What I learned at YC Startup School 2013
“Apparently the most likely animals to be left alive after a nuclear war are cockroaches, because they’re so hard to kill. That’s what you want to be as a startup, initially. Instead of a beautiful but fragile flower that needs to have its stem in a plastic tube to support itself, better to be small, ugly, and indestructible.” Paul Graham, http://bit.ly/180R8uv
Friday, October 18th, 2013
I flew from Austin, Texas to attend this year’s YC Startup school in sunny Cupertino, California. A trip that was not easy to make financially but helped in part by generous support from fellow Austin entrepreneurs and Joshua Baer of Capital Factory. Nervous and excited, I landed in San Francisco and made my way into the Mission district the day before YC Startup School. I was lucky enough to convince Josh Williams and Adam Michela to meet me over lunch to chat about my startup, BeerGram, http://beergr.am. Which was pretty easy to do once the promise of cask conditioned bottles of Jester King artisan ales, only available in Texas, was put on the table. Josh Williams was co-founder of the location-based check-in startup Gowalla (which was “acqu-hired” by Facebook in 2012). Adam Michela was designer and engineer at Gowalla, where he created new and beautiful ways of exploring the world. Needless to say, my first day in San Fran was going to be awesome! I was thrilled to bring bottles of Jester King to these guys and have lunch with them. I just hoped I didn’t say anything that would give me up as too sophomoric, which of course I was.
Meeting with Josh and Adam validated much of what I was already hearing in my head. Which was basically, focus and friction. I needed more focus and my offering needed much less friction. After working on BeerGram for so long, I had become really tied to pushing my vision up the hill with all the ugly babies I had created and loved so dearly. What I mean by that is that no matter how much you think people will love the ability to do certain things with your application, you need to have laser focus on the one thing you do really well that: a. you love building and have a passion for and b. people will enjoy also. What I needed to do was make it as easy as possible for a person to treat their friend to a beer and stop worrying about showing everyone what BeerGram could be all at once. While focusing on one thing may seem simple or at least less burdensome, it’s actually quite hard.
So I left lunch at Show Dogs with a full belly, a full mind and a resolve to whittle BeerGram down while remaining true to why I created it in the first place. After all, I quit my job and dropped out of law school to build things I wanted. I’d also like to add that because of my inexperience and my upbringing, I believed that it meant something more to take on more all at the same time. I grew up in the quintessential school of hard knocks founded by my Dad that was a member of the 101st Airborne Division, or the “Screaming Eagles.” He had me roofing houses at age 7 in the hot Houston summer months to earn clothes for school. I was the only girl, or boy for that matter, in my neighborhood that could do 100 military presses at age 11. I guess you could say I got in trouble a lot with my Dad, hence the drop and give me 10 upbringing. Needless to say, I was accustomed to extreme discomfort.
But the reality was that I wasn’t better for trying to do more. I was foolish to try to be everything all at once. I was taking the path of most resistance and had less to show for it while wasting so much time. Adam and Josh laid it down pretty well, BeerGram had too much friction to accomplish its goal. If I could reduce it then I’d grow my audience and be able to do more. I left lunch determined but also feeling like my past work and energy was a failure. But that feeling of failure was also liberating and helped me let go and accept a new course of action. I was so afraid to fail but here I was doing just that and being called on it. It’s easy to sleep when you’re guilty they say. I headed to Cupertino to get a good night’s rest before the big day.
Saturday, October 19th, YC Startup School
It’s been a long time since I was in college but Saturday morning felt like freshman orientation all over again. Some people were bursting with excitement while others tried to play it cool. A line formed early that quickly grew to be quite long so I headed over to get in line. While I was standing there, I spotted none other than Paul Graham just a few feet away from me. He was chatting cheerfully with folks and was just positively approachable. I decided my place in line was worth giving up for the chance to speak to Paul Graham about BeerGram and hear what he was saying. (Which was a good call since the line proved to be pointless when the doors did open and everyone just charged in.)
I asked Paul what types of numbers he looks for regarding startups that have an MVP like mine in regards to acceptance to YC. I gave him a fancy explanation of what BeerGram was hoping to accomplish, experience based social gifting or social touch with a niche focus on craft beer, local and NNR. To which, he laughed a bit and groaned so I quickly added BeerGram was a way to treat your friend to a beer from your iPhone. This explanation got a better response from him and he engaged with me to find out a little bit more about what I was building. It was brief but helpful. Paul suggested I explore another type of good, like coffee. And quite possibly and in all probability he is absolutley right. I shyly accepted his advice and thanked him.
I know I’m stubborn, but I’m not ready to give up on my gifting application connecting people over a great craft beer. While I probably didn’t impress Paul very much over that brief exchange, I should have explained my story and why I feel so strongly about the market I’ve discovered and my belief that people DO want an easy way to share a beer with one another. I wish I had told him that people respond positively to BeerGram and it resonates with them when they hear about it. I wish I had told him that I AM a cockroach and not ready to give up on my vision just yet. For now, I’m going to focus on that one thing that takes BeerGram up and to the right. I’m going to make it as frictionless as possible.( Until we meet again PG.)
This brings me to sum up what I learned and the recurring themes from the speakers at YC Startup School. I list them below:
- Build something for yourself unless you are really, really weird, then don’t. -Phil Libin, Evernote
- Don’t even make friends with people you wouldn’t start your company with because you don’t have the time. -Phil Libin, Evernote
- Know a secret, something that you believe, that others don’t. -Chris Dixon, A16Z
- Challenge social norms. -Chris Dixon, A16Z
- Iterate until it works and be that unsung hero. -Ron Conway
- Technical debt is good. (Don’t waste a year building something that is perfect only to discover it is only perfect to you.) -Paul Graham, YC
- Don’t argue with the metrics. -Ron Conway
- People remember and reward you if you are a person of character. -Ron Conway
- Make the world smaller, make the world better. -Chase Adams, Watsi
- Find confidence in yourself so that you can face failure. Failure is liberating and is necessary. You will have more of them then you have successes. -Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb
- It’s up to you to make what you want to see in the world. -Jack Dorsey, Twitter
- Make things more human -Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
- Creating a startup is the hardest thing you will ever do and it is lonely. Being focused all the time means stepping back from other things and people. -Everyone
- It is what it is. It’s hard, it doesn’t get easy the bigger you become and it’s uncomfortable. If you can adjust to that and learn how to thrive in those conditions, you have a shot. -Me
Most of the advice was very obvious yet resonated with me nonetheless. It’s one thing to think something alone, in your own head. But it is another to hear successful entrepreneurs share those thoughts and validate the voices in your head. Am I a world changing cockroach? I don’t know, but I got a lot of fire. Overall, I am beyond grateful that I was selected to attend this year’s YC startup school. It was what I hoped it would be, deeply inspirational and affirming.
And one final side note, this is why you never ask a stranger to get a picture of you and Paul Graham. Cheers! Find me @getbeergr.am
