Learn how to start a startup with YC’s free 10-week course. A series of lectures and conversations with YC Partners, startup founders, and experts on how to start a successful company.
Parting Advice by Geoff Ralston
YC President Geoff Ralston concludes Startup School this year with some parting advice, as founders continue on their journey to make something people want.
9/25/2019 • 15 minutes, 22 seconds
Startup School 2019 by the Numbers by Kevin Hale and Adora Cheung
YC Partners Adora Cheung and Kevin Hale reflect on Startup School 2019 and share some of our learnings from this year's program.
9/25/2019 • 24 minutes, 29 seconds
How to Lead by Ali Rowghani
To succeed in building a big company in the long-term, founders must become good at leading, motivating, and retaining great people. Ali Rowghani, YC Partner and CEO of the YC Continuity Fund, takes from his experience working with great leaders to share his three observations on leadership.
9/25/2019 • 17 minutes, 22 seconds
Advice for Hard-tech and Biotech Founders by Jared Friedman
YC Partner Jared Friedman covers hard-tech companies and why founders should consider starting one. He also covers a couple of the most common problems hard-tech companies face and how to solve them, with examples from seven YC companies.
9/20/2019 • 24 minutes, 31 seconds
Modern Startup Financing by Carolynn Levy
YC Partner and GC Carolynn Levy details the basics of startup financing and how modern early stage rounds of financing are done using convertible securities, like the SAFE.
9/20/2019 • 28 minutes, 43 seconds
Evaluating Startup Ideas Pt. 2 by Kevin Hale
In this lecture, YC Partner Kevin Hale goes over how to package up your idea and communicate it to an investor. He shares his tips on how to craft your pitch in a clear and concise way that effectively grabs your audience's attention.
9/12/2019 • 41 minutes, 14 seconds
How to Prioritize Your Time by Adora Cheung
YC Partner Adora Cheung shares her framework for how founders can efficiently make use of their time. She covers ways to identify and prioritize tasks, in addition to how you can measure their impact on your company.
9/12/2019 • 27 minutes, 20 seconds
Startup Pricing 101 by Kevin Hale
YC Partner Kevin Hale goes over the fundamentals of pricing and monetization, how it affects your customer acquisition strategy, and how to optimize it through a few rules of thumb.
9/6/2019 • 19 minutes, 32 seconds
How to Improve Conversion Rates by Kevin Hale
YC Partner Kevin Hale covers the first principles of conversion, one of the main drivers of growth for your startup, and how you can improve it starting with your landing page.
9/4/2019 • 18 minutes, 37 seconds
All About Pivoting by Dalton Caldwell
YC Partner and Head of Admissions Dalton Caldwell talks about pivoting for startups and shares his advice on when and how founders should consider it for their companies.
8/29/2019 • 38 minutes, 32 seconds
Building Culture by Tim Brady
YC Partner Tim Brady covers the importance of building a strong and coherent culture early and shares six things that you can do now to help you create a solid foundation for your startup.
8/29/2019 • 18 minutes
How to Work Together by Kevin Hale
YC Partner Kevin Hale talks about the importance of building a successful working relationship with your cofounders, and setting up processes to optimize for the strengths of your team.
8/22/2019 • 47 minutes, 8 seconds
Startup Finance Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them by Kirsty Nathoo
YC Partner and CFO Kirsty Nathoo shares the most common mistakes startups make with their finances and how they can prevent them.
8/22/2019 • 28 minutes, 57 seconds
Growth for Startups by Gustaf Alstromer
YC Partner and growth expert Gustaf Alstromer talks about how to measure product market fit, how to decide on a growth channel, metrics that lie about PMF and other mechanics of growth for startups.
8/14/2019 • 49 minutes, 49 seconds
How to Launch (Again and Again) by Kat Manalac
YC Partner Kat Manalac presents on how startups should think about launching and why you should do it repeatedly.
8/14/2019 • 26 minutes, 3 seconds
How Investors Measure Startups Q&A by Anu Hariharan and Adora Cheung
YC Partners Anu Hariharan and Adora Cheung answer questions from Startup School founders on how investors measure startups.
8/7/2019 • 38 minutes, 1 second
Nine Business Models and the Metrics Investors Want by Anu Hariharan
YC Continuity Partner Anu Hariharan breaks down the important metrics we look for when we’re evaluating a startup’s business model and common mistakes to avoid when measuring them.
8/7/2019 • 34 minutes, 7 seconds
Analytics for Startups by Ilya Volodarsky
Ilya Volodarsky, co-founder of Segment, presents his tactics for setting up analytics to build your MVP and measure your metrics.
8/1/2019 • 20 minutes, 56 seconds
How to Set KPIs and Goals by Adora Cheung
YC Partner Adora Cheung covers the importance of defining and tracking KPIs to understand how effectively your startup is reaching your goals.
8/1/2019 • 28 minutes, 59 seconds
How to Plan an MVP by Michael Seibel
YC CEO and Partner Michael Seibel shares his approach to building an MVP and getting your first users as a pre-launch startup.
8/1/2019 • 25 minutes, 21 seconds
How to Talk to Users by Eric Migicovsky
YC Partner Eric Migicovsky outlines a framework for asking questions and collecting feedback from your users.
7/25/2019 • 31 minutes, 34 seconds
How to Evaluate Startup Ideas Pt. 1 by Kevin Hale
YC Partner Kevin Hale walks us through the process of evaluating ideas and how founders should think about their startups.
7/25/2019 • 26 minutes, 35 seconds
A Conversation with Werner Vogels
Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, joins YC Software Engineer Kyle Corbitt to share his experience and insights on technology and startups.Video LinkVideo Transcript
11/11/2018 • 56 minutes, 26 seconds
How to Win by Daniel Gross
Daniel Gross, former YC Partner and founder shares his wisdom of how to survive and thrive as a startup founder.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
10/24/2018 • 47 minutes, 47 seconds
After PMF: People, Customers, Sales by Mathilde Collin
Mathilde Collin, founder of YC alumnus Front, describes what she learned as she scaled Front to 1000s of paying customers.Video LinkTranscript
10/24/2018 • 54 minutes, 57 seconds
The Path to $100B by Paul Buchheit
YC Partner and the creator of Gmail, Paul Buchheit in conversation with Geoff describes how he thinks about companies that manage to scale to the ultimate level.TranscriptVideo Link
10/24/2018 • 54 minutes, 42 seconds
A Conversation with Elad Gil
Serial entrepreneur and angel investor Elad Gil sits down with YC Partner Geoff Ralston to discuss startups.TranscriptVideo Link
10/18/2018 • 53 minutes, 27 seconds
How to Get Meetings with Investors and Raise Money by Aaron Harris
YC Partner Aaron Harris gives invaluable advice for how to most effectively and strategically meet with investors.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
10/17/2018 • 47 minutes, 44 seconds
Understanding Safes and Priced Equity Rounds by Kirsty Nathoo
YC CFO and Partner Kirsty Nathoo gives the lowdown on several different ways to capitalize your company and how those impact founder equity and cap tables overall.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
10/17/2018 • 50 minutes, 3 seconds
A Conversation on Hard Tech with Eric Migicovsky
YC Partner Adora Cheung talks to YC Partner Eric Migicovsky, previously founder and CEO of Pebble, about his experience as a hard tech startup founder.Video LinkTranscript
10/12/2018 • 1 hour, 1 minute, 2 seconds
Fundraising Fundamentals by Geoff Ralston
YC Partner Geoff Ralston gives an introduction to the key concepts to keep in mind once you enter a fundraising process.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
10/10/2018 • 52 minutes, 42 seconds
Startup Technology - Technical Founder Advice
YC Partner Jared Friedman joins founders Lillian Chou (COO, Second Measure), Diana Hu (CTO, Escher Reality), Calvin French-Owen (CTO, Segment) and Ralph Gootee (CTO, PlanGrid), to talk about what can go right and wrong building technology.Video Link
10/10/2018 • 59 minutes, 54 seconds
A Conversation with Elizabeth Iorns - Advice for Biotech Founders
YC Partner Adora Cheung talks to Science Exchange Co-Founder and CEO Elizabeth Iorns about her experience as a biotech startup founder.TranscriptVideo Link
10/3/2018 • 55 minutes, 10 seconds
Running Your Startup by Patrick Collison
YC Partner Adora Cheung, along with Patrick Collison, the founder of well known YC alumnus Stripe, discuss how to most effectively run a startup company towards success.TranscriptVideo Link
10/3/2018 • 57 minutes, 14 seconds
How to Apply and Succeed at Y Combinator by Dalton Caldwell
YC Partner Dalton Caldwell gives insight into how YC admissions works and what makes for a successful YC experience.Clarification on the Application video: Founders can splice together a video if they're not all in the same place; you do not need to be in same place to do the video.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
9/28/2018 • 44 minutes, 4 seconds
Building an Engineering Team - by Ammon Bartram and Harj Taggar
Former YC Partner and founder of TripleByte Harj Taggar, along with his cofounder Ammon Bartram discuss a topic startups often struggle with most: finding and hiring the key engineers who will build your product.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
9/26/2018 • 1 hour, 11 minutes, 40 seconds
How to Sell by Tyler Bosmeny
Tyler Bosmeny from YC alumnus Clever shares his expertise on how an early stage company should think about sales and about building an enterprise sales team.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
9/26/2018 • 52 minutes, 32 seconds
A Conversation with Aileen Lee
YC Partner Geoff Ralston talks to Cowboy Ventures Founder Aileen Lee.TranscriptVideo Link
9/21/2018 • 1 hour, 33 seconds
PR + Content for Growth by Kat Mañalac and Craig Cannon
YC Partner Kat Mañalac and Director of Marketing Craig Cannon describe the most effective ways to use PR and content to help your companies brand and to find more users.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
9/19/2018 • 52 minutes, 52 seconds
Design for Startups (Part 2) by Garry Tan
Former YC partner Garry Tan, the founder of Initialized Capital and a design expert describes how to effectively integrate design into a product development process.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
9/19/2018 • 19 minutes, 32 seconds
Design for Startups (Part 1) by Garry Tan
Former YC partner Garry Tan, the cofounder of Initialized Capital and a design expert describes how to effectively integrate design into a product development process.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
9/19/2018 • 1 hour, 6 minutes, 44 seconds
A Conversation About Crypto-currencies and ICOs with Andy Bromberg
YC Partner Geoff Ralston talks to CoinList Co-Founder and President Andy Bromberg.TranscriptVideo Link
9/14/2018 • 1 hour, 7 minutes, 32 seconds
How to Measure Your Product by Suhail Doshi
Suhail Doshi, founder of YC alumnus Mixpanel and a world-class expert on measurement details how startups should think about discovering the important facts about how their product is used.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
9/12/2018 • 59 minutes, 2 seconds
How to Get Users and Grow by Gustaf Alströmer
YC Partner Gustaf Alströmer, who was most recently a growth expert at AirBnb describes strategies for scaling your user base.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
9/12/2018 • 1 hour, 4 minutes, 14 seconds
How to Succeed with a Startup by Sam Altman
Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, shares his thoughts on how you can succeed as a startup.TranscriptLecture SlidesVideo Link
9/12/2018 • 16 minutes, 13 seconds
A Conversation with Ooshma Garg
YC Partner Adora Cheung talks to Gobble founder and CEO Ooshma Garg.TranscriptVideo Link
9/12/2018 • 56 minutes, 2 seconds
How to Find Product Market Fit by David Rusenko
David Rusenko from YC alumus Weebly details the story of how Weebly developed one of the most popular website creation and hosting sites on the web today.TranscriptLecture SlidesVideo Link
9/12/2018 • 58 minutes, 36 seconds
Building Product by Michael Seibel
YC CEO Michael Seibel outlines how successful startups think about building something people want.What problem are you solving? Who is your Customer? How to set up metrics Product Development Pivot vs. Iterate?TranscriptLecture SlidesVideo Link
9/12/2018 • 59 minutes, 5 seconds
A Conversation with Paul Graham
YC Partner Geoff Ralston talks with Paul Graham, one of the founders of YC, and tries to draw out as much startup wisdom as possible in 1/2 hour of conversation.TranscriptVideo Link
9/12/2018 • 1 hour, 3 minutes, 9 seconds
Startup Legal Mechanics by Carolynn Levy
YC Partners Carolynn Levy, Jon Levy, and YC General Counsel Jason Kwon recap on legal mechanics for startups, in addition to common mistakes and problems.TranscriptLecture SlidesVideo Link
9/12/2018 • 57 minutes, 44 seconds
Introduction to Startup School by Adora Cheung and Geoff Ralston
YC Partners Adora Cheung and Geoff Ralston introduce Startup School 2018.Geoff's SlidesAdora's SlidesTranscriptVideo Link