The Secrets To Setting Smarter Goals

If you're looking to maximize your startup's potential, start by setting the right goals. Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell provide tips and strategies for setting goals that will help keep you and your new business focused on success-plus provide examples of bad goals to avoid as a startup.
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Work at a Startup: yc.link/DandM-jobs
Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Intro
00:17 - Setting Goals: The Stupid Games
01:18 - What's a Too Aggressive Goal?
03:35 - What are the Fake Metrics?
05:43 - Stupid Comparatives
08:03 - What is Sandbagging?
09:39 - Why People Screw Up Accomplishing Goals
11:25 - Take The L
12:41 - Excuses
14:29 - Stupid Prizes Companies Win
14:48 - Most Money Raised
16:16 - Most Employees
17:45 - Execution Team
19:33 - Burning Money
21:07 - Acquiring Companies
22:22 - What's the Prizes for Defrauding Your Customers?
24:11 - Become an Amazing Investor

[@ycombinator]

What's one of your goals for the next week?

[@ghulamurtaza_]

10% revenue growth week on week

[@expertociber]

Wrapping up part of our new MVP

[@yvanenko]

Changing up part of our MVP based on some customer feedback

[@bishop1241]

100k app downloads and hiring another 10 people to convince the investors that we are a great startup so they give us $100m in the seed round. Yes, I am learning from your videos. See you guys at S25 batch

[@justicarjoshua]

Finalizing our MVP specs

[@luishyunwookkang3502]

Thank you for making this video. I’m enjoying your series as a startup founder. If I can give just a piece of feedback, I often notice that both of you are making a joke of poor founders rather than giving the advice that how to get it, how to achieve it with some concrete examples. For instance, in this video, I opened up this video with an expectation that I can get some insights about how to set a goal well. However, all I have been told is the common mistakes or poor founder stories which I’m not doing or I’m not that interested. I’d be grateful if I can listen to some stories about the best cases that I can admire and follow instead of jokes about poor founders. Nevertheless, I’m learning a lot from your content and really appreciate it.

[@aaronbell5994]

Yeah, true. I expected some positive examples/guidelines.

[@asdfljasdfaklsd1910]

Respectfully, I really disagree. The world is full of success stories. Successful people love to talk about their successes and writer love to write about them. There is not enough insight about failure. If you want success stories, there are plenty out there. This channel is one of few places to provide something else. The reason they do so is because you can’t succeed in startups by imitating startups. Personally, ive found that the challenges are so complex and business-specific that the best advice is reminding you of basic ideas and providing examples of what not to do. That’s what this channel is for in my observation

[@LoopsZ]

I agree but I also think a lot can be learned and pulled from the video by the Anti-Role Model principles/Inversion thinking.

[@luishyunwookkang3502]

Thanks for your replies above. What I have been meaning to say is that although both speakers are very insightful, I think they often make fun of startup founders, which sometimes looks a bit disrespectful. Startup is where only a few great companies or founders can succeed, which means of course there are tons of unsuccessful founders and companies. If we make jokes of them, it’ll be endless. Moreover, of course successful people talk a lot but they don’t talk about specific topics or specific agendas with some practical and pragmatic tips and know-hows. They only know of their own experience and don’t have enough cases to generalise it. That’s where Y-Combinator can shine. They have seen a number of great cases and can compose them as some lessons and methodologies, which is my expectation for this series. Anyway, really appreciate that I can learn their insights for free.

[@paulmeagher]

I agree they lean on sarcasm A LOT. E.g. you are meant to infer the advice is the opposite of what they are saying because they are laughing at the CLEARLY stupid thing the founder currently does. Problem is, until you learn you probably don’t know the mistake you are making is laughable

[@benholmquist3589]

What's nice about these videos is: being a founder is hard and things aren't going great this week, this month etc., but it's nice to realize people are making mistakes left and right that you AREN'T making, thank god, and things could be worse. And laughing about some of the problems we've all faced and learned to get through. To be honest these vids just make me feel a little better out in founder island. Thanks guys!

[@meterfeeder]

I wonder how many founders are like, "That's not me"

[@TosinSeyi]

Nobody feels convenient taking responsibility for failure

[@leadfieldhockey]

Not me!

[@ij9375]

Number 2 is literally me 😂

[@iaccesssllc]

All of them!

[@MansaKimani]

Gems For Startup Founder Like Me. Hard Truth Always Hits Different

[@Polapola23]

Luv the sarcasm. I’m finding these vid more fun than other vids dedicated to entertaining us.

[@melissaviolin4050]

Man, I love these videos so much. In a short amount of time, they've really helped me positively restructure my business for success in both the short term as a small business, and hopefully in the long term with the software I'm currently developing. Thank you for the inspiration and wisdom! With just these videos alone, you've helped me reach and set better goals. I always look forward to them!

[@Withlindaandrews]

Thank you! Good goal setting is a journey. It’s a matter of doing it and keep getting better. I think I’ve done all the pitfalls! Also the startup school dashboard was a wake up call for how much I lie to myself! Love your guys convos. Inspiring, intelligent and fun.

[@michaeljtbusch4321]

I love watching your advice but I feel you’ve leveled up your game with this one! Might be me being further along or me being german, either way - vielen Dank!

[@douglachman7330]

This video is a great way to educate founders in a thinking manner. Perspectives and lessons from history based on real experiences by these educators. Well done!

[@cory99998]

In my opinion I think a lot of these problems are solved if you can really see the change you want to bring about and understand at an intimate level the value you bring to the end user. I've had more ideas that don't fit this criteria than do, and when you have an idea that doesn't clearly create value, you work so hard to make it viable in any way you can imagine. And tbh I have no idea how you sort the good ideas from the bad ones without trying many ideas out over many years allowing you to see the patterns and level of insight that comes with your best ideas of the bunch. When you truly know the value you want to create / the change you want to bring about, I think achieving that MVP and then steering the ship post release becomes a much less daunting task. My two best ideas have been a race to the finish line because I believe in it so deeply and don't want unnecessary obstructions.

[@grammar_shark]

Another amazing video.

[@machapuis]

I enjoy these video series so much. They are as pleasing as a warm cup of cocoa without the added calories.

[@user-ll9gd4fs7x]

Holy Moly --- Not a single word wasted. Thanks!

[@MrMajani]

With my current startup, I made the mistake of thinking we were going to blow up on day one. We did get a couple hundred users on day one, but they reported so many bugs. It's been 11 months now of fixing the bugs users report

[@SpiritsBB]

So what happened during the 11 months? Low ratings from all the reported bugs?

[@adityarai6611]

I have heard about sandbagging in Motorsports. Teams add weight to cars to fool the competitors and hide their real performance usually during practise round. So they can perform better in the race.

[@RojaySuccessful]

this is GOLD

[@solothebest1]

“Working on the hardest problem in the company” That’s how goals should be based upon.

[@caiocastro2221]

The most significant video i’ve seen in a long time

[@characarosandi1589]

I typically love your content and still love the topic being discussed here. That said, for some reason, for a good portion of this video, both Brian & Dalton just seemed so stuck up and as though they're laughing down at people who make these mistakes. Dunno what makes this one diff from the others. There are other videos from Y Combinator and these 2 where they sorta do this as well and it's never an issue for me it seems, but for some reason something came across a bit off on this vid. Again, i know they dont intend to do that at all, for sure, but it sorta came across as such this time around. In any case, I agree with everything you guys said and still love the content on this channel, just think how the content is communicated can be a bit better in this particular case as people can perceive things differently. Will defs come back for more great advice tho!

[@SpiritsBB]

Your approach and your wording is way too nice. I would put it this way: the guy in the left is a nobody who talks down at others. The guy on the right lucked out early on but have no real skills other than money that people with skills want.

[@KazzyOfficial]

Legends

[@annemurray4480]

If only Elizabeth Holmes had been a Y Combinator subscriber. Seriously. 😜

[@sherrysyed]

How do i scale the learnings I am gaining from this video? I wish to know before I press play.

[@franzsiasat3033]

What podcast software do you use for these videos? Riverside?

[@Entrepreneur_in_progress]

It is actually rather simple. When you are in the early stage of finding product market fit, your only goal is to get a product that customers are willing to pay for. Focus on product building and talking to customers, those are the only two things that matter. You should only spend money if it can help you on the two points. Once you get product market fit, then focus on building a company that scales with people and processes. That implies building the right culture and hiring the right people to build the teams and processes. Once you have a product that works and a company that grows, money, status, M&A, and the executive team, will come to you as a by-product of your product and company's success. But who wasn't once 22 and hungry to sit at the adults' table and be recognized? Only a few can hold their inner horse set themselves straight and keep the right focus.

[@ManiDoraisamy-GDE]

What amazing advice! It would be funnier if it wasn't so true. Founding a startup requires intellectual honesty to strike a balance - if founders are too optimistic, they will set fake goals and deceive themselves, but if they are too pessimistic, they will be deterred by the fact that only 5% of startups survive.

[@raybenjaminkiekel2854]

I've always heard it said that the term sandbagging comes from drag racing, where people would put sand bags in their trunk to make the car seem slower than they are during the real race. Another form of deception.

[@Lionsgala]

My biggest goal right now for the NFT brand /project is getting a product retail shelves

[@mus3equal]

Listen to advice, do what works for me, its a framework not a NIST standard. Thanks for helping the wheels turn, still kicking off rust.

[@cphrase]

Great advice. Thanks for putting these discussions together.

[@AmorosoGombe]

The most employees one. And people forget, managing people is a real headache as well.

[@louis3195]

Michael is definitely a Naval follower :p. Similar language

[@pokegan52]

These are incredibly helpful thanks guys looking forward to sending our app in again for next round

[@mikewang6955]

I drink coffee in an ember mug so I'm basically Michael Seibel. Where all the investors at holla at me

[@Nikita-hd7tw]

Great stuff! 🙏

[@Withlindaandrews]

Goal for the next week: send thank you’s to 2022 event partners and invite them into strategic partnering for 2023 with new wellness tech platform rollout.

[@varunvummadi350]

This series has the best videos YC channel this advice helps a lot startup founders thanks a lot for the great content

[@Cardia91]

Thank you for this Michael and Dalton! Relating to goals, I’ve certainly been aiming too high, resulting in often disappointment. This upload was gold, thanks again!

[@lofiprince7883]

Insightful discussion. Thank you guys

[@sherrysyed]

I just got into a relationship. How might I scale this?

[@sherrysyed]

Would the purchase of tangible scales help ?

[@Lionsgala]

And no I don't believe product is going to immediately takeoff that's not the point. The point is to prove to our community particularly our holders that building and brand using nfts is possible

[@rinogo1]

What the bass drum?!

[@v7alp]

What may be the success matrices for a manufacturing company?

[@TommyBoy8771]

I think that is a question for you, as the founder

[@asdfljasdfaklsd1910]

Profits

[@chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Intro 00:17 - Setting Goals: The Stupid Games 01:18 - What's a Too Aggressive Goal? 03:35 - What are the Fake Metrics? 05:43 - Stupid Comparatives 08:03 - What is Sandbagging? 09:39 - Why People Screw Up Accomplishing Goals 11:25 - Take The L 12:41 - Excuses 14:29 - Stupid Prizes Companies Win 14:48 - Most Money Raised 16:16 - Most Employees 17:45 - Execution Team 19:33 - Burning Money 21:07 - Acquiring Companies 22:22 - What's the Prizes for Defrauding Your Customers? 24:11 - Become an Amazing Investor 28:03 - Getting Good at Goal Setting

[@Okeh_Emmanuel]

You guys always have a way of bringing back founders to "level-reality "

[@isagiyoichi5207]

I had been waiting so long for the next episode

[@1val]

Good luck guys, feeling amazing about what I'm currently working on!

[@aidanleather]

Love it

[@createdbykoko]

I fucken love these videos

[@raphaelpousse1624]

Lead by examples, not sarcasm 😜

[@yeeitmete]

11:10

[@scootjimenez9826]

why would anyone want to be a start up founder, why not start a pressure washing business and be profitable in a week

[@techronin_]

How to care for your Ferrari 😂 hahahhahaha

[@exponent42]

21:58 😂

[@davidlpz22]

Honestly these videos give good insight but Michael’s laugh every 30 seconds is obnoxious.

[@muditasuryawanshi9579]

✨

[@Globaliindex]

nothing, just show 'bhagwa flag in the thumbnail so Stop to say "Jai Shree Ram 🙏🏻" 🇮🇳

[@douglachman7330]

The cringe is reading the auto text mistakes.

[@sagargupta119]

Bhagwa flag , ab to y combinatator bhi sanghi nikla🤣. 🚩🚩🚩

[@kelvinedionwe]

Please what's the L?

[@Jackothy]

L = loss, or defeat

[@shivampathak1371]

First One here, Hey Michael and Dalton

[@keyhanasghari]

Your videos are very helpful and thanks for providing them for free. I think founders like me will learn and be motivated more if we find out that other people have also done similar stupid mistakes. However your attitude seems arrogant and taunting, and I think that part's not necessary.

[@swa_rup]

1st

[@Gtex555]

Great points but too much virtue signaling , we all know companies can go a long way with false indicators of success , the issue here is you are strawmanning and laughing at anything you don't like.

[@VoltHaul]

27:48 people should really read "What you do is who you are" about this whole topic