Tips For Technical Startup Founders | Startup School

[@ramunascepaitis]

I was in a startup that died because choosing tech took over a month and then we spent a few month learning these new 'cool' technologies. Then I built an MVP if my own idea with PHP and javascript in few evenings.

[@EmreSafak]

You're supposed to hire or have people who know the tech stack.

[@LCTesla]

nothing wrong with a more elaborate stack, but you've got to have the expertise upfront, otherwise its usually a waste of effort.

[@ThePandaGuitar]

Good ol' PHP.

[@theworldismine7788]

What do you guys think of Django and Svelte for a startup?

[@ramunascepaitis]

@@theworldismine7788 just as discussed above - doesn't really matter the framework - all of them are more or less decent and save time compared to working with vanilla version. Most important is how the technical co-founder(s) are familiar with it and whether they can achieve results with it rapidly.

[@GeorgiDimitrovX]

Stages 1. Ideating - Build prototype quickly 2. Build an MVP - Do things that don't scale - Create a 90/10 solution - Choose tech for iteration speed 3. Launched - Quickly iterate with hard & soft data - Continuously launch - Balance building vs fixing Takeaway: Startups move quickly.

[@elijahcannon2863]

I am in the MVP stage. I’ve been taking to all of my 20 something users and I just need to move quickly. This is GOLD, thank you Diana Hu! Exactly the lecture I needed to hear. 🚀

[@mahamatadoum9061]

same here, building a fintech startup, good luck!

[@adekanbioluwaseun219]

Oh nice Elijah, I am a product manager and can be of help. What are you building?

[@saitaro]

How's your startup going?

[@elijahcannon2863]

@@saitaro I took a 5 month break from this project but I returned to it recently and just this week I made a lot of progress on the development of the product!

[@chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Intro 00:09 - How to Build and Perpetuate as a Technical Founder 01:56 - What Does a Technical Founder Do? 04:38 - How To Build 08:30 - Build an MVP: The Startup Process 11:29 - Principles for Building Your MVP 15:04 - Choose the Tech Stack That Makes Sense for Your Startup 19:43 - What Happens In The Launch Stage? 22:43 - When You Launch: The Right Way to Build Tech 25:36 - How the role evolved from ideating to hiring 26:51 - Summary 27:59 - Outro

[@lecoleadstefnum]

Took me hours to finish watching this. I was writing a blog post on it as I was watching. thanks Diana and YC.

[@karanprasad1632]

Could you please share the link to your post?

[@rileyknox5034]

Very nice to see someone who actually understands the difference between SW and HW/deeptech and speaks to them differently. So many of these YC videos only talk about SW and the challenges faced there.

[@theimproooooooover]

Yep, HW and deep tech =/= SW

[@frogiwthoutahat]

Diana held a session with women in tech at USC. She's awesome! Thanks Diana

[@lvhise]

That was amazing inspiration! I've been stuck so long behind the idea of building the perfect product from the beginning, I haven't even started. Here I go!

[@mahamatadoum9061]

Thanks for sharing Diana. I am building a fintech startup, I'm a solo technical founder, it's hard to build just an MVP, because of the regulation and laws in fintech industry.

[@BhaveshKakwani]

She did give the example of Stripe’s Mvp, how they were basically doing transactions manually on the backend

[@exmachina767]

If I were in your position I would try to find a cofounder, either 1) someone who’s technical, if you’re savvy in the fintech industry and can take charge of the business side, or 2) someone who’s business savvy and can navigate the fintech world, while you take care of the tech side. I’m from Mexico and I’ve seen a few fintech startups that are doing well here, and in pretty much all of them there was someone who was savvy about the fintech industry (or at least knew the financial sector well enough to know what mattered and how to navigate the waters)

[@mahamatadoum9061]

@@exmachina767 thanks a lot for the advices. After interviewing 7 technical founders, I selected a senior engineer at Amazon that working on the payment system. I am technical too by the way.

[@jamaineruiters7643]

This is such great advise as I think as human beings we tend to want to present the perfect product instead of just a functional product then iterate.

[@devinetradable9669]

This is exactly what is needed right now as an aspiring startup founder

[@habibi750]

I needed to hear this. I want to launch a prototype but keep thinking it needs to be 80% developed.

[@SuperNovaJinckUFO]

This was very useful and informative! I hope we can see more content from YC pertaining specifically to the process of product development. My friend and I are working together on a project, and we both have technical expertise, so we're very much splitting the product dev work 50-50

[@suryapratap3622]

it just changes my mind towards past product mistakes, really good insights.

[@goodjihad]

Loving this new series! Can we have a non-tech founder video?

[@mouldibziou998]

Great content as always! Can we have a video for non technical founders ?

[@arshak8036]

Great vid, I built my first webapp in PHP when I was 13 and remember it was just so easy everything made sense & I could build & deploy stuff with like pretty much no money and so fast, now I’m getting back into coding for a new app and that meme made so much sense having gone through the messy middle stage learning modern web dev frameworks and now considering just continuing my MVP in PHP before I’ve gone too deep into the new frameworks that scale but are new for me.

[@mosesnandi]

Vanilla technologies - HTML, CSS, JS, PHP and MySQL just work. No need for over-engineering…

[@astralhealthandwellness]

Thank you so much for this information. Start-Up School has given me so much beneficial knowledge for free, truly you guys are an amazing company.

[@mmaaaxxxxx]

There's something I just cannot understand. Everybody says don't overbuild, yet when we show MVPs to customers, they reject them as being underbuilt. Even the customers who are more early-adopterish, they refuse to pay for underbuilt software. And we can't get thorough user study as the customers won't commit resources.

[@tomasobuscema8428]

In fact, MVP is just bullshit (but do not tell YC....)

[@kipsangaaraplimo1442]

Mvp to them us always a complete product that hasn't morphed to accommodate customer feedback

[@mrdookiezookie265]

had same experience to what you mentioned here

[@mukulnamagiri8160]

it is a cultural aspect of this as well man to it depends on where you live if u are living in europe and asia people are unlikely to try new stuff they believe in old stuff but if you are in like america or developed cities like london people are more likely to try stuff out but for regular folks america is best so we get all the big companies almost all of them from silicon valley

[@volodymyrburtasov8603]

Possible causes: 1. Your understanding who is your early adopter is wrong 2. Your MVP is not a MVP. It should have all must-have features and perform main function of your product. 3. Your MVP should cover some of users desired outcomes better then all other solutions

[@sidharthsahni]

i'm done with the prototype and partner is showing to potential customers to get feedback. Was really stuck what to do rn. was planning mvp and thought would start after this and that. then saw this gold :chef_kiss: starting now... back to my cave XD

[@buzz1ebee]

Great video. Very true that by the time you need to really scale in a big way you can afford to spend the time to do it. Spending a year mucking about making an expensive scalable product that no one wants to use is a complete waste of time.

[@sakchais]

This is truth right here. “Comfortable with chaos”

[@JackMthembu]

This is insane… I love every bit of the video… So practical… Thanks 🙏🏾

[@techietoons]

I keep coming back to this video.

[@SheetanshuShekhar]

Loved this talk. Especially the bit on choosing the tech stack. I think this was really something other talks were missing.

[@dharaypm]

as a tech person, whats the best way to find co founders?

[@takshbamboli8129]

Learn business stuff

[@icarusachilles6777]

I loved this video because I'm not even into Tech. I'm a writer, but your insight gave me a new perspective on formatting a project. Thank you!

[@omarnomad]

Where's the Spotify Podcast :(

[@MrC0MPUT3R]

Commenting before watching the video: I'm looking to be a technical founder, but what I've seen is that most non-technical founders just want someone to build their app for them. That doesn't fly with me. I want an equal partnership with just as much input into the business side as I expect input into the tech portion from my co-founder. My day job is way to comfortable to give it up to build your product.

[@MrC0MPUT3R]

lmao it was the first thing she said

[@marcuss.abildskov7175]

What are you trying to build?

[@JetSoftProHQ]

Hiring at the MVP stage can indeed pose challenges and slow down progress, and we appreciate you shedding light on this aspect. However, it's important to acknowledge that there are situations where tech founders require additional support and expertise to handle tasks efficiently. In such cases, outsourcing or outstaffing can be a fantastic solution. By engaging a skilled team for a specific period, you gain flexibility without the commitment of full-time employees. It allows you to focus on your core tasks while ensuring essential work is completed by experts.

[@jajajajam]

Great vid! I often bash Rails and MVP frameworks over k8s and microservices but maybe I should consider the situation first 🤔

[@je9625]

You should. Rails rules.

[@exmachina767]

I guess the takeaway is that the best engineering in the world won’t matter if you build the wrong product and you only have so much time to discover what that product is before you run out of money

[@GabrielSestrem]

15:10 NextJS, Vercel, Supabase. Iteration speed 🚀

[@amey7064]

What is the font used in headers of the presentation that the speaker is using in the video?

[@jessejames6216]

This is so helpful and I've even watched it before but I wasn't listening 🎧 the way I am now because I wasn't there yet so the content wasn't relevant and I've made these mistakes this is exactly 💯 what I need and I needed today so 💓💓💓 much appreciated 😌🎉

[@pratikgaikwad7405]

We also want tips for non tech founders and how to build as a non technical founder?

[@peterbloomingdale]

In my experience, the best advise for non-technical founders trying to build a product, is to become technical yourself. Trying to find a technical co-founder that is passionate about your business idea just as much as you is highly unlikely. Design the product yourself using Figma. Dev shops are usually a trap, but they can sometimes be helpful. Use KZbin/ChatGPT as much as possible to assist with the development. Coursera is great for learning to code for free. Hiring part-time hourly based developers to help you when you get stuck. This is what has helped me as a non-technical founder that turned technical.

[@bhaskaruprety230]

A quick and easy solution is to find a technical co-founder 😂

[@Snowy123]

What about for non-technical founders?

[@bananesalee7086]

this jacket seem very popular amongst san francisco tech people, what brand is it ?

[@microto]

what a great video! thank you to much for sharing. I think that people scale team too fast and overbuild all the time.

[@adekanbioluwaseun219]

Absolutely agree! Do you have any idea of startup communities I can be a part of, where things like this are taught?

[@lagcisco]

fantastic video and insights. choose for iteration speed in the startup context is great advice.

[@rira12621]

Feels like some of those are problematic for devtools companies. I mean if you're building something for engineers, will they be ok to pay for imperfections or just go "well i could build this myself" for which engineers have a tendency already :D

[@timlmit]

Thanks Diana

[@hus1991]

I really needed this. Husain from Oman.

[@tungvu4339]

The speaker is really down-to-earth.

[@posthocprior]

I’m a technical founder. Was hoping for insights. Instead, the video is, essentially, a summary of broad ideas that are often repeated, for founders of all types, in Silicon Valley. What would have helped:’how technical founders efficiently solved problems that are common. That is, case studies from YC that could be broadly applied.

[@OskarD90]

The large majority of technical founders are still making these mistakes, and their target viewers with these videos are people who don't have the experience to understand this. I think this video will do a huge service to the startup ecosystem as a whole. Would be valuable to share the things you mentioned as well, of course. But it wouldn't be practical for most people viewing this video

[@posthocprior]

@@OskarD90 Am not sure how you've reached the conclusion that my point is 1) in the distinct minority 2) repetition of easily available material and points is necessary. I'm the obvious counterexample. The question is if YC has data that can validate that repeating the same points, made elsewhere and at YC, are more worthwhile than, for instance, the point I made.

[@markjackson8181]

where have you found good insights?

[@posthocprior]

@@markjackson8181 Talking to other technical founders. The answers I get, to my questions, are very different from what the videos I've watched, on YC's KZbin channel, on most topics. (Can provide an example or two if you ask.)

[@markjackson8181]

@@posthocprior please do. additionally, may I ask how did you build this network signed a tech founder in progress

[@Videos-ml1ny]

Great presentation Diana! Cheers

[@Marshall86MT]

These video are super inspiring and give a lot of great insights. Thanks for sharing! I have a question, I'm a web developer that works full time for a company, so no much time left during the week.. Would you consider "bad" starting an MVP using a CMS like Wordpress just to get the attention of some users and present the project to some potential investors? once the funds would come in, the all project would be done properly. Thanks to anyone who will reply

[@exmachina767]

No, not bad at all. That’s exactly the point she made with “prototype quickly in a matter of days or weeks”. At that stage you’re just trying to figure out if your ideas resonate with users (i.e., are you after an actual problem?)

[@3obby]

I love this content and am really thankful for it.

[@arman.assadi]

MORE Diana please! 👏

[@nbhhcghgfyg]

How about non technical founder??

[@banksofbarcelona3893]

It was an intense battle between what she was saying and how she looked. Glad they both won

[@vinodrajj]

What is MVP

[@ephreyilunga6360]

Minimal Viable Product

[@vinodrajj]

@@ephreyilunga6360 thank you for answering 😊

[@startup-streak]

You could've googled it. Move fast! jk

[@cajotafer]

Yep, I am feeling the heat of the technical debt 😂

[@senju31]

same

[@tech3425]

Does this mean I should write dirty code?

[@exmachina767]

It means that, in the beginning, you should prioritize discovering actual problems your users have and a product that solves them over excellent engineering. Because the best engineering in the world will be worth nothing if you don’t find product-market fit before you run out money.

[@sugebzzy2038]

This was great. THANK YOU

[@jessexing3456]

startups move quickly!

[@Julianerdoedy]

this is beautiful, thanks!

[@jdtransformation]

Great content as usual, BUT… Would be so appreciated if more of these resources were aligned for hardware and deep tech plays.

[@VuLuuPsy]

Thank you so much!

[@joelee5682]

Awesome sharing , really helps

[@mlntdtechbae]

This is great, thanks!

[@eliastouil7686]

Thank you 🙏🏽

[@alex-golovin]

Very helpful!!

[@anakie9660]

This was helpful❤‍🔥

[@UduakEssien-fn5vm]

Love this, thank you

[@fangcui6286]

Love this video!

[@anuwatsongkarn1443]

How about Tips For Non Technical Startup Founders ?

[@Friday4]

Thanks

[@koustubhavachat]

Amazing video...

[@pankaj16octdogra]

Superb

[@wandilekhumalo7062]

Inspirational😮

[@eronmonseleoaikhina5832]

Great Video

[@casinarro]

Angela Yu has so similar accent ❤

[@genyklemberg]

What if we are family business?😅

[@CharleswoodSpudzyofficial]

Ok so to be successful you need to build software in about 15 seconds that users will pay for. EZ

[@Gigachadjoker]

Love how everyone at Y Combinator are midwit meme connoisseurs

[@uzisyed2852]

This is been great advice. Thanks. On a side note, the glasses you are wearing are no good as they kept sliding of the nose.

[@beschterrowley3749]

listening carefully, plenty of mixed messages in here, poor signal .. kinda dumb

[@nanay3000]

So, basically find someone that is willing to work with you for free in the begening ?

[@exmachina767]

Huh?

[@razorr1920]

"CV to run on mobile phones was harder tech" Really!! Kids are doing it for fun nowadays without even blipping a beat. In spite of all the hulla hoo around the foundership stuff, I still see it a wicked game of smiling faces and lots of farces.

[@TitusAugust-l6n]

Garcia Jessica Harris Eric Smith Timothy

[@fannyfanny1524]

Loura kaoo

[@IggySpolsky]

Cool

[@TheBlackManMythLegend]

No I thank you.

[@sky_ridan]

I can't appreciate this video more..the yc content has always been good. But this time it's even beautiful 😍

[@miranashussain7534]

Diana who?

[@BigBrother04]

Diana who? 😂😂😂 good talk 😂

[@ErnestoSun]

Quick, fast, ... time is money ... and then ... where is the susyainable quality? Who cares. Money!

[@exmachina767]

You can improve your product once you’ve proven product-market fit (i.e., once you’ve proven there’s a market that’s willing to buy your product). The thing is, that product is often the result of many feedback iterations after initial launch. If you do it backwards, it’s more likely than not you will find yourself with great engineering that serves no customers. That’s the point repeated over and over again at YC.

[@saidmuminrahmatov5451]

We need a video about Non- Technical founder/CEO for tech startup!!! @ycombinator

[@michaelmontero2902]

I spent like two months working on an mvp and making onboarding and that kind of things 🥲 know I realize I just could call one of my customer, request the initial data and bring him the actual service he needs and start testing and validating the idea base on that 🥲

[@zayyanusmani5360]

Diana who?