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YC Startup School 2018: a free, 10-week, online course

850 点作者 adora将近 7 年前

49 条评论

carusooneliner将近 7 年前
My cofounder and I took this course last year. About the format of the course and efficacy:<p>- assigned mentor: we were assigned a former yc startup founder as mentor. the mentor had 30 minute 1-1s with us once a month and gave us useful advice on a wide range of matters.<p>- weekly homework: choose a single metric you&#x27;ll measure through the duration of the course and report the metric and growth weekly. The metric could be DAUs, number of customers you&#x27;ve talked to, whatever. It&#x27;s for you to figure the most important thing to focus on. We were running the startup in a bit of an ad hoc manner until startup school; weekly metric reporting helped focus our efforts in service of a single meaningful metric.<p>- group calls: we were lucky to be in a good peer group comprising about 30 startups of all kinds -- medical device to SaaS to consumer apps. There were weekly 1-2 hr calls chaired by the mentor. Before the meeting, the mentor sent out a questionnaire to fill out -- what&#x27;s your product&#x27;s value prop, what setbacks have you faced, etc. -- and startups would be randomly chosen to talk about their response to the questionnaire. Lot of time for Q&amp;A. Our peer group is still in touch through a facebook group, where we occasionally share progress.<p>- Demo day: record a 2 minute video talking about our startup. This forced us come up with a concise statement to describe our startup and gave us a platform to showcase it.<p>If I had to summarize the benefit of startup school, it would be three things:<p>- quality mentorship<p>- diverse peer group<p>- forcing function for startup to hit goals<p>I&#x27;ll venture to say it&#x27;s probably one of the most valuable things an early stage startup could invest time on.
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aacook将近 7 年前
Cool. This is timely for me. I launched <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nanagram.co" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nanagram.co</a> about 8 months ago. We help people send printed photos in the mail to their grandparents with a text message. I&#x27;ve been bootstrapping it with contract work in parallel but I&#x27;d like to focus on it full-time. Customers seem to truly love it and it&#x27;s the happiest thing I&#x27;ve ever created. I&#x27;m thinking about putting together a family and friends round to focus full-time through the fall. Funding aside, I know I need some mentorship.<p>Is the $10k funding awarded at the end of the cycle?
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antaviana将近 7 年前
In our case, our &quot;start-up&quot; is a desktop product sold as a subscription that is developed and marketed within an existing professional services company we operate, which is serving a niche domain that the desktop product targets.<p>Developing the product was always a bit of a hobby but patiently over 5 years since it transitioned from freeware to commercial, annual subscription billings have grown to over $500K. We estimate that our current customer base is a 3-5% of the TAM. The product business itself is already profitable because it requires barely one FT equivalent person for development and support (i.e. 2-3 people part-time working on it, mostly dev, a bit of support).<p>Since it has a hobby, we fully relied on a low touch sales model so we never have done ads, conferences or engaged in sales efforts. Instead we grew via network effects among our customers.<p>What I&#x27;m trying to say is that in all these years we&#x27;ve figured out some things along the way (most notably product-market fit and business model) and clearly left other things on the table (sales, marketing, recruiting) to fully develop the opportunity further.<p>Back in 2014 I found immensely useful the &quot;How to start an start up?&quot; video lectures hosted by Sam Altman.<p>Given our slow motion, age (I&#x27;m over 50) and probably the fact that our company would be an outlier in the group calls, what would make most sense for me to apply for, Startup School or Audit Startup School? Of my team most likely only I will have enough time&#x2F;motivation to take the online course.
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adora将近 7 年前
Hi, I&#x27;m Adora, a YC partner, and will be helping out with the course. Very excited to meet and work with everyone. Happy to answer any questions.
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tuyguntn将近 7 年前
Anyone who tried this course last year, can you please share your thoughts on this course and<p>* why should we take this course?<p>* what have you achieved after taking this course?<p>* did it help you build&#x2F;finish your startup?
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westoncb将近 7 年前
What I wonder is if this would be very useful to someone trying to start a software business that they don&#x27;t want to turn into a &#x27;startup&#x27; in the sense it&#x27;s generally used here (not trying to become a billion dollar company or even seeking investment at all).<p>It seems like best advice and strategies for those routes have some overlap, but also a lot of points where good advice for one is bad advice for the other.
waldrews将近 7 年前
UI suggestion: Just Say No to multi-page forms that require you to submit the first page of (personal) information before being allowed to see questions on subsequent pages.
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krrishd将近 7 年前
I didn&#x27;t take it as a true &#x27;course&#x27; last year but incidentally watched a lot of the lectures -- heard some really genuinely novel perspectives that aren&#x27;t as self-evident as a lot of startup education ~seems~ nowadays, so i&#x27;m excited to see how the course has evolved!
volkk将近 7 年前
A comment here mentions that over 2000 companies joined last year. How do mentors spread their time over this impressive amount of companies? Or does that number include the ones that are simply auditing? And if you&#x27;re NOT auditing, does that mean that it&#x27;s an application process where you must be accepted?
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LeonM将近 7 年前
I just subscribed, there are some bugs in the process though:<p>- The photo image uploader does not seem to work (FF61).<p>- The email validation link threw a 500 error on first try, second try succeeded.<p>- The company name field in the second form cannot be empty, even though the field description says &#x27;if you have one&#x27;.
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jcolella将近 7 年前
This is great. This empowering and in general knowledge sharing on building startups is why many companies are successful here in the US. Very cool
akuji1993将近 7 年前
&gt; 1,587 (56%) of the companies completed the course, and, since then, 38 of them have been accepted to the core Y Combinator program<p>In other words, your chance of getting into YC by these means, is about 2%. Still might be worth, just for the information alone though.
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notananthem将近 7 年前
I&#x27;d love to apply but I&#x27;m finishing an evening MBA and want to do it or just apply to YC after school. Got a year left, I&#x27;m going to just audit it. Can&#x27;t believe how accessible YC is to the startup market, thanks YC :)
legionof7将近 7 年前
Is it just me or does the Add Picture button not work? I tried both Firefox and Chrome.
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f0rgot将近 7 年前
Reminder that you can also just audit the course, if you all you really want is the info.
ericdykstra将近 7 年前
Just signed up, and looking forward to seeing the content, even though I&#x27;m just auditing this year.<p>I have a question, though. In the &quot;What industry do you plan to launch your product in?&quot; question, one of the responses was &quot;Diversity.&quot; What exactly do you mean by &quot;Diversity Industry&quot; and can you give some examples of companies in this space?
bob_theslob646将近 7 年前
I wonder what the logic is behind this? Is it getting too costly to educate people in person? Is this as effective as in person?<p>&gt;Those companies will also receive a video interview with a YC partner later in the year for advice or aid in applying to a future YC batch.<p>I laughed at that comment due to how it shows how competitive it is to get into YC.
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kaycebasques将近 7 年前
The course seems rather no-strings-attached. For example, it mentions that the most promising companies will get $10K of &quot;equity-free funding&quot; as well as other goodies.<p>Appeals to altruism aside, what&#x27;s Y Combinator&#x27;s incentive here? Is the hope that companies will feel loyalty to YC, and join the core program?
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conquistadog将近 7 年前
Very interested. How much about one&#x27;s idea must be disclosed? Is there any protection for secret sauce?
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frissonlabs将近 7 年前
I saved a very rough draft of my application but now, when I return to startupschool.org, it shows me the &quot;Thank you for applying to Startup School!&quot; message. Should I be worried? Or can I still edit my application via &quot;Settings&quot;?
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asaxena76将近 7 年前
I am a solo founder with kids and mortgage. Wifey helps out a bit. Have a rough proto ( and software) of a kids educational robotics product. I put the product on cold storage realizing I can&#x27;t do this part time and I don&#x27;t have enough money in the bank to take time off . I really want to share and get some feedback but I am afraid I won&#x27;t be able to spend a lot of time in building right now. I can spend 3-4 hours a week but thats about it . Do you think this will be a good fit for me. I would certainly like to be able to qualify for cloud credits so I can keep building this when I have time.
taytus将近 7 年前
Application sent! Best of luck everyone!!
swaggyBoatswain将近 7 年前
I submitted this anyhow I do not think business skills is something I really need, mentorship is nice but I have great mentors locally, but the issue I face right now is mostly lack of technical knowledge, so this startup school might be irrelevant to me in all honesty<p>I have an idea I wish to persue because it solves an actual problem I face everyday and by building it it would make a lot of other goals I have much easier to obtain.<p>I am mostly just interested in the case studies of how other startups do things. Mostly curiosity about how YC
syntaxing将近 7 年前
Is this course suitable for hardware products? There&#x27;s some ideas and prototypes I have done that I always wanted to bring to market but not sure how to go about it.
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hyperpallium将近 7 年前
&gt; For the first time ever we are going to give $10,000 in equity-free funding to 100 of the most promising companies that join and complete the course.
noobhacker将近 7 年前
What are the recommended background readings to best prepare founders for this program? IMO it helps a lot when participants already use the same framework and speak the same language, so that more time can be devoted to specific problems.<p>Obviously for people that hang out on HN, we already had some shared understanding. But a list of recommended readings to make sure all gaps are filled would be very useful as well.
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amino将近 7 年前
I took part in the innaugural startup school and really loved it. I would like to join this one too. Can I still apply with the same idea?
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sreyaNotfilc将近 7 年前
Sounds sweet! I&#x27;m actually releasing a website&#x2F;business September 1st. So, this is perfect timing. Might as well give it a go.
hsikka将近 7 年前
I&#x27;m working on building Early Warning Systems that use ML and space data for Public Health problems and can see a commercial application for governments and communities. But I just started work, and this is a longer problem than most SAAS offerings, do you think Startup School is worth it in this case?
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Finbarr将近 7 年前
Really happy to see this running again. The design looks to have been hugely improved. Great job YC software team!
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nathcd将近 7 年前
It looks like the &quot;What is your most impressive accomplishment?&quot; question on the application has a max length of 60 characters. I can understand it needing to be short, but that seems <i>really</i> short. I&#x27;m having a tough time trying to slice and dice a sentence to fit.
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thehodge将近 7 年前
Just applied, I think as a part time husband and wife team with a child (and based in the UK) this is a more realistic opportunity than the physical YC (even though I think that would be an awesome adventure)
adverbly将近 7 年前
Is the 10k available for startups in the US only, or is it international?
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adityapurwa将近 7 年前
I just applied and I am working full time, I wonder if I’d still be able to join the course considering I only have after office hours on it. I’m glad the course is during my college breaks.
code_devil将近 7 年前
Hi Adora, This is awesome. I just applied for it. How many hours of lectures will we have in a week? As it’s an online course - do you recommend being in one physical location&#x2F;geography?
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Wouter33将近 7 年前
Heads-up: There is no overview&#x2F;confirmation page at the end of the signup process, so no reviewing your answers before submitting. Just found this out the hard way!
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bambax将近 7 年前
I took this course last year and enjoyed it a lot. My company exists and is growing. Can I take it again? -- Is it possible, and does it make sense to take it twice?
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fefehern将近 7 年前
I&#x27;ve submitted an application but I do have a question:<p>If I were to change gears (Say, go from one business idea to another), should I re-apply with the different idea?
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nad7vx将近 7 年前
sorry if this a dumb question: my cofounder and I are working on a app that we plan to release in South East Asia (i.e. India) because of what we believe is a better market fit as well as product positioning - does applying to this program make sense if our goal isn&#x27;t (in the near term) to release this app in the US? Would we still be eligible for the equity funding?
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allanmacgregor将近 7 年前
Just submitted my application, regardless if I make it in or not I&#x27;m really excited to follow along with the videos
elvirs将近 7 年前
this is awesome. lines up with our stage of development too. filled out the form, hoping to become part of YC community
k__将近 7 年前
It&#x27;s nice that the offer the material to people who don&#x27;t have an idea for a product in the near future.
vardhankoshal将近 7 年前
Hi Adora,<p>Can you please provide some idea of selection criteria and if possible, selection percentage?
ericzawo将近 7 年前
I&#x27;ve been working on my own media platform with friends and think this will provide a lot of value. I&#x27;ve worked for various media companies in the past as both an employee and freelance journalist and want to really make an impact with our brand. Hoping we get in!
mamaquin将近 7 年前
Hi Adora,<p>Do you need to have a co-founder to get into the online startup school?
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mkirklions将近 7 年前
I am developing a finance tech, full stack app, solo. This would probably be fantastic, but the time&#x2F;money commitment is<p>&gt;Not working my 9-5 job that pays 2k&#x2F;week<p>&gt;Not obsessively working on my app after work 4hr&#x2F;night <i>5 + 12hr</i>2= 44 hours&#x2F;week of not programming<p>Im sure its a great opportunity, but I am unsure if its the better decision. I already have a community that visits Efficiency Is Everything, I already can program, and I have a significant savings.<p>Business skills may be a real thing to learn, but its a risky 10 week proposal.<p>Anyone care to share thoughts on this decision? I would rather find out I&#x27;m wrong, than be wrong and make a bad decision.
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madeuptempacct将近 7 年前
This sounds like an asshole question, but it&#x27;s one I have always had. If someone has a truly great idea, how do they know it won&#x27;t be stolen by mentors with more resources and lawyers?
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matte_black将近 7 年前
What does the information in the course have to offer that is different from all the other books, courses and content out there on building a startup? Seems like everything out there basically presents the same concepts just in different words.
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anonymous645将近 7 年前
Would u accept a me-too company ?<p>This company just raised $10M A round. Fantastic backers, industry-experienced CEO. A very technical enterprise product. We saw their demo. The website is very detailed. Never signed any NDA.<p>We have managed to code a similar MVP product. We also have a different technical and feature road map. This is not a $1BN target - maybe eventual acquisition at low 9 figures.<p>Do u think this is a valid candidate for YC Online ?<p>Would u strongly steer us away from such an approach ?