Updates for Startup School 2019 and Office Hours with Kevin Hale

Kevin Hale is a Partner at YC. Before working at YC he cofounded Wufoo.

Kevin’s on the podcast today to do some Office Hours and talk about this year’s edition of Startup School.

The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.

Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.

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Topics

00:25 - Stats from Startup School 2018

1:45 - Updates for Startup School 2019

8:50 - Sean Maina asks - In the early days of Wufoo, how did you give a great customer experience?

11:30 - Design affordances

13:45 - Sunil Tej asks - How was Wufoo 10x better than the market when they just got started?

17:45 - Building an audience before a product

20:15 - Wufoo's growth

23:30 - Coming up with the idea for Wufoo

27:30 - Companies pivoting during YC

29:00 - Building a product in an unsexy space

32:30 - Sivaraj Ghanesh asks - How do you know if you've achieved product market fit? Or if your product just isn't noticed yet?

43:30 - Sivaraj Ghanesh asks - How do you gauge the size of a market?

46:00 - Tips for Startup School success

50:15 - Advice on vetting cofounders

[ycombinator]

Topics
00:25 - Stats from Startup School 2018
1:45 - Updates for Startup School 2019
8:15 - Sign up at StartupSchool.org
8:50 - Sean Maina asks - In the early days of Wufoo, how did you give a great customer experience?
11:30 - Design affordances
13:45 - Sunil Tej asks - How was Wufoo 10x better than the market when they just got started?
17:45 - Building an audience before a product
20:15 - Wufoo's growth
23:30 - Coming up with the idea for Wufoo
27:30 - Companies pivoting during YC
29:00 - Building a product in an unsexy space
32:30 - Sivaraj Ghanesh asks - How do you know if you've achieved product market fit? Or if your product just isn't noticed yet?
43:30 - Sivaraj Ghanesh asks - How do you gauge the size of a market?
46:00 - Tips for Startup School success
50:15 - Advice on vetting cofounders
53:45 - Sign up at StartupSchool.org

[rohunvora]

I’ve never been more excited for a course in my entire life. Thank you guys so much for providing so much value on YouTube, this content is ridiculously helpful.

[yearcut]

I've so much gratitude for YC. I was blown away by their decision to accept everyone last batch of startup school (after they messed up the acceptance/rejection emails). And now, the new Startup School sounds amazing! I think YC is the most founder friendly startup incubator in the world. No wonder why it's so successful.

[hieunc]

Great changes, sound like Startup School graduates of 2018 should give it a try this year too

[nikolaipaul]

What does "a promising Startup from Startup School" mean? Is it a working MVP? Is it traction? Is it revenue?

[steverecio]

Kevin, you mentioned you had 100, 000 people go through your interface demo. How did you drive those 100, 000 users to your demo page?

[Sondre]

This is great. Good luck Kevin! One suggestion for the videos. Great if they can be paired with a presentation and then an interview. And also that the video is straight to the content. Last year the format had a lot of noise in it

[supersnowva]

Can I please ask where I can find the 18 cities list for Startup school? Are these cities all in the US? Thanks YC! Thanks for helping single founders!

[vallas]

How different Startup School is from Pioneer

[Unknown-ebmr]

How do we get access to the cofounder directory?

[johanhernandez]

After listening 43:57 - 45:10 I'm seriously concerned about my idea, I'd love to send Kevin a one liner email with the idea and expected volume to achieve 100M revenue and he would tell me "that's crazy", "impossible" or "worth trying" so I can pivot to something else. I guess I'll find out in startup school.

[khouse]

You need to change your updates, they don’t apply for your biotech startups :/ we don’t ask customers if we are developing a drug... you ask the payers

[masudhossain]

Kevin dropping that knowledge bomb yet again.

[sumtingwong]

For all us people who do not have the time to know who or what these people do, CAN YOU PLEASE PROVIDE WHAT COMPANY THESE PEOPLE OWN IN THE TITLE!!??? isnt this obvious.

[nikitadubenchuk]

I'm a CRISPR to fix your broken gene😅