> It helps you answer the only question that matters: is your product something people want?<p>I've probably read that sentence at least 1000 times in a number of different books and articles. Having gone through a lean startup accelerator a few years ago when they were en vogue we focused on this aspect more than anything else.<p>The thing I never hear is how people actually figured that out. Cold calling, cold emailing, going to meetups, getting intros, pitching ideas and gathering feedback is never discussed. I want to hear _how_ you found a product market fit. It's obvious that you need to do this.<p>As an example. A startup that I co-founded my sophomore year in college was accepted into a school run summer business accelerator. They emphasized talking with customers/users more than anything else. The problem was we didn't really know any of our potential customers or users (grade school teachers/public schools). So we had to essentially cold call schools, find teachers/admins emails online, and fish around our personal network for intros. To say it didn't go well is an understatement. Our success rate, of even a phone call, was nearly 1% (roughly one answer per 100 or so emails/calls). We eventually locked down a core group of users simply by contacting so many people. Aside from other bureaucratic factors in the public schooling system we failed simply because we couldn't establish a growing user base.<p>So, if anyone wants to tell their story with nitty gitty details of not only how they found and retained their users but how they found what they wanted would be greatly appreciated.
Two pop-ups on that page (one at the start, one at the end) is way too aggressive. Cut me some slack, will ya? I especially hate the "Subscribe to our mailing list before you've even read content on our page!" load-time pop-up that everyone's featuring nowadays. If there was a browser plugin to wipe them all, I would pay money for it.
> If relationships are easy to maintain when everything is going well, it’s a whole different story when the pressure is on.<p>This isn't YC-specific, but I want to highlight this piece of advice because it's extremely important.<p>This is one of the most important things I've learned through my years of starting/running small businesses. I'm particularly susceptible to falling in this trap because I suffer from typical founder syndrome of "perpetual optimism". (Good for certain things, bad for others.)<p>It's also an easy trap to fall into as a new founder, because you just don't yet have the history to see both the ups and downs. But I can't emphasize it enough: People who are wonderful when things are wonderful can become bitterly awful when things turn around. Finding partners (both teammates and investors) who you can sail both the rough and calm waters with is absolutely essential to the survival of your business.<p>How to figure this out? There's no secret, but it's a mix of intuition and asking the right questions. Speak to references and ask specifically: "How was he/she when things were good? How about when things got tough?"
> <i>As a startup of the batch, you get high visibility thanks to Demo Day and to your own TechCrunch launch. Thanks to that, we were able to get more than 300 signups in our first couple weeks (see exactly how we did it here).</i><p>This seems contradictory. 300 signups over a couple of weeks does not imply "high visibility." Your TechCrunch article (<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/18/front-is-a-shared-inbox-app-that-makes-email-suck-lessfront-is-a-shared-inbox-app-to-make-email-suck-less/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/18/front-is-a-shared-inbox-app...</a>) only received about 229 shares and 154 Tweets (with most of the comments being from existing users and not prospective users), which makes Front seem more of a counterexample of TechCrunch visibility instead.
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I love these articles, but what I'd really like to see is a much more detailed account of the founders' entire lives up until they got in to YC. How did they meet. When did they hear about YC for the first time. When did they become interested in technology. What did they eat for breakfast the day of their interview. The real nitty gritty. And ideally this would be a special on Vice of course. :)
><i>If you don’t get accepted after the interview, you will get the reason why and you’ll then be able to improve your product.</i><p>This part is a bit ambiguous. Do the YC partners actually tell applicants who have made it to the interview stage why they were rejected?
What is the value of being part of YC's network? Perhaps it matters if your product/startup is struggling.<p>You can cold email any YC founder, I think they would be just as likely to help you (work with you) than a fellow YC founder.
Nice article. IMO, two of the key points are:<p>1. But you still need to figure out things by yourself: YC will never tell you what people want<p>2. If there is one thing that is true about YC partners, it’s that you can’t expect them to do the work for you.