Why Trello Failed to Build a $1B Business
Trello was so focused on building its free customer base first and monetizing later that by the time it looked to its paid subscribers, it was too late.
Startup Anti-Patterns
An anti-pattern is a commonly used process, structure, or pattern of action that, despite initially appearing to be an appropriate and effective response to a problem, has more bad consequences than good ones.Simeon Simeonov first wrote an introduction to the value of startup anti-patterns back in 2013. To sum it up…
Why AI Infrastructure Startups Are Insanely Hard to Build
Level of difficulty: insane
My experience as the first employee of a Y Combinator startup
I'm the first employee of BackType , a Summer '08 YC company. My joining the company increased the...
Why We Said “No” to a $40M Round
Parse.ly's CEO explains why he said no to a large VC capital investment, and why other start-ups should consider doing the same.
What I Learned About SaaS at Buildium
Buildium sold for over half a billion dollars. Here's what I learned leading the marketing team over the course of 5 years.
From developer to entrepreneur: Learning to build an indie startup
I always liked to build, to make stuff. When I was a teen, I use to spend all my free time studying networks and computers. I wanted to be a cyberpunk, hack things and write sci-fi novels. I was the typical shy geek.
The next big thing will start out looking like a toy (2010)
programming, philosophy, history, internet, startups
Applications for YC W15 are open
We are now accepting applications for the Winter 2015 batch. You can apply as a startup or as a non-profit [http://www.ycombinator.com/nonprofits/]. If you want to apply, submit your applicationhere [http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/]by 8pm PT on October 14. For more information on the process, readHow to Successfully…
What we learned in studying the most effective founders
The Google for Startups Effective Founders Project dives deep into the leadership strategies of the most successful startups around the world.
Financial Indicators for Startups at Different Stages
Learning to read financial documents is one thing, but learning to use them as tools to guide the business and ultimately communicate clearly to 100+
The Only Way to Grow Huge
All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. What this means is that if you want to be a great company some day, you have to...
USV invests in Duck Duck Go
When I first got into the venture capital business in the early 90s, it seemed to me that half of the deals I brought to the partnership were dismissed with the line “sure it’s…
Fouling Out and Moving On (re: Notifo Shutdown)
Today is a bittersweet day. I am closing one chapter of my life and opening a brand new one.
Finding My Next Bootstrapped Business Idea
Most business ideas are neither objectively good nor bad. The quality of an idea for you (as a founder) depends on your goals, your skill set, and your risk tolerance.
Introducing ReadySet
Today, we’re excited to launch Readyset. Our mission is to help developers build faster applications without writing extra code. To accomplish this, we're building a high-performance SQL caching engine and performance...
Going Freemium: One Year Later
Browse how-to articles on starting, running, and marketing your business, plus thought-provoking podcasts and films to inspire your inner entrepreneur.