Why Startup Founders Should Launch Companies Sooner Than They Think

[@chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Coming Up: Founders embarrassed by product launches 00:57 - Why do founders avoid launching companies? 02:17 - Why is it bad to wait? 02:55 - Dangerous Myths: Pop culture knowledge 04:02 - Why first-time founders feel precious about it? 05:07 - Cool thing about YC: Peer Pressure 06:35 - Launch to find the right customers & Love rejection 08:26 - Asking yourself and not upsetting myself 10:59 - You launch and no one uses it 12:07 - Tweaking vs Pivoting 13:16 - How do you break the fear? Focus on the goal 14:19 - Advice for founders in the pre-launch phase 16:46 - Launching too early 17:45 - Early stage YC startups 18:05 - Outro

[@ZacharyBrachmanis]

Just launched my first SaaS and about to launch my second, so this really helps. Thanks guys!

[@jamesclerkmaxwell8020]

There are many VCs that make money but make no impact by keeping their "trade secrets" to themselves. Y Combinator not only makes money, but also makes impact by sharing their knowledge with the outside world...Thank you.

[@george_davituri]

Also sometimes the problem is that i can't dedicate enough time for product cause haven't free time, maybe i need to quit my job and do my thing. It was super interesting point of view, love it: Quotes ''founder often find reasons to launch later because they are afraid'', ''focus on building something 100 people love'', ''when you are super small with the jankiest mvp you should absolutely launch''.

[@ngideo]

Appreciate y'all sharing this advice. As a solo builder who can't quit my job and apply to YC (I'm old and have a family), I can still get a great education on KZbin. Thank you.

[@EdmundCiegoBelize]

You guys were speaking yo my soul. Ive been working on my product for 4 years plus. N now im just like im just gonna start. Then have a full launch later. Thanks guys. This was great

[@ZacharyBrachmanis]

I'm in the same boat, just launched mine after 3 years 🤣

[@EdmundCiegoBelize]

@@ZacharyBrachmanis that's awesome.

[@El_Diablo_12]

10:25 focus on making 100 people love love love your product 10:40 if someone’s willing to pay for a janky simple early version of your product, you know you’re solving a real problem for them 14:50 even big companies start very rudimentary. And if customer’s still engage with you, you might have a hit

[@PayCoinapp]

Not gonna lie I f’d up by not launching yet after over a year, not even because of perfectionism but because I’ve been coding in rather short sporadic increments. Hard to stay fully zoned in without a small office and it sucks working at home and at cafes. No excuses though I’m launching this month, then running full speed.

[@ronaldzhanje4298]

Have you launched yet?

[@mvasa2582]

Some say, "Timing the market is everything," while others argue, "It is impossible to time it." Both perspectives hold truth. While a company like Apple makes headlines with every misstep, a startup often goes unnoticed-like a tree falling in an empty forest. The key takeaway? Don't overburden yourself, striving for perfection in your initial release. Early adopters are generally forgiving. Having worked with two promising startups, I witnessed firsthand the consequences of excessive R&D at the expense of customer acquisition. Despite our products being loved by users and boasting cutting-edge technology, we ultimately lost funding. Today, with the advancements in AI, those startups could have potentially transformed into multi-billion dollar enterprises. The lesson is clear: Launch sooner, learn faster, and adapt. The market rewards those who take calculated risks and prioritize customer engagement over perfection.

[@morten-punnerud_engelstad]

Even Apple don’t launch when they have a “launch”. They give you a demo of the new OS, its then released to developers full of bugs and the actual launch is 6 to 12months later

[@Carl_dev]

They have two launches. At their developer conference in June they release their new developer beta version of iOS and then in September they launch it to the public. Not really 6-12 months, at least for iOS. But to be fair, the .0 release in September is like an extended public beta anyway.

[@HaydenHelin]

That was very helpful. Gave me some confidence to keep going.

[@neugey]

You've got to launch sooner rather than later, because it can take a long time to find early adopters and then attract their attention and time.

[@mariyasamsonova3130]

just joined your VIP group, and I'm already seeing some amazing results. Your insights are truly invaluable!

[@benmukanirwa]

Insightful, thank you!

[@dawidwraga]

I can't express how incredibly true this advice is. I kept stopping myself from launching because I thought the onboarding wasn't ready. The product itself currently doesn't work without me manually going and editing the database. So I waited and kept working and kept working and kept working. It took so long and eventually a colleague at my incubator said just shut up and get someone to try it manually. Go through the onboarding and explain it to them manually set up all of the things that you're currently automating. Just do it's all manually and see what they say. I've just done this for the past few days and oh my God I was so wrong about so many assumptions. I would have spent months building more and more stuff just to find out and wasting all of my time. I'm so so glad that I just went and manually set things up for people in the database instead of trying to make the product fully functional. Even if your product currently doesn't fully work, just make it work by manually changing stuff with the database. It sounds silly, but it's a lot more silly to spend weeks automating something that you're going to delete anyway

[@connorpeters560]

Do you have a link to your company's product or website? I feel the same about onboarding, it could be smoother and better but the product *does* work so I need to just launch.

[@ZacharyBrachmanis]

well at least you figured it out now, you can keep building the right way in the future!

[@InFocus_app]

Thank you for this inspiring video!

[@IhieriMichael]

This is a great watch. I am presently battling with the fear i feel. Product is ready but i am scared to launch

[@athsarafernando]

Incredible ❤

[@900bands]

I watch more Y Combinator videos than I work on my project. (Just kidding!)

[@NaftaliBudamba]

The "Stop Attending Conferences and Work" video for you is stop watching... But I know what you mean

[@yashgupta417]

😂

[@rayaanali3048]

Tell me about your project

[@123246265245]

This could have been an email 😂

[@santiagomartinez8292]

Subject: Launch! Body: Now.

[@HaydenHelin]

Thank you 🙏

[@charleztitanium]

You’ll see my launch soon

[@meceka3337]

Does anyone know what lighting Gary is using? His face is so vibrant and I'm looking something like that.

[@gomini3707]

Yeah like he's got a nice tan.

[@rilwanj]

How do you lot navigate the product marketing, because the biggest I’m seeing to startup failure is no one understanding what you offer?

[@PartialOpinions]

Hopefully everybody watching these videos understands that Y Combinator has a conflict of interest; in that they are investors, so they burn their own cash the longer it takes their portfolio companies to launch. The conflict is in that fact that they participate in the upside, regardless, but very rarely, and to a much lesser extent, share the same downside of a founder, if and when there's a premature launch.

[@wubadubdubbie]

Startups are also burning their own cash the longer it takes them to launch. Sure YC has incentives as well, but they all generally align with the companies they fund, which is good. I think what people get hung up on is that when YC talks about launching, they're not talking about some giant press push to the entire world like you're Facebook or Apple, but rather the process of putting your product into the hands of some amount of people. Whether that be a small subset of users or a larger subset, these are all considered "launches." So what they're really trying to say is... get it into the hands of users so you can start learning from them. Cause for all you know, you're spending all your time trying to perfect some idea you have in your mind, but once you launch, no one wants to use it, and you've wasted so much of your time (a startup's most valuable resource) building something people don't actually want.

[@gomini3707]

Launch quickly is good advice The bad advice that YC insist upon is compulsory co-founders.

[@-Jason-L]

@gomini3707 they PREFER cofounders. It isnt compulsory

[@fanaccount6600]

Fair but the main point made in this vide is valid imo. How are you supposed to know if the product is actually valuable for others if you are sitting behind a desk all the time?

[@PartialOpinions]

My point is that every single piece of "advice" needs to be considered under a microscope of conflict of interest. Founders should be aware that terms like "office hours" are meant to create a power dynamic, and understand that, here, unlike at University, the "professor" can in fact gain financially by giving "advice" that isn't necessarily in the "student's" best interest.

[@dannn2025]

Thanks to this, I’m gonna launch in 1 week time… feel free to ask me how it went in a month time😊

[@jaylalakiya]

9:28 NO IT IS NOT LIKE THATTTTT

[@bot_meditation5587]

I’ve always wanted to go to yc, but base on my life situation I can’t, for me coolemart was always my ❤️… ,

[@MubashirullahD]

But what about that pin app, what was it called humane?

[@MubashirullahD]

Oh wait, humanes own engineer had spoken but was silenced so the whole learn from launch doesn't apply.

[@ZK_33]

What about not knowing yet what to develop and launch during early customer discovery? What about Deeptech products that take time? What about the data of many succesfull companies that took many months, even years before launching publically, eg, OpenAI? I understand the value in launching as soon as you can have something functionnal packaged, but 2 months as a general rule? What if through discovery you decide to change product altogether? What should you do then, cancel the first one? Maintain it?

[@WCMDG]

Launch when you have an MVP. You should do early customer discovery before the MVP. Deep tech products launch all the time, generally to attract investors. OpenAI launched with their vision to do AGI when they started. They were not doing everything in secret all these years. There is not 2 month as general rule. If you find problem that people want to solve and you build an MVP and then pivot, you can always launch again. You can cancel it, just tell your users that you are going to cancel their service after their contract is up.

[@-Jason-L]

If it were me, id look into selling the product to another company We had a unicorn here locally who pivoted 27 times. Each time because they didnt feel it was a billion $ product. Each would have been an excellent lifestyle business.

[@dvs6121]

10:30 YC is remixing "Crossing the Chasm" (by Geoffrey Moore) cuz it's still true. Get those Innovators and Early Adopters and use them to reach the Early Majority.

[@ax_ai]

This advice seems apt for B2C tech-lite startups. Tech-heavy B2B is a different arena.

[@connorpeters560]

Excuses, we're a B2C cybersecurity company and I've used "security" as the excuse to not launch for 12 months. But YC advice is correct, most MVPs can be pretty small and built pretty fast. And if not, is it a skill issue or just too big of an MVP?

[@ax_ai]

​@@connorpeters560 Selling to an enterprise (B2B) cannot be achieved by simply catering to a tiny subset of users within that org. The launch in "6 weeks" mantra is almost never going to work here -- especially when building upon advanced / nascent technologies (e.g. AI).

[@-Jason-L]

Tell yourself theyre different at your own risk, my friend.

[@simplyballing1592]

@@connorpeters560 We need to define what pretty fast actually is: Is it a day? A week? Several weeks? A month?

[@LiberTitle]

that's me, I'm the idiot that hasn't launched

[@implexing]

Same. You’re not alone. Launch within the next 30 days. I will.

[@LiberTitle]

@@implexing Thanks 😁

[@aj1769]

Same 😅

[@benkatz8999]

its been 30 days have you launched yet?

[@implexing]

@@benkatz8999 No. thank you for holding me accountable. I am very close. Are you launching something?

[@Computer-v5e]

I can’t launch cause I need full stack engineer

[@dawidwraga]

@@Computer-v5e then go find a full stack engineer co founder, don't so no code or subcontractors

[@-Jason-L]

Go find a technical cofounder

[@peterbloomingdale]

Been working on my product for 4 years and haven’t launched yet. I have you all beat 😂

[@igorbeaver4692]

Would be great to mention Rabbit R1 launch, as an example of too early and spoiling own reputation because of this

[@-Jason-L]

They may still turn out great. I personally think their product is pointless, just make it an app. Plus their ceo was a scammer to begin with.

[@sergiocayuqueov]

Launch and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Resume Don't watch the video just a waste of time.

[@purawalker2537]

Waiting for developers to build my app.

[@shaneexilhomme9789]

🫡