The Best Way To Launch Your Startup | Startup School — Transcript

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1. 0:01foreign
2. 0:03[Music]
3. 0:10head of Outreach at y combinator so I've
4. 0:14been at YC for about nine years now and
5. 0:16that means I've seen over 3 500
6. 0:18companies go through the program and
7. 0:20launch at YC one of the things my team
8. 0:23does is help companies with their first
9. 0:25launches and today I want to change the
10. 0:28way you think about launching most
11. 0:31Founders overthink their first launch
12. 0:33they think they have just one shot at
13. 0:36launching their product publicly and
14. 0:38that the messaging has to be perfect or
15. 0:40that no one will ever buy or use or
16. 0:44invest in their product
17. 0:45I talked to Founders constantly who
18. 0:48lovingly prepare their launch for months
19. 0:51but if you're like most startups you'll
20. 0:54launch something and no one will care
21. 0:56and if it takes you six months to get
22. 0:58the first version of your product in
23. 1:00front of anyone your startup may be dead
24. 1:02before you get another chance to launch
25. 1:04So In The Same Spirit of always be
26. 1:07shipping I want you to think about
27. 1:09launching as something that you do
28. 1:11continually so here's what we're going
29. 1:13to talk about today first we'll talk
30. 1:15about when to launch and why second
31. 1:17we'll walk through some strong one-line
32. 1:19company descriptions including some that
33. 1:22I pulled from the startup School
34. 1:23community and third we'll talk about the
35. 1:25types of launches you can do during
36. 1:27startup school so first a lot of people
37. 1:30ask when should I launch and the answer
38. 1:33is ASAP it's probably right now why so
39. 1:38Founders are really good at lying to
40. 1:41themselves a lot of you have really
41. 1:43strong convictions about what you're
42. 1:45building and that's good Founders need
43. 1:48that conviction but many of you have
44. 1:50strong but theoretical Notions of how
45. 1:53you're going to solve a problem and how
46. 1:55people are going to interact with what
47. 1:57you're building so putting your product
48. 1:59out there even in its earliest state
49. 2:01will help you determine whether you're
50. 2:03solving a big enough problem that
51. 2:05someone is willing to pay for you or use
52. 2:07you even in the products really
53. 2:10unpolished state so if you launch too
54. 2:13early what's the worst case scenario
55. 2:16what's the worst thing that can happen
56. 2:17people might think the product is ugly
57. 2:20or it sucks investors might hear about
58. 2:23the product before it's ready you know
59. 2:24competitors might see it or Worse no one
60. 2:28will see it or no one will care and
61. 2:30that's fine just launch again
62. 2:33Airbnb launched three times before they
63. 2:36really started to get users launching
64. 2:38and having no one care that feels
65. 2:40terrible but it's not a reason to give
66. 2:42up it's a reason to iterate and launch
67. 2:45again launch and iterate launch and
68. 2:48iterate until you have a core of users
69. 2:50who really love you Paul Buchheit he's
70. 2:53the creator of Gmail and a long time YC
71. 2:56group partner he has said it's better to
72. 2:58make a few people really happy than to
73. 3:01make a lot of people semi-happy
74. 3:04so early on as long as you've made
75. 3:06something that a few users absolutely
76. 3:09love you are on the right track it'll be
77. 3:13good for your morale to have even a
78. 3:14handful of users who really love what
79. 3:16you're doing and it'll help you figure
80. 3:19out what to focus on
81. 3:20what is it about your product that they
82. 3:22love and how can you do more of that
83. 3:25where can you find more users who love
84. 3:28that sort of thing that you're doing if
85. 3:30you have a core of users even 10 users
86. 3:32who really love you all you have to do
87. 3:34is expand that number and it might take
88. 3:36a while but if you keep going cockroach
89. 3:39style you can win in the end so now that
90. 3:42we've determined you should all launch
91. 3:44let's talk about something every one of
92. 3:47you needs before you launch to create a
93. 3:50strong one sentence pitch you need
94. 3:53Clarity of vision
95. 3:54we believe that people who have thought
96. 3:56deeply and about about an idea can
97. 3:59explain it clearly and succinctly they
98. 4:02use less words they can explain con
99. 4:05complex Concepts in a way that a
100. 4:07five-year-old can understand and having
101. 4:09a clear idea is important because a
102. 4:12clear idea is the best foundation for
103. 4:14growth the best companies and movements
104. 4:17grow organically by word of mouth and
105. 4:20that's good news because Word of Mouth
106. 4:22growth is the cheapest way to grow and
107. 4:24if you think back to the first time you
108. 4:26heard about something like say tick tock
109. 4:27or a slack there's a good chance you've
110. 4:30heard about it through a friend or
111. 4:32co-worker talking about what you do
112. 4:34clearly and succinctly is going to be
113. 4:36one of your most important jobs as a
114. 4:38Founder it's a skill that you'll need to
115. 4:41convince potential co-founders investors
116. 4:44users employees and eventually hopefully
117. 4:47shareholders to believe in you it's also
118. 4:50a skill you'll need to grow to grow you
119. 4:52need to get all these groups of people
120. 4:53talking about you to help you spread the
121. 4:56word that's why it's necessary to make
122. 4:58it easy for anyone your grandfather or
123. 5:00the person that you meet at the airport
124. 5:02to talk about what you're doing so that
125. 5:05word can spread about you virally when
126. 5:07people sit down at the dinner table they
127. 5:09should be talking about you and your
128. 5:11company and you don't have to be
129. 5:13naturally good at talking about your
130. 5:14company at first it takes some of our
131. 5:16Founders at YC months to get comfortable
132. 5:18doing this so here's how we think about
133. 5:20coming up with a short memorable
134. 5:22description of your company so first we
135. 5:25recommend leading with what not with why
136. 5:28and this may seem counterintuitive
137. 5:31because we tell most stories
138. 5:33chronologically it's natural to start
139. 5:36with you know how you discover the
140. 5:38problem you're solving and why it's
141. 5:40important
142. 5:41and one reason a lot of you do this is
143. 5:43because you're all very ambitious people
144. 5:45and you want to solve these big problems
145. 5:47and that's really awesome and Founders
146. 5:49need that ambition but
147. 5:51when you only have a limited time with
148. 5:54someone it's important to give them
149. 5:55context up front so start with the
150. 5:58company name and what you do and there's
151. 6:00no need to set up the problem just get
152. 6:02to the point so I'll use a real example
153. 6:05from a YC companies application the
154. 6:07company is called pave if they'd started
155. 6:09with why they were building this company
156. 6:11they would have said many of my friends
157. 6:13are super confused about their stock
158. 6:15options and it pisses me off how
159. 6:18stressed they get thinking about them
160. 6:19but before you give me the back story
161. 6:21again start with one sentence that tells
162. 6:23me what you're building First Press
163. 6:25people and investors and even other
164. 6:28Founders get pitched tens of times per
165. 6:31you know per day definitely per week and
166. 6:34they have particularly short attention
167. 6:36spans so here's the actual description
168. 6:39of the company pave pave lets companies
169. 6:41plan communicate and Benchmark your
170. 6:44compensation in real time this is a
171. 6:47straightforward description of what
172. 6:48they're building and who they're
173. 6:49building for they are building 2 tools
174. 6:52to make compensation and pay more
175. 6:54transparent for companies uh and and
176. 6:57their employees so hopefully whoever
177. 6:59you're talking to asks follow-up
178. 7:02questions and then you can get to the
179. 7:04why later so the second mistake Founders
180. 7:07make is adding a lot of meaningless
181. 7:09marketing speak to their pitches so this
182. 7:11is a tweet from Gary tan he said
183. 7:13meaningless jargon is the number one
184. 7:16issue I spend time trying to fight when
185. 7:18helping startups so here is an actual
186. 7:21description of a company don't worry
187. 7:23it's not a startup School company or a
188. 7:25YC company indiecloud is a know-how and
189. 7:28Synergy platform don't say like
190. 7:31this it has zero informational content
191. 7:33about what you actually do when you're
192. 7:36describing your company the person
193. 7:38you're talking to should have some idea
194. 7:40of you know what they'd have to build to
195. 7:42reproduce what you're talking about a
196. 7:45know-how Synergy platform could
197. 7:46literally be anything it could be a
198. 7:48collaborative edtech company or it could
199. 7:50be a Marketplace for experts like you
200. 7:53literally have no idea what you what
201. 7:54you'd have to build to reproduce a
202. 7:57know-how Synergy platform another
203. 7:59mistake Founders make is rambling they
204. 8:01just go on and on and on and don't do
205. 8:03this the person you're talking to will
206. 8:05have already zoned out so here's the
207. 8:08actual description Airbnb used on their
208. 8:10YC application we built the first Online
209. 8:13Marketplace that lets Travelers book
210. 8:15room to locals instead of hotels this is
211. 8:18a tight description it describes the
212. 8:21problem they're solving and who they're
213. 8:22solving it for so here's one I pulled
214. 8:25from the startup School Forum open queue
215. 8:28find and talk to your target B2B users
216. 8:31fast again they tell you the problem
217. 8:33they're solving and who they're solving
218. 8:36it for they're making it easy for B2B
219. 8:38companies to reach potential customers
220. 8:40and you can sort of imagine what you
221. 8:42might have to build to reproduce what
222. 8:44they're doing okay here's another one I
223. 8:46pulled from the startup School Forum yum
224. 8:49it's a clever name adaptive ml driven
225. 8:51mental health for your team and I get
226. 8:53this what this is It's a digital mental
227. 8:56health tools to help your team cope with
228. 8:58stress and burnout but I think you can
229. 9:01Workshop it a little bit if you're
230. 9:03showing this to potential customers I
231. 9:05think they'll care less about the fact
232. 9:07that the product is ml driven and more
233. 9:09about the fact that it's personalized
234. 9:11digital therapy so I I changed it up to
235. 9:13personalized digital therapy programs
236. 9:16for your team some people ask me whether
237. 9:18the X for y construction is too cliche
238. 9:21to use when describing their company and
239. 9:24let's be honest the term you know Uber
240. 9:27for x or Airbnb B for X has been a bit
241. 9:29overused
242. 9:30I want to emphasize that all of you
243. 9:32should have a one-line description that
244. 9:34does not use the X for y construction
245. 9:36but the X for y construction can be used
246. 9:40in certain cases so for example paisy
247. 9:43which is a YC Alum can describe
248. 9:46themselves as stripe for his former
249. 9:48Soviet Union countries but they could
250. 9:50also describe themselves as payment
251. 9:53processing for former Soviet countries
252. 9:55but let's talk about when it's okay to
253. 9:58use the X for y Construction
254. 10:00going back to paisy if the founders are
255. 10:03talking to people in Silicon Valley so
256. 10:05investors or press for example uh then
257. 10:08it might make sense you might use the X
258. 10:10for y analogy if it really is the best
259. 10:13way to paint a picture of what you're
260. 10:15building very quickly if you go with
261. 10:17this construction you need three
262. 10:19ingredients first of all X should be a
263. 10:22household name
264. 10:24second it should be reasonably clear why
265. 10:26y might want X
266. 10:28and third y should be a huge market so
267. 10:32one YC company described themselves
268. 10:34early on as buffer for Snapchat even
269. 10:37know buffer is doing well as a company
270. 10:39it's not a company that not everyone
271. 10:41necessarily knows when I was reading
272. 10:43this description in their YC application
273. 10:45I literally had to go to Google and
274. 10:47Google buffer so in this case you're
275. 10:49better off describing the problem that
276. 10:52you're solving so here's an X for y
277. 10:54example from the startup School
278. 10:55community that I think works hark alive
279. 10:57is Airbnb for dance and movement classes
280. 11:00it paints a fast picture of what Harker
281. 11:03live is but honestly you could also just
282. 11:05as easily say harkalive is a Marketplace
283. 11:08for dance and movement classes so to
284. 11:10review the best one-liners are
285. 11:12descriptive they describe what you do
286. 11:14the problem and who you're solving it
287. 11:16for
288. 11:17they're conversational and don't use
289. 11:19jargon or marketing language and there's
290. 11:21no long-winded lead up they're concise
291. 11:24short and sweet so now that you know
292. 11:27what you need for a good one sentence
293. 11:29pitch let's talk about why you want to
294. 11:32launch continuously even before you have
295. 11:34a fully functioning product
296. 11:36launching early gives you the chance to
297. 11:39practice and refine your idea you can a
298. 11:42B test the idea or messaging on people
299. 11:44you get an opportunity to see how people
300. 11:47respond to it and then once you have a
301. 11:50product launching through different
302. 11:51channels will give you an opportunity to
303. 11:54see how people respond to the actual
304. 11:55product and launching on different
305. 11:57channels will also help you determine
306. 11:59whether you're even talking to the right
307. 12:01users different channels will naturally
308. 12:03reach different audiences so let's talk
309. 12:06about some of the types of launches you
310. 12:09can do in your early stages here are
311. 12:11different types of launches and I'm
312. 12:12going to go through each one of these
313. 12:14briefly so first is the silent launch
314. 12:17and this is something every one of you
315. 12:19should do while you're in startup school
316. 12:20I clicked on 10 random startup School
317. 12:23companies today and only half of them
318. 12:25had landing pages so you don't need
319. 12:28anything fancy at the very least you
320. 12:31need a domain name your company name a
321. 12:33short description a way for users to
322. 12:36contact you and a call to action your
323. 12:38call to action might be sign up for a
324. 12:40newsletter or sign up to here when we
325. 12:42launch here's an example of a startup
326. 12:44School company landing page Lara they
327. 12:47have their domain name a company name
328. 12:49short description and a call to action
329. 12:51sign up for the wait list and this is
330. 12:54all you really need the next type of
331. 12:56launch is to friends and family
332. 12:58even if you're at idea stage you can
333. 13:00test out your one to two sentence pitch
334. 13:02on friends and family and once you have
335. 13:04an MVP you should do a friends and
336. 13:07family launch as quickly as possible so
337. 13:10in its earliest days Reddit was shared
338. 13:13among the founders of the first YC batch
339. 13:16I use the Wayback machine to find the
340. 13:18earliest view of Reddit I can find from
341. 13:202005. so this was even before they
342. 13:23called upvotes upvotes so share your
343. 13:26product with friends and family watch
344. 13:28them use the product and ask them for
345. 13:30feedback but one thing about the friends
346. 13:32and family launch don't stay in this
347. 13:34phase for too long because your friends
348. 13:36and family might not be the ideal users
349. 13:38for what you're building and sometimes
350. 13:40their feedback isn't going to be as
351. 13:42helpful as a real users next type of
352. 13:45launch launching to strangers I want to
353. 13:48share the MVP for doordash this is the
354. 13:50very first version of the doordash site
355. 13:52when they first started out the founders
356. 13:54were building other things they were
357. 13:56building tech for small business owners
358. 13:58and so they started approaching store
359. 14:00owners for feedback and they spent a lot
360. 14:03of time talking to this one store
361. 14:05manager Chloe she was the manager of a
362. 14:07macaron store in Downtown Palo Alto in
363. 14:10talking to Chloe they realized that the
364. 14:11app they were building really didn't
365. 14:13solve any of her problems but just as
366. 14:15they were about to leave Chloe always
367. 14:16said hey there's just one thing I want
368. 14:18to show you and it was this thick
369. 14:20booklet with pages and pages of pages of
370. 14:23delivery orders
371. 14:24she said this drives me crazy I have no
372. 14:26drivers to fulfill them and I'm the one
373. 14:28doing all the deliveries over the course
374. 14:30of the next few weeks the founders
375. 14:32interviewed over 200 small business
376. 14:35owners across the bay area and they kept
377. 14:37hearing the same issue deliveries are
378. 14:40painful
379. 14:41then after they you know absorbed enough
380. 14:44information about the product they built
381. 14:46this their MVP in just a few hours
382. 14:50so if they'd waited too long to get
383. 14:53direct feedback from their customers
384. 14:54they might have spent way longer you
385. 14:56know six months plus building out the
386. 14:59wrong solution for small business owners
387. 15:01so I'd recommend you get out there even
388. 15:03if it makes you slightly uncomfortable
389. 15:04and start talking to your potential
390. 15:06customers as soon as possible do what
391. 15:08doordash did and talk to 200. so next is
392. 15:11one of my favorite ways to launch
393. 15:13through online communities so I think
394. 15:16you should plan a launch for every
395. 15:17single community that you are part of
396. 15:19when a company goes through YC for
397. 15:21example they have the option of
398. 15:23launching on Bookface before they launch
399. 15:25publicly Bookface is our internal
400. 15:27platform for Founders it's like Facebook
401. 15:29meets LinkedIn meets quora all for YC
402. 15:32Founders and there are currently over 6
403. 15:35000 Founders on bookbase so for many
404. 15:37companies in YC it's a good way to get
405. 15:39some first users and some early feedback
406. 15:42and it's a fairly low risk way to launch
407. 15:44because you're launching in front of a
408. 15:46friendly community of other Founders
409. 15:47there are countless examples of
410. 15:49companies that have launched and gotten
411. 15:51their first or first thousand customers
412. 15:53through online communities another
413. 15:55community that you have access to is
414. 15:57Hacker News they have something called
415. 15:59show hn so many YC alumni Dropbox and
416. 16:03git lab for example and hundreds more
417. 16:05have launched on Hacker News Robin Hood
418. 16:08is an example of another company that
419. 16:10successfully launched on hn so back in
420. 16:13December 2013 they had a really simple
421. 16:15site and all it said was commission free
422. 16:18trading stop paying up to ten dollars
423. 16:20per trade
424. 16:21at the time they only had a button that
425. 16:24let you join a waitlist the waitlist
426. 16:26would show you how many people were
427. 16:28ahead of you in line and how many people
428. 16:29were behind you in line
429. 16:31so it was a Friday night and they'd been
430. 16:33working on building this wait list in
431. 16:35preparation for a launch they were
432. 16:37planning the following week with someone
433. 16:39totally random posted them on hn and
434. 16:41boom they got to number one on hn and
435. 16:44ended up getting 10 000 signups the
436. 16:46first day and then over 50 000 over the
437. 16:49next week so each Community is different
438. 16:52they have different tones audiences
439. 16:54interests launched communities you're
440. 16:57genuinely genuinely engaged with so be
441. 17:00authentic don't get bogged down and too
442. 17:03much marketing and promo language people
443. 17:06these days just shut off when they see
444. 17:08that do your research and get an
445. 17:10understanding of what will compel
446. 17:12members of that Community to be
447. 17:13interested in what you're doing so we
448. 17:15don't have time to do a huge Deep dive
449. 17:18into these next types of launches but I
450. 17:20wanted to skim them briefly and share
451. 17:23some resources and things that I found
452. 17:24recently so in a q a we did with the
453. 17:27replit founders a few weeks ago you
454. 17:29asked amjad and Haya how did you get
455. 17:31your first users and they said you just
456. 17:34have to be everywhere Hacker News
457. 17:36Twitter Reddit Etc so I wanted to share
458. 17:40a thread that YC Alum Catherine cross
459. 17:42tweeted out about building her community
460. 17:44on Tick Tock Anja Health Catherine's
461. 17:46company helps parents freeze their
462. 17:48babies umbilical cords and placentas for
463. 17:50there's some stuff for their stem cells
464. 17:52so she wrote This Thread about how she
465. 17:55committed to posting tick tocks to start
466. 17:57building a community in advance of the
467. 17:59company's launch and in just a month she
468. 18:02hit 10 000 followers so she shared this
469. 18:04thread on tips for building a community
470. 18:07on Tick Tock which uh we will link to in
471. 18:10the chat there is of course the
472. 18:12pre-order launch and if you are a
473. 18:15hardware or product or physical product
474. 18:17you can do a pre-order campaign on a
475. 18:19platform like Kickstarter or Indiegogo
476. 18:22so preparing uh for a pre-order launch
477. 18:25could honestly be a whole presentation
478. 18:27of its own and honestly there's a little
479. 18:30bit more skepticism about crowdfunding
480. 18:32and pre-orders than there was say five
481. 18:34years ago so it's worth thinking about
482. 18:36whether it's the right thing for your
483. 18:38company but YC Alum ship Bob wrote a
484. 18:42guide on pre-orders that talks about why
485. 18:44you should or should not consider doing
486. 18:46this type of campaign there are a lot of
487. 18:48great you know sort of guides that walk
488. 18:50you through uh pre-order campaigns and
489. 18:52how to prepare for them online as well
490. 18:53all right and then there's the waitlist
491. 18:55launch we talked about a really good
492. 18:57example of that with Robin Hood earlier
493. 18:59and there are other examples like
494. 19:01superhuman uh that launch successfully
495. 19:03with a wait list one note on the
496. 19:06waitlist launch the longer you wait to
497. 19:08launch an actual product and the longer
498. 19:11you wait to onboard people the harder it
499. 19:14is to convert people from your waitlist
500. 19:16so please don't sit on your waitlist for
501. 19:19too long okay so why are we not going to
502. 19:23talk about press it all in this talk
503. 19:25these days if you were an early stage
504. 19:27company that hasn't raised you know say
505. 19:29a million or more it's going to be
506. 19:32incredibly hard to land press stories at
507. 19:34least in the U.S but that said even if
508. 19:37you do land press it's not a silver
509. 19:39bullet it's not a scalable way to get
510. 19:42users it might help you get in front of
511. 19:44some early users and investors but as
512. 19:46you see press can't be counted on for
513. 19:49sustained growth it will not get you to
514. 19:52product Market fit so don't spend a ton
515. 19:55of your time during startup School
516. 19:56worrying about getting press what I do
517. 19:58want to emphasize is while you're in
518. 20:01startup school you should start to build
519. 20:03your own Community it can be as simple
520. 20:06as starting an email list of your
521. 20:07supporters and figuring out you know how
522. 20:10to engage them on an ongoing basis and
523. 20:13you may be surprised who reads the email
524. 20:15and shows up to help and in the future
525. 20:16every time you release a new product or
526. 20:19a new feature you can use all these
527. 20:22channels to launch on them again
528. 20:24stripe has always been great at engaging
529. 20:27with the community each time a new
530. 20:29product launches they blog about it
531. 20:32they've the founders get on Hacker News
532. 20:34and they talk to the hn community they
533. 20:36spread the word on social media they
534. 20:38pitch press
535. 20:39stripe they are Masters at launching
536. 20:42again and again so to sum up I want you
537. 20:45to stop thinking about launching as just
538. 20:48one moment in time if you launch and no
539. 20:51one pays attention do what Airbnb did
540. 20:54and launch again and again
541. 20:58[Music]