Readit NewsSeems like a refined version of her earlier (https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5l-how-not-to-fail), which I think is one of the best checklists of startup advice out there.
Thanks Breck!
I mentioned this before, but I think jl's and pg's essays have been a bit hit-and-miss in the past few years. No doubt due to the fact that YC is no longer a scrappy incubator, but a venerable titan of industry. YC isn't like going to "summer camp" any more, but more akin to getting an MBA.
For example, this quote by Jessica: "A good way to ensure that you make something people want is to make something you yourself want." -- is at odds with the ethos of one of my favorite pg essays (all the way from 2005[1]) in which I feel he really gets to the core of "building what people want:"
> If you want to learn what people want, read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. When a friend recommended this book, I couldn't believe he was serious. But he insisted it was good, so I read it, and he was right. It deals with the most difficult problem in human experience: how to see things from other people's point of view, instead of thinking only of yourself. [...] Most smart people don't do that very well. But adding this ability to raw brainpower is like adding tin to copper. The result is bronze, which is so much harder that it seems a different metal.
I think building things that you want is a bit of a red herring. Every time I'm working on a project that solely solves my problems, the solution tends to be solipsistic and myopic. In any case, jl's essay is a great read, and I really do miss when HN had mostly startup content on the front page :)
"But remember that making something for yourself is just a heuristic to guide you in finding an idea. In the actual execution, you need to focus on users. You need to understand what they want, and be fanatically dedicated to making them happy."
This point aside, I haven't written anything in 2 years, so it's possible I'm out of shape :)
This is a big deal: this is by far the biggest acquisition of a YC startup with a female founder/CEO.
If you want to get an idea of how formidable Tracy Young is, watch her talk at the 2015 Female Founders Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pKR212H5vQ
By the way Jessica, you told me that year that if one of us went public you'd do a keg stand. Just let me know in advance when that's going to happen so I can book a flight :)
Oh shit.
Incidentally, Drew's relationship with the HN community is even older than his relationship with Y Combinator. Two weeks before we interviewed Drew and Arash, Drew posted Dropbox to HN:
I like Dropbox and YCombinator, but this line near the end was odd: "Today is a big milestone for YC. When we launched 13 years ago, we never imagined that a company that we’d funded would one day go public."
Really? What were they doing funding it, then? I hadn't realized that wasn't the original idea at YCombinator.
We thought they'd be successful, but it's very rare for a company to be this successful.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1389494