This document provides advice on starting a startup. It discusses that Silicon Valley's culture fosters taking risks on wild ideas and a community of talented founders. Successful founders have relentless self-belief, focus, strong vision and communication skills, and the ability to attract others to their company. When starting, it's best to focus on solving problems in your own life and building a small group of passionate early users. Getting the first 100 users often requires manually contacting people in your network or those you identify as potential customers. The company culture should involve deeply understanding users, moving quickly, committing for the long term, and maintaining a clear mission through relentless execution.

1. How to Start a
Startup

2. What makes Silicon Valley special?
• Relentless belief in the future
• There are people who take wild ideas
seriously, instead of mocking you
• No ‘Tall Poppy’ syndrome
• High density of talented people working on
startups
• A culture of paying it forward

3. What makes founders special?
• “I always figure it out” and “I never give up”
• Focus, self-belief, personal connections
• Clear vision, thought, and communication
• Ability to attract people to work on the
company
• Ability to get a huge amount of work done
themselves

4. Idea
• Idea first; startup second
• Original thought
• Notice problems in your own life
• Great Wave
• Easier to start a hard company than an easy
company

5. Co-founders
• Co-founders are really good, but a bad
cofounder is worse than no co-founder
• Shared history
• Select for determination
• Values first, aptitude second, specific skills
third
• Humble, not entitled

6. Product
• Small number of users that love you
• Retention; frequency of use
• Nothing but a great product will save you;
you can get everything else right and it still
won’t work

7. Getting your first 100 users
• What does “talk to users” actually mean?
• Expect to do this manually. Some ways:
- You email people you already know and ask
them to be customers. Call in your favors and
actually charge for your product.
- You research to find people you think might be
customers and contact them via email, phone
or in person. Conversion rates are low.

8. Getting your first 100 users
• Some more ways:
- Social media outreach, posting to HN, forums,
PR, etc. Look for sustainability.
- Buy ads and point them at your website. This is
the “laziest” technique and usually a bad idea.
- Get over your fear of asking people to buy your
product—sales!

9. Company
• Get to know your users really well
• Short cycle time
• Make a long-term commitment
• Stay lean until everything is working really
well
• The team you build is the company you
build

10. Company
• Relentless execution
• Startups are about not giving up; one of
the companies from the last YC batch got
in on their 7th time applying
• Fiduciary duty to take care of yourself
• Clear mission