<i>DO NOT ask for anything in return from anyone.</i><p>I'm very much onboard with much of the other advice, and would have agreed with this bit for something like 25 or 26 years of my life. My goodness, I sure wasted a lot of people's time.<p>Create more value than you capture, but don't be afraid to <i>sell</i>. It gets easier with practice, and it is a core competence in a startup founder. You've got to be able to sell to customers, sell to investors, sell to the press, sell to your employees, etc etc. The most direct path to what you want is a) describing why it is in X's interest to give it to you and then b) asking for it. It works. <i>Astoundingly</i> well.<p>Relatedly, "quality content will win out" is <i>not</i> a marketing strategy. Much closer to the truth is this old chestnut: if your ideas are any good, you'll have to shove them down people's throats.<p>P.S. You're not a nobody. You're someone who has something X should want, but does not yet have a personal introduction, means of social proof, or whatever it is that the supposed "somebodies" have. You can fix that, and you should fix it, ASAP. The ROI on fixing it will be <i>spectacularly</i> better than more cold emails.
It's funny that I have been doing something like this for a while on my own, but to be honest I still think that I am not YC material. What's really surprising is that I just realized that I want to keep it that way.<p>Sure, I have a bunch of ideas and I have refined them. Yeah, I can write comments and get karma. I have gotten projects funded for nothing, but I would never write a bet on myself. I've just never thought myself as someone good enough for anything, but I simply try.<p>I know that this isn't something healthy, but it has, ironically, helped me out. I've taken risks that no sane person would take, because I always thought that I was going to lose anyway. Can you imagine a 17 y/o trying to make a dynamic haptic UI? (what the hell was I thinking?)<p>Sure, I have failed a lot. I have tried to run before I could crawl, but in the process I've learnt and gained far more than those who played it safe. So, maybe hopelessness in the right dose might actually be a good thing. After all what's there to lose, if you think that you have nothing to lose?
It's funny, I wrote an essay (that I haven't published yet) over the weekend about being a female founder. It has some of the same sentiments as Amanda's post.<p>It was surprising how little of my advice seemed very specific to being a female.
I can't be a female YC founder but this is great advice for anyone who wants to apply to YC or simply found a startup.<p>Definite +1 on talking to alumni. That helped us a lot, and everyone we talked to was happy to give advice. While most alumni are in Silicon Valley, they are spread out all over the place.<p>Most of the alumni I reached out to I had met at conferences, so that is another good way to build your network. Chat up people - you never know who you're sitting next to.
<i>Here’s a freebie: the HN audience is uber-highbrow and likes longer articles on weekends.</i><p>would y'all describe HN as highbrow? seems pretty populist to me. e.g., every time there's mention of elite universities or anything prestigious in 'the establishment', it gets ripped to shreds and denigrated as being for elitists.
just to mention, Jen McCabe from <a href="http://imoveyou.com" rel="nofollow">http://imoveyou.com</a> , Y Combinator s10, is another female founder that is doing well.
I guess the 'female founder' thing is a hook to, um, hook us all into reading the article (including me, since I'm female and a startup co-founder), Actually, writing an article about Y Combinator is another obvious hook for this crowd. But, ultimately, I wish the article didn't mention the female thing. Lose that and suddenly this is a great article for anyone wanting to apply to YC, as well as conveying general principles for startups in general. Focusing on being female does not help female entrepreneurs get/maintain credibility - it draws attention to their gender rather than their substance as entrepreneurs.
No, I'm fairly sure this is not possible for me.<p>Although it is not a practical consideration, I do wonder what would happen if everybody followed the nothing ventured nothing gained advice and sent cold the 'optimal' amount of cold solicitations. There would have to be a point of diminishing returns eventually, in aggregate.<p>Is this an important property of good advice - that people do not follow it, otherwise it ceases to be good advice?
For those who haven't seen Amanda's interview on This Week in Social Media, you might want to check it out on thisweekin.com (show link: <a href="http://bit.ly/9GiyPy" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/9GiyPy</a>).
Some very interesting advice. I especially loved the bit about talent sourcing; the more I talk to various startup founders, the more I realize how desperately people are looking for good talent.<p>Also loved this quote: "If you ask 100 people out for coffee and even ONE agrees to go with you, that’s one more coffee than you’d get by doing nothing. Net win."
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Amanda, I agree the advice wasn't gender specific but quite useful and encouraging nonetheless.<p>I would love to hear more from female founders like you though. It's quite encouraging.
"Or if you are a 21 year old white male hacker, you might find this useful too."
can somebody shed a light on the meaning/joke? behind this sentence? what's there about being a 21 year old <i>white</i> male hacker?
I completely agree on the Startup School piece of advice. I flew out from Nebraska last year and met more entrepreneurial/like-minded people than I ever knew existed. That event was one of the main motivations for me to move out to the Valley.<p>I still keep in close contact with a number of people I met from that event last year. There are very few places where you can meet fellow hackers who are entrepreneurial focused. Hearing what the speakers have to say is just the icing on the cake.
So it's finally time for XY and XX Combinators!<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system</a>