A simple summary of Sam Altman's class on "How to Start a Startup." I will be posting 5 startup lectures in total.

1. Lecture 1: Startup Ideas,
Team & Execution.
Summary of Sam Altman's Class on "Ideas, Team & Execution", the full
version can be viewed here:
http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec02/
Website: www.ghacklabs.com Twitter: @GHackLabs Email: luke@ghacklabs.com
1 By: Luke Fitzpatrick

2. Dealing with Burnout
• The canonical advice is to go
on vacation - this doesn't
work.
• What you do, just keep on
going.
• Rely on people.
• The way through burnout is to
address challenges, to
address the things that are
going wrong - and you'll
eventually feel better.
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3. Cofounder
Relationships
• Are the most important
relationships in the
company.
• The number one cause of
early startup death, is
cofounders fighting.
• A lot of people choose
their cofounder with even
less importance than
hiring. Don't do this!
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4. For some reason, students are really bad at
choosing cofounders.
"Hey, I'm looking for a cofounder, we don't
know each other. Let's start a company!"
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5. The ideal cofounder = James Bond.
Cofounders need to be unflappable, tough, they know what to do in every
situation. They act quickly, they're decisive, they're creative, they're ready for
anything.
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6. What works
from YC
experience
• Software people, should start
software companies. Media
people should start media
companies.
• 2-3 people seems to be the
perfect number to start a
startup. One obviously not
great, five really bad, four
sometimes works.
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7. You want to be proud of how much you can
get done with a small number of employees.
Many of the best YC companies had a really small number of employees within
there first year. Sometimes none besides the founders. They really try to stay
small as long as possible.
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8. Airbnb Example
• Spent five months interviewing
their first employee.
• Before they hired a single
person, they wrote down a list
of the culture values that they
wanted every Airbnb
employee to have.
• One of these values was, you
had to "bleed" Air BNB.
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9. Hiring
• The first hires REALLY matter. They define your company.
• If you hire mediocre people, they will KILL your startup.
• Instead, you want people that BELIEVE in it, almost as
much as you do.
• Airbnb: The first 50 employees felt like they were part of
the founding team.
• By having an extremely high hiring bar, by hiring slowly, it
ensures everyone believes in your mission.
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10. Different Startup Modes
= Focus
• Hiring Mode: When you are in hiring mode, it
should be your number one priority to get the best
people.
• Product Mode: When you are in product mode,
your product should be your number one priority.
• Fundraising Mode: When you are in fundraising
mode, fundraising should be your number one
priority.
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11. Advice From YC
Work on a project first with your founders.
Tip: This is one of their application questions.
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12. The Animal Test
• There is a famous test by Paul
Graham, called the Animal
Test. Here's the link: http://
www.paulgraham.com/
start.html
• The idea is you should be able
to describe any employee as
an animal.
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13. YC Views On Equity
• Founders screw this up, all the time.
• As a rough estimate, you should give about ten
percent to your first ten hires.
• Founders are usually very stingy with equity to
employees, but very generous to investors. It
should be the other way around.
• Employees will add more value over time, investors
just write checks.
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14. Fight with investors to reduce
equity, give more to your
team. The most successful
YC startups do this.
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15. Treat Your Team How You Would
Like to be Treated
• When you hire
people, you have
to retain them.
• You have to make
sure your
employees are
happy and feel
valued.
• Praise your team,
give them credit,
give them equity
incentives.
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16. Don't Micromanage
• Give people small areas of responsibility.
• As a first time Founder, be aware that you are going
to be a terrible manager.
• Dan Pink, talks about 3 things that make people do
great work: autonomy, mastery & purpose. Here's
the link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?
v=wdzHgN7_Hs8
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17. Mediocre Founders
Spend a lot of time
talking about grand
plans, but they never
make a decision.
They're a talking about,
I could do this thing, or
I could do that thing.
They go backwards
and forwards but never
act on it.
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18. The Best
Founders
Work on things that seem small, but
they move very quickly.
They get things done really quickly.
If every time you talk to a founder, and
they have gotten things done, it's the
best indicator that they will be
successful.
The best founders, usually respond to
email quickly, make decisions the
most quickly, they're generally quick
in all of these areas.
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19. Facebook's Growth Slowed
• Mark made a Growth Group in 2008. They worked
on small things to make Facebook grow faster.
• All of these things seemed small, but it got the
growth of the company back up.
• It turned around the dynamic of the company. Went
from a place that everyone was feeling bad, and
momentum was gone, back to a place where
everyone was winning.
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