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Build for customers, not VCs

Ycombinator · 1d

It’s easy to analyze your way out of taking the first step. It’s something YC sees a lot, particularly when founders try to choose what to build based on what they think VCs will like. These founders will find a great problem that they could solve, only to convince themselves it’s not “venture scale.” Before they’ve written a line of code or even talked to a single person about it, they’re trying to predict market opportunities and exit strategies a decade down the road. That’s just not how early stage startups work. In this one, they talk about the risks of “thinking like a VC”, how to know when you’re stuck in this mindset, and how to unlearn it (spoiler: stop reading so much about who’s raising what.) They’ll also cover a short list of things that we’ve found actually matter when starting a company — it’s simpler than a lot of people think.