My Favorite Lessons From Y Combinator So Far

The only place you need to go to learn how to start a startup is through Y Combinator’s content or Paul Graham’s essays. Here is a short list of my favorite lessons I have learned from the best accelerator in the world.

1. Don’t be an expert how to start a startup. Be an expert on the users you are building for.
2. Start a startup with your friends you’ve known for a long time, simply because you know they are good people.
3. Do things that don’t scale.
4. Don’t go searching for startup ideas, because what you find will be common enough for anyone to build.
5. All you should be doing is building product and talking to users.
6. If you don’t get the product right before you scale, nothing else matters.
7. Startups are meant to grow fast. Otherwise, they aren’t a startup.
8. Growth metrics are simply a combination of conversion rate and churn.
9. Talk to your users.
10. Talk to your users.
11. Talk to your users.

One day, I’d like to repay YC by going through their program and giving them a great return on their investment. Until then, I stay a student.