181
Most cited
Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 248 posts.
182
183
Pricing as Signal
Forbes: “EMI Group boss Alain Levy said at press conference today that he believed Jobs would introduce multiple price points for iTunes music within the next year.” The story they̵…
184
185
We need a middle class for startups
Idea: Make Mittelstands cool in America. Rebrand the US Middle Market. Create a studio and fund to build and buy Mittelstands.
186
187
Startup lessons
There are already very good lists of startup lessons written by really talented, experienced people (here and here). I’d like to add another one. I learned these lessons the hard way in the past four years. If you’re starting a company, I hope you have an easier path.
188
The Pinboard Investment Co-Prosperity Cloud
The Pinboard Co-Prosperity Cloud is a startup self-incubator. Six successful applicants will receive a modest amount of funding and as much publicity as I can provide for their sustainable and useful business idea.
189
Storemapper: Bootstrapped to $50k/year in 2 years
Two years ago I launched Storemapper an embedded store locator service that runs on any website or ecommerce platform. Today around 500 brands use Storemapper to help their customers find the closest place to buy their stuff. The service has grown from bootstrapped to over $50,000 per year. It’s not cool like a…
190
YC Annual Letter 2017
Dear YC Community: In response to a comment on Hacker News, I’m going to try writing an annual letter to the YC community with an update on our progress. Our mission is to enable the most...
191
Startups Are Hard
Contrary to popular belief, there are no clouds of money that float around Silicon Valley and rain on anyone that utters the phrase, "I'm a founder!" Unfortunately, starting a company and raising money is just as hard as ever; it's just that the investors don't have as much leverage as they used to, but they still…
192
A new team at Reddit
Last week, Yishan Wong resigned from reddit. The reason was a disagreement with the board about a new office (location and amount of money to spend on a lease). To be clear, though, we didn’t...
193
The Worst Part of YC
We are going to send out YC summer 2014 interview decisions (both yes and no) before 10 pm PDT tonight. The worst part of our job at YC is rejecting companies. It leaves me feeling down for many...
194
195
If I Launched a Startup - Cheat Sheet
Startup lawyer tips for launching: incorporate smart, use mentors/advisors carefully, and raise seed capital with founder-friendly, low-drama terms.
196
The Post-YC Slump
At the end of a YC batch, the general consensus among the partners is that about 25% of the companies are on a trajectory that could lead to a multi-billion dollar company. Of course, only a...
197
Why you can't hire
There isn’t a shortage of developers and designers. There’s a surplus of founders. The cost of starting a company has collapsed. It’s now just (minimal) salaries. For entrepreneurs, desks are free, hosting is free, marketing is online, and company setup is cheap. Raising the first $25K for product development is easy…
198
How to get your first ten customers (2013)
Preface: the assumption for this essay is that you’re building a B2B app, and you have something built but you’re having trouble getting people to pay for
199
200
Why Silicon Valley Works
I wrote this for the FT, but it's behind a paywall. Since I wrote it, I feel like it's probably ok for me to post it here. The natural state of a start-up is to die; most start-ups require...
201
202
203
204
205
206
Climbing the wrong hill (2009)
programming, philosophy, history, internet, startups
207
The New Funding Landscape
October 2010 After barely changing at all for decades, the startup funding business is now in what could, at least by comparison, be called turmoil. At Y Combinator we've seen dramatic changes in the funding environment for startups. Fortunately one of them is much higher valuations. The trends we've been seeing are…
208
Financial Misstatements
First-time startup CEOs make a lot of mistakes, mostly due to ignorance. One particularly bad one is misunderstanding or misusing basic financial terms. I started noticing this in Y Combinator...
209
210
The Bubble Question
Everywhere I go, everywhere I speak, I get asked this question. Are we in a bubble? I’ve been getting asked that question for at least four years now. It’s hard to sustain a bubble for four years. But we are also not in a normal valuation environment for high growth tech companies and we have […]