Announcing Startup School 2019
blog.ycombinator.com
blog.ycombinator.com
The sum of the whole experience is worth more than the individual parts. It seemed many of the businesses didn't participate much, perhaps because (a guess) they didn't seem much immediate value in things like progress reports or group meetings. (over half my first group and a significant percent of my later combined group didn't participate at all, and almost no one did so consistently)
But, there's an overall effect on your motivation and perspective that I think is important for people that are considering doing this, but aren't certain. It helps you take action (even small amounts can be vital) on important business processes that you wouldn't otherwise focus on.
I treat it like college where you get what you put into it, and it can be a lot.
As a side note, I think it really helped some startups see the reality they were getting into by trying to start their particular business. Maybe good or bad, but reality is a strong motivator to either cut your losses or get busy.
If you have any immediate questions about the course, please do let us know.
I did it last year and it was all heavily focused on "lets catch our next billion dollar unicorn" for our investors. People that don't live for idea "lets move to dream country USA" just waste time while participating. Additionally, Y decided several times to "change the rules" just for the sake of it. They basically can not handle amount of people that have a dream to start something and it all ends up to: 1.) put them in groups, 2.) let them report "progress" to us 3.) let them watch videos.
Granted, there some interesting materials but all of them you can ALREADY find online or in startup/scaleup books that we are all reading and recommending.
My 2c, take it how ever you wanted. For me it was waste of time and quite of bit of irritation around Y. However, met some great folks that were also trying to start something in my group.
You're definitely right that we were scrambling in the last minute to build software and adjust the program to better cater to the large number of companies in 2018.
As Kyle also mentioned in this thread, we spent a lot of time listening to the community and have made quite a few new changes and improvements for 2019 to better support the program at this scale and improve the experience for founders.
We'll also be taking Startup School on the road to meet SUS founders across the globe and will have YC alumni and partners participating in the Forum to help advise.
Last year thousands upon thousands of folks were accidentally accepted into the program, and some things had to change along the way to accommodate that. A syllabus designed for a couple hundred people isn't going to scale to 15,000 without some tweaks.
There's not really a downside to joining startup school. You can leave at any time, if it's not beneficial to your company.
If you're early-stage and looking for a cohort of peers to help you make more progress than you would on your own, I would recommend giving Startup School a shot. It costs nothing, the minimum time commitment is almost zero, and it looks like there's going to be a great community of folks in this batch.
However with this I don't agree: > "There's not really a downside to joining startup school. You can leave at any time, if it's not beneficial to your company."
Downside is: It is a big time sink and I would recommend using that time instead to focus on one only thing that matters -> YOUR IDEA
I found SuS to be more like a framework or a guide for my own work, not an end result in itself. I applied what I learned, not expecting to get much for free, and it was invaluable for me.
Did you participate in ever group meeting? I took notes, asked the other people questions, and this was both instructive and encouraging. Did you watch every video? I did, and learned stuff from hardware businesses I never would have learned just watching videos on software focused discussions.
Most of all, almost everyone speaking really seemed to walk the talk, not just have good theories. The last video (that I recall) was about health, physical and mental, and it was enlightening.
I hope you consider trying again, and look at it from a different perspective.
Yep, they like their unicorns, and I suspect my business will never get funding, but that's not why I participate, it's useful for me to change my perspective. Maybe take on some of the traits of highly successful businesses and apply it to my own.
Just to answer your questions, yes I did watched all videos (also every single one from previous years) and I also participated in every single group meeting. That is the part I liked from my first note where I said I met some smart people and had nice chats.
However, all that I could do (and will continue to do) with random startup groups in my city. and/or online I just don't see any value from Y in that entire process. I was hoping they will at least help in some way to jump start my dream but like I mentioned they focus only on top profit promising startups and especially ones that are US based or willing to move to US because of it.
One odd thing I got out of group meetings was seeing partly where people failed to live up to their own goals. (a bit of a warning to myself)
If what someone is looking for is actual funding, I completely agree that SuS is a waste of time for about 95% (or more?) of the people joining it.
What books are these? The lean startup being one I assume?
Also anyone has any tips on filtering multiple good ideas to finding the best for for startup? Thanks!
I'm in the same boat, I'm going through the resources in the SuS library here: https://www.startupschool.org/library
It's not well suited for funding a solo founder, there's just too much they expect you to do in the 10 weeks of classes.
And it's not suited to help you filter multiple ideas to find the best startup during those 10 weeks. So pick a product and go through process. You'll know if it's the right one before you finish the 10 weeks.
It's really about learning how to "find product market fit" for your idea. What they want to see is your idea being something that people really want and will pay for and you'll learn how to find that out and not spend a lot of your time or cash in the process.
And you'll learn how to setup a corporation that makes it easy for VCs to invest in if you do have product market fit for your idea, and maybe more important, what not to do.
Unless you already know all about that it's worth your time and effort. And getting together with others every week in a group setting all working on those same lessons was great.
But it's not easy. They expect a lot from a team of founders, so going into it solo is a deep dive.
Last year's lectures can also be found in podcast form: http://backtracks.fm/ycombinator/startup-school/feed
Very helpful. We manage to participate for 1/2 of it, and we realised that we needed more work in the inside (product market fit, elaborate a clear value proposition, one liner) than in the outside (marketing and landing pages)
I'm mostly talking about office hours, and forum (not that much youtube playlist). Actual real people caring about what you have to say on camera. Challenging you and giving you the space to get out of your head. Great ressource.
Do not miss it. Doing it again on another level :)
For those who say that SUS isn't helpful, I disagree and say that it is what you put into it. If you actively study the videos, and make an effort, it's a valuable experience. We've used some of the lessons from SUS, and are seeing great results.
I know this is not a support forum for SuS; just curious if any one else is facing problems signing in from multiple machines. I've been at it for the last half an hour or so.
We ran similar chat communities for YCombinator applicants in the last few cycles. It is amazing to see how generous are YC alums and applicants with their time for helping each other.
Give FF some needed love :)
However you decide to continue interacting with the founders you meet is entirely up to you.
See you all!
I have re-applied/'signed up' with my old profile, and it looks like this has submitted the 'old' company. I am going to edit the details of this form on my profile. Will this get reviewed as a new company, or should I create a new profile and thus a new company and apply again?
The curriculum looks interesting, and while I find startups interesting, I don't have any plans to start one anytime soon.
For most of the questions I know what I want to write, but I like to revise my answers over the course of a few days so I can make them more clear and concise.
Looking forward to this! Thank you to everyone at YC and Startup School :)
I’ll always be asking myself “is this the best use of my time right now?”
You can watch the videos at your leisure, or just watch the content that applies best to you and your startup.
Also, I don't recall much about "generating good ideas", it was much more profound than that. I didn't like some of the titles of the videos, until I watched them. Often times the instructions were inspiring, simply because it was real people discussing how they built their businesses. (most of them we have heard of)
Every week we release about an 1 hour of video content for you to watch.
Every week, there are group sessions with other SUS founders for you to talk about your startup. These should be about 30-60 minutes.
We provide discussion questions before your group sessions to give you topics to think about. Between 10-30 minutes of prep depending on how seriously you take it.
If you come to a SUS meetup in person, those are probably 2 hour events.
As you can see, it's probably a max of 2-3 hours a week in regards to time we ask of you. How much time you dedicate to your startup is up to you.
Yes, absolutely! You can re-enroll via the link found on your dashboard or by going here: https://www.startupschool.org/courses/5/register.
We participated last year. When I click on that link it takes me directly to the dashboard. Does it mean we are all set up?
Thanks!
Are historic updates from 2018 for a different product of any relevance now? Can they be deleted not to interfere with the 2019 Startup School?
Edit : I just went through the signup process with this account and I did not come across the personal video requirement. Where did you come across it?
Startup school mods : can you please delete my startup school application, I was testing out the signup flow. Sorry for the trouble.
I still feel bad about taking a spot
Edit: HN status quo decided again that i should be down voted. I guess that means im not welcome at your start up school