8 lessons from YC(S23)

Recently read this LinkedIn post from Will Lawrence from Greenlite re what he learned during the most recent YC badge S23:

1. If they won't pay for it, it's not valuable - free pilots, design partnerships and advisors are a trap
2. Launch early - we got our first two customers before we even had a website
3. Tech debt is a privilege - you only earn the right to pay it down once you've built something a user loves and finally need to scale
4. Having active customers forces a better product - fixing bugs and adding feature requests are 10x more valuable than building what you think is needed
5. Go-to-market is just as important as product - cracking this early has helped us more than massive product iterations
6. A killer demo is worth its weight in gold - we spent days making sure it works perfectly and it still blows people away
7. Hiring is a distraction in the early days - founders can and should find as much product market fit as possible before hiring
8. Give customers your direct phone number - it creates a real relationship, trust and reassurance that you'll answer the call when they need you

Great learnings - no wonder the post went viral on LinkedIn.

From discussions with alumni and looking at dozens of startups that have gone through the program, I have to say that YC does an incredible job at pushing founders to release product early, get customers to pay from the start and be laser focused on a narrow niche first. This leads to high shipping, learning and sales velocity during and after the program.

Outside of YC, that’s not always the case. All of us are perfectionists to varying extents. While we recognize that striving for perfection can hinder progress, our fear of releasing an inferior product or appearing unprofessional often holds us back. Yet speed is your greatest ally in early stage startup land.

Thus, if I could instill one message in many early stage (pre-seed) founders we chat to (in non mission-critical industries), it’d be points 1 through 5 from above which all come down to increasing shipping, learning and sales velocity.

Far too often do we see beautiful and sophisticated products that cost a lot of time and money that no customers are using yet. And likely never will. At least at scale.

Launch way earlier than you are comfortable with, get customers to pay for your product and build only what they are truly using / are willing to pay for (vs what you think they’ll want).

Until next week,

Pascal