know, you could probably become a YC partner, basically, if you read every essay, and just maybe that's being a little bit uncharitable, but, you know, I think you could sort of get most, maybe, 95% of the advice you get from YC just by reading the essays.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from David Hsu
Hsu argues Y Combinator adds no value after product-market fit
“Once you have product pocket fit, you don't really need to be talking to anybody who's just kind of heads down, just executing, just writing code, talking to customers, you know, for as many hours a day as you can, really. And so once that does happen, You kno…”
Hsu argues VC help for struggling startups rarely yields real results
“I think, you know, it is true that when companies are not doing well, they'll sort of ask for more help, ask for more advice or whatever else. But I think in the end, it doesn't actually make that much of a difference. You may sort of spend more time with the …”
Hsu claims venture capital advice is unhelpful prior to product-market fit
“I think pre-proto market fit, I would hope you know your market better than your VC does. If you don't, you probably have some problems. It's got other issues. And so in that case, I really don't think the advice that a VC offers you is going to be that helpfu…”
Hsu argues burnout is driven by lack of results, not hard work
“I think if you try to really increase the clock speed and sort of cadence at which you move, but there are no results, I think that leads to burnout very quickly. At least for me, and potentially for you as well, and for many people I've talked to, working har…”
Hsu argues founder conviction beats testing landing pages for startup ideas
“Yeah, so I think conviction is very important, and so I think when choosing ideas, I think conviction probably is sort of highest order you have to care about, basically, is do you actually get convicted about the idea? I have a bunch of friends now, and I'm s…”
Hsu claims DoorDash is the only major startup built from landing-page testing
“The only case where I know this might potentially have worked was I think it was paloaltodelivery.com or something, which then became DoorDash. I think it's the only sort of recorded case of this ever actually working, but if you look at all the other sort of …”