This post is based on the interview made by Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, to Jessica Livingston, one of the YC founders.
I saw this interview while writing another post to make a review about Orion Startups first operating year, Orion Startups is a startup accelerator program based on Mexico (at Orion Technology Park). My surprise was that most of the learnings and advices of Jessica Livingston have been present in our program all along.
Early stage founders, please, please…
Just focus on two things:
1. Build your product and make sure some people want it int the first place.
2. Talk all the time with your users, get feedback from them.
Please, please, don´t get distracted by anything else.
This might sound obvious, but it is really hard for founders to stay focused on what is important for the company and the growth.
Distractions:
1. Talk to corporate partners to get obtain an optimal value chain before you have an awesome product.
2. Try to raise money before you have an awesome product.
3. Do a lot of PR before you have an awesome product.
4. Take a lot of meetings with investors to build a relationship before you have an awesome product.
5. Attend to a lot of conferences and networking events before you have an awesome product.
How do you know if you have a really good product?
1. Traction, measure everything and get as many user as you can.
2. Growth metrics, validate your hypothesis about acquisition, channels, reference, and revenue.
3. Numbers, numbers, numbers all the time.
4. Great UX experience.
How the best founders looks like:
1. More Determination, than intelligence.
2. Don’t get distracted.
3. Flexible mind.
4. Good leadership to convince investors, team, customers.
5. Able to communicate.
Final advice:
1. Learn code.
2. College is the best place to meet co-founders.
Full interview: https://www.ycombinator.com/future/jessica/
Luis Almanza's Blog 