Topics /

Startups

The most popular blog posts about startups on Hacker News. 119 posts.

2019
35

How to Cold Email Investors [video]

Y Combinator CEO and Partner Michael Seibel [https://twitter.com/mwseibel] on how to cold email investors. Topics 00:00 [https://youtu.be/A3MmYbH1hbs?t=0s] – Intro 00:17 [https://youtu.be/A3MmYbH1hbs?t=17s] – Make it short, i.e. 60 seconds or less to read 00:58 [https://youtu.be/A3MmYbH1hbs?t=58s] – Interested in: the…

43

Our Startup Handbook

Over the past ten years, we have invested in and worked with close to 100 startups. Along the way, we have seen teams, ideas, and practices work spectacularly well. And, we’ve seen others that didn’t work out as expected. We decided to take the experiences and insights learned over the past decade and compile them […]

44

YC 120

[https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/wordpress/2019/01/yc120-v1.png] The world is shaped by people with intelligence, drive and vision. At YC, we’ve learned a lot about cultivating a network of such people — and we believe that having a strong network is such a force multiplier that it is one of the most…

48

YC Interviews in India

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be holding interviews for the Summer 2019 batch in Bangalore for founders based in India. This will take place from May 7 to 9. We’ve received an increasing number of applications from India and this will allow us to interview more Indian founders. So far, we’ve funded over 40…

50

How Firebase Interviewed Software Engineers

Today, Firebase has a large team with hundreds of engineers. Before the Google acquisition, however, we had a small team of just 24 exceptional people that I firmly believe was among the strongest of its kind in the world. A big part of that success was the way we interviewed software engineers. I’m sharing our…

53

Announcing Startup School 2019

Today, we’re opening up registration for Startup School 2019, our free online course for founders looking to get help turning an idea into a startup. The 10 week course will begin July 22, 2019 and is free for everyone to participate. You can register at Startup School [https://startupschool.org]. We will again be…

56

Don't Pay to Acquire Your First Users

Recently, a founder asked to chat with me about SEO. During our call, the founder - whose startup is backed by a top-tier VC - said to me “I assume that you acquired your first users through paid marketing.” Really? Is this an assumption nowadays? Since we’ve raised money

59

How Y Combinator Started (2012)

On March 11 2005, Jessica and I were walking home from dinner in Harvard Square. Jessica was working at an investment bank at the time, but she didn't like it much, so she had interviewed for a job as director of marketing at a Boston VC fund. The VC fund was doing what now seems a comically familiar thing for a VC…