My definition of product-market fit is you are drowning in demand - your product is being used by so many customers that you cannot handle all the new people knocking at your door!
Michael Seibel
It's very easy to do a fundraiser and spend a lot of money on food and venue and not raise any money. You really do need to twist people's arms into giving, even if they support you.
It turns out that one of the biggest drivers of investors are both successful and non-successful startup founders.
One of the things that's so interesting when talking to minority founders specifically is that there is really a knowledge gap in understanding what the risk-reward profile is for doing a startup.
What I Iove about Y Combinator is that it is a level playing field. If you get in, you immediately become a Silicon Valley insider.
Everyone appreciates good food.
The best advice for a first time CEO is make sure you have built a strong technical founding team, and then launch!
I wanted a simple one-bedroom apartment that would impress people when they walked in but that was otherwise extremely comfortable and useful.
People think they need to hire someone to do their PR, but 99 percent of PR in the early stages is stuff you can do yourself. It's just like business development - there's the warm-up intro, followup to build relationships, then add something of value.
There is a directory where you can explore every single person who has gone through YC and a private forum that only founders can participate in.
The first thing I learned is that campaigns are about money. I had this romantic idea that campaigns were about law and debates and so forth, which is just not true. It's about money.
A lot of times when you're an investor, it's very easy to lean back and say, 'Well, people should come to me in Silicon Valley.' YC has the opposite opinion.
The number one problem companies have during the Y Combinator interview is that a minute into the interview, we don't know what they do. It's the same problem with the application. You might think we're experts, but you still have to explain it to us.
Startups are often best at solving the personal problems of their founders. The more diverse the founders, the more types of problems can be solved - and the more people who will be positively impacted by technology.
Founders always say, 'I'm going to 'make my thing go viral' - that doesn't mean just adding a share button.
I tell founders all the time, 99.9 percent chance of failure.
Convince the investor that you guys are moving fast and that this isn't some long slog... you're thinking about it like a startup where you can move fast and make mistakes.
If you can't hire someone smarter than you, do it yourself.
A funny thing happens when you go to another country or invest in a company from another country. Suddenly everyone in that community realizes that YC is for them, too.
It's fairly common knowledge that a startup can't execute on two products simultaneously.
After reading the Elon Musk book and getting a Tesla - he is at the top of my list of inspiring founders.
Increase your company's average talent with each hire - founders tend to be pretty smart but willing to take on risk. Employees should be a lot smarter and less risk averse.
I've seen every idea. Ideas are irrelevant. You are judged on execution, and the number 1 way to prove that you can execute is by executing.
Good founders can give me a picture of the future that I can believe. And the second that I believe your version of the future, you have leverage.
Minority founders often feel like they are on the outside looking in when it comes to Silicon Valley and tech startups in general.
When I think about unique insight, what I think about is here's your opportunity to tell me something that I don't know.
Live broadcasting was something only done by the rich news organizations. So when you bring it to the masses, the public gets really excited.
I usually fall asleep between 11 P.M. - 1 A.M., and I wake up between 6:30 A.M. - 8:00 A.M.
I had a basic plan for my life. The plan was - 20s: make money; 30s: have family; and 40s: run for something and do politics. When I retired, I wanted to be a teacher.
At its core, what's amazing about YC is you don't have to work to get in. You don't have to know anyone, so there isn't some type of old boys' club.
Academically, I think things kicked off pretty late for me. I was kind of one of those kids who was in half honors, half regular. I was like a history/science kid, which was always weird. Around tenth grade or eleventh grade, everything started coming together.
Minorities often feel like they are on the outside looking in when it comes to the Valley and tech start-ups in general.
I either like reading fun war-based sci-fi, books about the lives of chefs, or dry historical non-fiction.
I think co-working spaces, incubators, and accelerators outside of the Bay Area do a lot to foster a local startup scene - which is really important for early founders, but I also think that exposure to the Bay Area is extremely valuable for startups.
The first time I went through YC, it was smaller, and the founders were younger. The advantage of that was that the set of founders who were older than us had really seen the Web 1.0 meltdown. They brought that knowledge to us.
If you're a documenter, you're taking a video of something in the real world you want to capture. If you're a director, you're trying to create something in the real world.
Finding entrepreneurs from diverse and international backgrounds is a top priority for us at Y Combinator.
People are carrying around smartphones. They have a video capture device in their pockets twenty-four/seven.
I believe tech should be a core skill of a tech company.
You've got to be a special type of guy to strap a camera to your head, especially if you're the first guy to do it.
I don't understand how you can have product-market fit and not a lot of people wanting your product. The two go hand-in-hand.
Investors like to hear that you're in a multi-billion dollar market.
For me, iPad 2 and tablets in general are really exciting from a front-facing camera perspective, making those short video clips where you're talking about where you are or what you're interested in, and your face fills up the entire screen.
Investors like to invest based on traction, so it's always better to raise money when you've got more traction than less.
My goal is to make the process of taking and watching videos as easy as it is for photos.
When someone posts a Socialcam video, all of their followers get an instant notification.
One of the most fun and interesting things about YC is that we are kind of a startup ourselves. We are constantly changing and evolving what we do.
If someone who's passed on your company as an investor offers you to make introductions, that's kryptonite. Don't touch that.
I think there are two challenges - and one challenge is how to diversify the workforce in the technology industry, and the other challenge is how to diversify the people who are starting companies.
Socialcam shares Autodesk's mission of helping everybody imagine, design, and create a better world.
