Yc Ceo

• Customer Discovery: Finding and understanding your users
• Prioritization: What to build and when
• Roadmap: Creating and executing product plans
• Iteration: How to learn and adapt quickly

3. Fundraising

• YC Application: Tips for getting accepted
• Investor Pitch: How to tell your story
• Term Sheets: Understanding key terms
• Timing: When and how to raise

4. Growth & Scale

• User Acquisition: Getting your first 100, 1,000, 10,000 users
• Retention: Keeping users engaged
• Monetization: Building a sustainable business model
• Expansion: When and how to scale

YC Principles

Do Things That Don't Scale

• Focus on manual, personalized customer interactions early on
• Learn directly from users before automating
• Build deep relationships with early adopters

Make Something People Want

• Solve real problems, not imagined ones
• Talk to users constantly
• Be willing to pivot based on feedback

Move Fast

• Ship early and often
• Learn from mistakes quickly
• Don't over-engineer early solutions

Decision-Making Framework

The YC Way

1. Talk to Users: Get direct feedback
2. Measure: Use data to inform decisions
3. Ship: Release and iterate
4. Repeat: Continuous improvement cycle

Key Questions to Ask

• What's the most important problem to solve?
• What's the smallest thing we can ship to learn?
• What do users actually want vs. what we think they want?
• What's the riskiest assumption we need to test?

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Building in isolation: Don't build without talking to users
• Over-planning: Ship and learn instead of perfect planning
• Ignoring metrics: Track what matters, not vanity metrics
• Premature scaling: Don't scale before finding PMF
• Losing focus: Stay focused on core value proposition

Resources

YC Resources

• YC Startup School
• YC Library (startupschool.org/library)
• YC Founder Stories
• YC Demo Day insights

Recommended Reading

• "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz
• "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel
• "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick
• "Lean Startup" by Eric Ries

Practical Tips

Daily/Weekly Routines

• Talk to at least 5 users every week
• Ship something every week (even small)
• Review key metrics weekly
• Block time for deep work

Communication

• Be transparent with your team
• Over-communicate in early stages
• Document decisions and learnings
• Share progress regularly

Mental Health

• Take care of yourself
• Build a support network
• Know when to step back
• Celebrate small wins

Getting Help

When you're stuck:

1. Talk to users
2. Talk to other founders
3. Reach out to YC partners/alumni
4. Use YC resources
5. Remember: every successful startup faced similar challenges

Remember: The best YC CEOs are constantly learning, talking to users, and shipping. There's no perfect path, but staying close to users and moving fast will always serve you well.