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How to kickstart and scale a consumer business by doing things that don’t scale
Also, how today’s biggest consumer products got their first 1,000 users
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 119 posts.
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Build your fanbase using the K-pop method
Every successful startup needs a fanbase. To build one, learn from the masters.
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Solo founder dilemma; CEO or CTO?
Choosing to be the CEO or CTO after raising a seed round.
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Co-Founding Considered Harmful
“Hell is other people.” Sartre I’ve come to view the idea that you absolutely need a co-founder as one of the most harmful memes in Silicon Valley. It’
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Mapping the unknown – Steps to map any industry
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step Lǎozi 老子 I just had lunch with Shenwei, one of my ex-students who had just taken a job in a mid-sized consulting firm. After a bit of catch…
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Retrospection and Learnings from Dgraph Labs
It's been almost nine months since I left Dgraph Labs, a company that I spent 6 years of my life building -- after a layoff followed by a failed Series B round (unsurprisingly, and in that order).
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A development process to ship features fast
Here are 9 specific steps founders can use to ship features faster, keep their product team aligned and build what their users really want.
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The case for building something wonderful alone
I’ve been building Derw alone since sometime last year.
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Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
We applied six times trying to get into Y Combinator.
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The YC Summer 2022 Batch
For the Summer 2022 batch, we received 19,000 applications from founders around the world and funded 240. Today, these founders will present their companies to an invite-only audience of investors at our 35th Demo Day. Here’s what we saw in the S22 batch.
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Want to found a startup? Work at one first
Research shows start-ups with experienced founders are more likely to succeed, and build more valuable companies too. But if you want to found a company, how do you get that experience? My experience says the fast-track is joining an existing start-up and riding that wave, taking the opportunities that come with…
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HashiCorp’s multi-product strategy
HashiCorp's multi-product strategy has launched them to a successful IPO in December 2022, is driving their $5.6-billion valuation, and helps them bring in some high-value customers.
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Welcome Home, Garry Tan
Today we're excited to announce that Garry Tan will be YC's next president and CEO. He is a visionary and builder — having founded the earliest blogging platform and advised hundreds of startups over the last decade.
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Subscriptions are out, refills are in
Everything these days is a subscription. And honestly, on reflection, subscriptions are complete horseshit.
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Move fast or die: Key startup lessons
Lessons from Facebook, Dropbox, and SPC on the singular importance of speed.
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How to communicate why your startup is worth joining
How to show why your startup is worth joining: facts about founders, team, culture and progress, with examples from Canny, Fibery and PostHog.
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Remote startups will win the war for top talent
Forty percent of workers are considering quitting. Management that opts for empty arguments to force people back in-office will bleed talent to their competition.
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Reflections on my time in Y Combinator
A quick intro: This is the first post I’ve written in quite a while, but it’s also the first time I feel like I’ve had a chance to breathe this year. I’m on a “vacation”, although it stops feeling like that when you have a toddler
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I Reached $4k/Mo. But How Many Great Startup Ideas Have Died?
I just reached $4,000/month with my internet startup as a solo developer. Because I didn't let people talk me out of my startup idea.
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How and why I built Japan Dev
Japan Dev started as a list of companies I wanted to work for back in 2014. Here's the story of how that idea morphed into a job board showcasing hundreds...
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Learnings of a CEO: Wade Foster, Zapier
Today, Zapier automates work by connecting with over 5,000 apps. The company has been profitable since 2014 and is valued at $5B – with 700 employees working remotely. Wade, Zapier CEO, shared his learnings growing into the role of a growth-stage CEO.
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How to design a referral program
Above: Dropbox’s innovative growth initiative — A referral program to give/get storage
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Micro-SaaS Alternatives to BigTech/VC
A list of small internet startups built by solo developers or tiny teams which can be used as alternatives to big tech/VC-funded startups. Choosing these alternatives helps their founders make money to live their lives and focus on working on their products.
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Why I built a dictionary app
This story begins the same way as with every other app, with a problem. None of the available apps satisfied what I expected from a dictionary
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Want to Start a Startup, as a Software Engineer? Sell Something Online
When I decided to write and sell my first ebook, The Tech Resume Inside Out [https://thetechresume.com/], I expected to learn about the writing process. How to create a high-quality publication. How to work with editors. Designing a cover and illustrations for the book. And I have, indeed,
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What I Learned at Clubhouse
25 lessons, 2 years, from 1,000 users to millions