yc's essential startup advice, broken into points

the ralston/seibel piece from the yc library, paraphrased into points since nobody's rereading 3000 words twice

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launch now, iterate after

waiting for perfect kills more startups than shipping ugly does

do things that don't scale

manual, unscalable work with your first 10 customers, not infra

find the 90/10 solution

write code and talk to users, skip the rest

conferences and press coverage can wait

pick your first customers on purpose

a few people who need this badly beats a crowd who kind of likes it

fire the customers who drain you

product-market fit before growth

growing something nobody wants just burns cash faster

unit economics have to actually work

do less, but really well

still true, especially when a big logo deal is tempting you off it

expect something to be fundamentally broken

ignore the competition

you mostly die from your own problems, not theirs

raise fast, then get back to work

valuation isn't the win, the product is

sleep and exercise, don't skip this one

protect the cofounder relationship

read the original for this point alone, honestly

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