When Airbnb was getting started, its founders struggled (like everyone) to get customers. The platform wasn't taking off and they couldn't seem to connect with users. That's when they took one of YC's pieces of advice: do things that don't scale. Instead of waiting for success to show up at scale, the founders went in person to photograph their first hosts' apartments to make the listings better. It looked like the least scalable thing in the world, but it turned out to be the key to building a more attractive platform, learning straight from their customers and building a close relationship with them. That manual, hands-on approach, painful as it was, helped turn Airbnb into the giant it is today.
So... here's some of the essential advice Y Combinator shares, and that's been crucial for a lot of startups trying to find their way to success:
- Launch now
- Build something people want
- Do things that don't scale
- Find the 90/10 solution
- Find 10 to 100 customers who love your product
- All startups are badly broken at some point
- Write code - talk to users
- "It's not your money"
- Growth is the result of a great product, not the precursor
- Don't scale your team/product until you've built something people want
- Valuation is not equal to success or even probability of success
- Avoid long negotiated deals with big customers if you can
- Avoid corporate development queries from big companies - they'll just waste your time
- Avoid conferences unless they're the best way to get customers
- Before product market fit, do things that don't scale: stay small/nimble
- Startups can only solve one problem well at a time
- Founder relationships matter more than you think
- Sometimes you need to fire your customers (they might be killing you)
- Ignore your competitors, you're more likely to die from "suicide" than "murder"
- Most companies don't die because they run out of money
- Be nice, or at least don't be a jerk
- Get sleep and exercise - take care of yourself
A lot of the time it's about keeping things simple, focusing on what actually matters, and learning straight from your customers.
Read YC's original article: YC's Essential Startup Advice.
