How To Build Product As A Small Startup - Michael Seibel

Y Combinator CEO and Partner Michael Seibel shares a process for building product as a small startup.

Topics
00:00 - Have a process to get product out the door
1:02 - Decide on a release schedule
1:15 - Put someone in charge of product
1:34 - Establish KPIs
1:47 - Create a theme for the product cycle based on a KPI
2:00 - Product meeting
2:30 - Brainstorm new features, bugs, and tests
3:35 - Sort each into: easy, medium, or hard
4:59 - Pick the hards first
5:30 - Spec the ideas out and assign tasks
6:00 - Shut up and get to work
7:00 - Testing

[ycombinator]

00:00 - Have a process to get product out the door
1:02 - Decide on a release schedule
1:15 - Put someone in charge of product
1:34 - Establish KPIs
1:47 - Create a theme for the product cycle based on a KPI
2:00 - Product meeting
2:30 - Brainstorm new features, bugs, and tests
3:35 - Sort each into: easy, medium, or hard
4:59 - Pick the hards first
5:30 - Spec the ideas out and assign tasks
6:00 - Shut up and get to work
7:00 - Testing

[shivandana]

It would be great to see more videos from Michael. He is the reason I have notifications on for the Y Combinator channel.

[SamLoveland]

I love how Michael always qualifies his advice with, "this may not work in your situation." To me, that's the hallmark of genuine mentorship.

[vitaliyhamuha]

Thanks Michael! Btw our method:
1. We defined AREAS of responsibility like product, backend, research etc.
2. We defined a person RESPONSIBLE for each area. That person DO all the job and TAKE any decision he wants in his area.
3. Everyone can and should ADVISE to others.

[ozzyfromspace]

This isn’t gold. It’s platinum. Thank you, this talk was really eye-opening

[asmahabib]

This talk was truly enlightening and exceeded expectations. It's not just gold—it's platinum. Thank you for the invaluable insights.

[bernardlomo]

I watched a video where you talked about this in Startup School 2018. A lot of wisdom from you on this. Thank you Michael. You are a great Guy ❤️💖💖

[_Cartographer_]

How to Get your Product out of the door:
1. Schedule release dates
2. Make someone responsible
3.Establish related KPIs
4. Brainstorming for improving KPIs: Pay specific attention to bugs and do not procrastinate on them.
Garde the generated ideas based on the difficulty of implementation.
First, implement the hard and medium ideas.
==> Write down what is going to be built around the ideas and who is responsible for them.


*Don't talk about ideas outside of meetings. Shut up and get to work.* ==> Have frequent scheduled brainstorming sessions.

[mehmoodsarwar]

Years of knowledge and experience conveyed in a just 8 Minute video.

[CathyJordanGlobal]

I appreciate these tips. I need to get product out the door fast! Thank you 🌹

[Deescizzle]

This is basically agile methodology. It definitely works for small to enterprise organizations. Agile always seemed pretty easy to understand because it's just common sense. I'm glad they tested this approach and it worked for them....it pretty much would work for most organizations. The important thing here is KPIs! Those who are presenting ideas should know what we are trying to measure and if we are accomplishing the goals we want to meet. Otherwise, ideas can get overwhelming and it's almost impossible to measure. Now, as far as testing, I would say what Michael is saying is not scalable at all. Maybe just for the initial stage, but testing automation should be done as new features are rolled out and that's all to it! If you don't have automated testing you will find release cycles getting ridiculously long as you have more test cases. PLEASE, for the love of everything dear, be serious about both Unit Test (dev) and automated tests (Test Eng). :) Love you guys and wish everyone the best of luck! :) Cheers!

[gemini_val]

This is the roadmap to success!
Best advice I've ever heard 👍
Thank you very much!!!

[emmanguyen]

It was exactly how I did to get a $200K+ offer from a full accelerator - completing work within a cycle, an important key metric, count number of users. It came first with content generating and now I have to shift to another version of the product given a better infrastructure. And then count again :)

[kaiok]

"Shut up and get to work"... Jeff Bezos is also very big on this even at the highest level. Bezos' calls it "Disagree, but commit". If you trust the people around you (which you should if you're working with them), if your opinion is not the majority, and they don't place a disproportionate value on your opinion for this matter, it's best to disagree (not settle/fold) but commit to the plan and not hold anything against them if it fails. Bezos said he doesn't want disagreements to end in settling or negotiating, you should keep your conviction unless you see you were wrong, so if two people are VERY confident in their ideas and cannot disagree and commit, it goes to him for a decision. You shouldn't waste time on decisions that probably don't matter much in the long run.

[franklemanschik_de]

One of the Most importent videos on this channel helped me a lot.

[זאבגלברד]

It helps. For example, the brain storming process. The way ideas are treated.

[chayland]

Love this, especially putting all of the ideas up on the board without debating it. I love the objective framework process.

[yellowsnh]

That's valuable. Thanks, Michael. Happy Holidays!

[evarate]

Fantastic video; thanks. It's such a nice change to have real advice given, in a respectful thoughtful manner, compared to the endless sea of big-mouths out there who seek self-promotion without actually contributing something useful.

[NirFeinstein]

Thanks for this practical knowledge. Keep on doing it. I appreciate frameworks for processes that lead to better effects. I like explicit workflows and activities descriptions to model the process.