Y Combinator: Startup Library

Startup Library

By Us

How to Start a Startup.
Build something users love, and spend less than you make.

Hiring is Obsolete.
The market is a lot more discerning than any employer.

How to Make Wealth.
To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage.

Why to Not Not Start a Startup.
All the reasons you aren't doing it, and why most (but not all) should be ignored.

A Student's Guide to Startups.
Starting a startup could well become as popular as grad school.

Ideas for Startups.
The initial idea is not a blueprint, but a question.

Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas.
A hacker who has learned what to make, and not just how to make, is extraordinarily powerful.

The 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups.
If you avoid every cause of failure, you succeed.

The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn
Some things about startups are kind of counterintuitive.

How to Fund a Startup.
Venture funding works like gears.

The Hacker's Guide to Investors.
Hackers don't know how little they know about this strange world.

How to Present to Investors.
Explain what you're doing and why users will want it.

The Equity Equation.
You should always feel richer after trading equity.

The Venture Capital Squeeze.
Why not let the founders have that first million, or at least half million?

The Other Road Ahead.
You may not believe it, but I promise you, Microsoft is scared of you.

What Business Can Learn from Open Source.
There may be more pain in your own company, but it won't hurt as much.

What the Bubble Got Right.
Even a small increase in the rate at which good ideas win would be a momentous change.

A Unified Theory of VC Suckage.
If you're not one of the very top funds, you're condemned to be the bad guys.

By Others

What Carly Will be Missing.
VCs are sitting on a boatload of uninvested cash that they simply must spend.

The New Boom.
Today companies are starting small and lean and staying that way.

For Start-Ups, Web Success on the Cheap.
Many of the current crop of Internet start-ups have gone from zero to 60 on a shoestring.

ArsDigita: From Start-Up to Bust-Up.
Within a few weeks of Allen's arrival, I found people telling me that I had no power at all.

Journey to the Center of Google.
Larry and Sergey plainly hold all the cards at Google.

A Couple of Yahoos.
Really, we'd do anything to keep from working on our theses.

The Cult of the NDA.
Cases where trade secrets and/or patents are both protectable and essential are rare.

Fixing Venture Capital.
VCs do not have goals that are aligned with the goals of the company founders.

Why VC Will Get Uglier.
Much of the $200 billion that was raised between 1999 and 2001 has yet to be invested.

For entrepreneurs, paranoia might be wise.
How much do you reveal about your business plan, and to whom?

The Long Tail.
Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want.

It's a Great Time to Be an Entrepreneur.
More people can and will be entrepreneurs than ever before.

Net start-ups face odd problem: more VC cash than they need.
Many Internet entrepreneurs don't need the cash, because they're building products cheaply.

An Engineer's View of Venture Capital.
Answering to their investors contributes to a sheep mentality.

Breaking the Rules with Open Source.
Open source is just a more efficient, effective software business model.

Ten Rules for Web Startups.
Great products almost always come from someone scratching their own itch.

Valuation.
I think it is much better to think of a venture capital deal as a loan plus an option.

Who Will Google Buy Next?
Google's past conquests have all been smallish Internet companies that are doing cool stuff.

Buy It Now.
Companies purchase their ideas one startup at a time.

How to Negotiate a Term Sheet with a VC.
Pick your battles.

Start-Ups Are Telling Venture Capitalists: 'We Don't Need You'.
Some entrepreneurs believe the balance of power in Silicon Valley is shifting.

A Lesson on Elementary Worldly Wisdom.
How does a guy in Bentonville, Arkansas with no money blow right by Sears, Roebuck?

If You Want to be Rich, First Stop Being So Frightened.
Fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment.

Books

Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Edward Tufte: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Paul Graham: Hackers and Painters

Jessica Livingston: Founders at Work

Individuals

Resources and Tools

HBS Working Knowledge

STVP Educators Corner

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