Y Combinator Startup Podcast

#143 - Startup School Week 2 Recap: Michael Seibel, Adora Cheung, and Ilya Volodarsky


Listen Later

We've cut down the second week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast.

First, a lecture from Michael Seibel. Michael is CEO and a partner at YC. His lecture is about How to Plan an MVP.

Then, a lecture from Adora Cheung. Adora is a YC partner and a cofounder of Homejoy. Her lecture is about How to Set KPIs and Goals.

Last, a lecture from Ilya Volodarsky. Ilya is a cofounder of Segment. His lecture is about Analytics for Startups.

Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.

Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/

***

Topics

00:00 - Intro

00:43 - Michael Seibel - How to Plan an MVP

1:25 - The goal of a pre-launch startup

3:10 - Iterating vs pivoting

3:59 - Lean MVP

5:06 - Heavy MVP

6:19 - Launching

7:35 - Learning is easier with an MVP

8:07 - How to build an MVP quickly

10:17 - Adora Cheung - How to Set KPIs and Goals

11:51 - What are the right KPIs to set?

15:50 - Revenue or active users

16:28 - Why choose active users?

18:55 - Biotech or hardtech KPIs

20:25 - Secondary metric

21:25 - What if you haven't launched?

22:20 - Setting goals

23:47 - How fast should you grow?

25:13 - Defining your own goals

28:40 - Tracking progress

30:27 - Ilya Volodarsky - Analytics for Startups

30:46 - Why analytics?

31:36 - Funnel

32:51 - Collecting data, analytics, and data flow

34:16 - Metric - Signups per week

35:28 - Metric - Retention cohorts

36:30 - Which metric to pick?

36:57 - Have I reached product market fit?

37:27 - Metric - Revenue

37:51 - Dashboards

38:35 - Advisor updates

39:01 - The startup stack

42:13 - Recommendations for the MVP process

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Y Combinator Startup PodcastBy Y Combinator

  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6

4.6

203 ratings


More shows like Y Combinator Startup Podcast

View all
This Week in Startups by Jason Calacanis

This Week in Startups

1,270 Listeners

Startups For the Rest of Us by Rob Walling

Startups For the Rest of Us

694 Listeners

a16z Podcast by Andreessen Horowitz

a16z Podcast

994 Listeners

The SaaS Podcast - SaaS, Startups, Growth Hacking & Entrepreneurship by Omer Khan

The SaaS Podcast - SaaS, Startups, Growth Hacking & Entrepreneurship

180 Listeners

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch by Harry Stebbings

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

509 Listeners

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors by SaaStr

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

174 Listeners

Equity by TechCrunch, Mary Ann Azevedo, Kell, Theresa Loconsolo, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, Devin Coldewey, Margaux MacColl

Equity

340 Listeners

The Startup Ideas Podcast by Greg Isenberg

The Startup Ideas Podcast

181 Listeners

The Logan Bartlett Show by by Redpoint Ventures

The Logan Bartlett Show

192 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

122 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

63 Listeners

The Social Radars by Jessica Livingston

The Social Radars

98 Listeners

AI + a16z by a16z

AI + a16z

26 Listeners

Lightcone Podcast by Y Combinator

Lightcone Podcast

16 Listeners

Training Data by Sequoia Capital

Training Data

30 Listeners