Why now? The key to million dollar startup ideas

As you think about whether you want to work on or at a startup, I want you to ask what great investors ask themselves all the time: WHY NOW?

00:00 Why now?
00:45 New Technology
04:45 New Behavior
08:13 New Regulation
14:16 The Three Why Nows

I’m Garry Tan, venture capitalist and founder at Initialized Capital. We were earliest investors in billion dollar startups like Coinbase and Instacart, and I’m a Forbes Midas List Top 100 venture capitalist in the world. We want these videos to be about helping people build world-class teams and startups that touch a billion people. Our startups have gone on to create more than $200 billion in market value so far, and Initialized has over $3.2B in assets under management.

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[jogihann]

Thought I’d share a memory your video unearthed from the lost depths of my brain’s memory. Funny enough, I wrote an article in my sophomore year of college on this exact topic, despite never having read a single book on startup culture. This was when I first started dabbling in technology-oriented entrepreneurship (startups). I might not have known about product-market fit or structuring a company to raise money, but the fundamentals came naturally to me just as they come naturally to many who study science. Anyways, I titled the article, “Why Physicists Make Great Entrepreneurs.” When you work with various orders of magnitude for an extended period of time, you program yourself to think in orders of magnitude. If you’re finding yourself having to combine various marginal improvements to convince people your product is better, you’re probably doing it wrong. Cheers!

[anandsheth]

Great video Garry! I applied to YC a couple of years back...but I realize that I did not share the "big" idea that will change the future of professionals. Call it Imposter Syndrome, call it "No one will take it seriously cause it is a massive shift to an old tech" - whatever the reason...my mistake. A couple of years in, I am excited cause I did not give up on the idea...bootstrapped it and raised a small angel round. It is going well. Now I need to raise bigger $. It's time to put fuel on the fire. Your video reminded me that I need to be better at telling loudly about the game-changing aspect of what we are up to. Would love to connect with you - if interested.

[esmeralddedushaj]

Add on top that: availability of talent, access to funding and a market ripe for innovation, access to eager consumers, where today's consumers are more open to new ideas and funders are more open to new ways of doing and solving things, there's has never been a better time than to build a Startup and solve the problems, the world is throwing at us.
Great video as always, Garry!

[Kevtf]

I love your inclusion of government in startup ideas. It's a big part of my background for a startup in this space and also applying to yc!

[AIAdoption]

Garry, you are an amazing person who genuinely wants to help entrepreneurs and make a greater impact in society. You have a heart for giving back, and your passion for helping others is evident in everything you do. Thank you for being an inspiration to us all!

[isaacmorris]

Every financial goal requires patience, dedication and consistent spirit knowing that investment is currently the most lucrative business in the world, both NFT, real estate and Crypto shares are really positively changing people's lives.

[buenobomb]

Great video. I'm working on Homelessness in California. Appreciate these videos!

[mustaqimkhan]

Each of your videos are as worthy of reading a book! Just watching these are helping me to learn so much! Thanks for creating such informative and helpful contents!!

[nicolasconnor]

I'm joining my first startup backed by Peter Thiel next week as a developer. Garry really sparked my interest in the world of startups which is one of the reasons I'm doing this jump. I'm beyond excited 😆

[sommjes]

this video is perfectly timed for our startup. The Apoorva clip helped me articulate our ‘why now’ (behavior change) related to our thesis of async video powering the future of learning and development for hybrid organizations.

Stay on this mission of encouraging founders, Gary!! 🙏🏾

[joeingram]

Incredible video, thank you very much

[BennyRubanov]

As always, the presentation, the passion, and the informativeness elements of these videos are phenomenal. Thanks Garry!!

[chawaphiri]

I am a medical student. I am hopefully graduating this year. I know how to code a bit but I plan to absolutely be obsessed with coding and machine learning once school closes. I hope I will come up with a startup or work with a great start up in medicine

[SethWieder]

This channel is a wealth of insights. Thank you!

[privateequityguy]

3 Sales Tips (REALLY good ones)

1. Always say: this may not be for you.
2. Ask them why they think the product is a fit - asking this they might start telling themselves why they want it
3. Ask the prospect why they booked the call and why now is the good time to get started

[sivsoto]

You are amazing, you Have the power of encourage us to start a start up!!! Thaks a lot!!

[jaredbeckwith]

Starting my healthcare startup has been a great journey. In seed stage now!

[bluepunkrocker]

Thank you for the videos! I'm just starting my journey into a new startup and these and all the YC content has been a life changer ✨️! These videos act as a compass in where my mind should be steering

[jeffheiner]

Hi you have great insight on how to organize the changes.
Its really hard to see when you are in the trees.
So many things have been technology before its time.

That has been the failure of many inventions.
thank you for helping me understand that.

[Shah_Khan]

Refreshing and reigniting my startup why's.