Simon Willison’s Weblog

What are the key points accelerators such as Y-Combinator drill into their startups?

7th February 2014

My answer to What are the key points accelerators such as Y-Combinator drill into their startups? on Quora

Build something people want. This is so important that YC have it printed on the T-Shirts they hand out to each batch.

They also teach the importance of launching something and getting real feedback. The entire three month YC process is based around the need to launch and demonstrate traction in order to raise money from investors.

Paul Graham’s essays cover many of the lessons that YC teaches startups.