THE BASICS
Do Things That Don’t Scale.
Startups take off because the founders make them take off.
Startup Playbook.
Startup advice from many YC partners distilled into one document.
How to Start a Startup.
Build something users love, and spend less than you make.
YC Essentials.
What we at YC consider the most important, most transformative advice for startups.
IDEAS
Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas.
A hacker who has learned what to make, and not just how to make, is extraordinarily powerful.
Startup Ideas.
The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas.
Ideas for Startups.
The initial idea is not a blueprint, but a question.
STAYING ALIVE
How Not To Fail.
Jessica Livingston’s keynote from our third annual Female Founders Conference.
Be Relentlessly Resourceful.
You have to keep trying new things.
The 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups.
If you avoid every cause of failure, you succeed.
The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn
Some things about startups are kind of counterintuitive.
How Not to Die.
Startups run on morale.
ArsDigita: From Start-Up to Bust-Up.
Within a few weeks of Allen’s arrival, I found people telling me that I had no power at all.
FUNDRAISING
How to Fund a Startup.
Venture funding works like gears.
The Hacker’s Guide to Investors.
Hackers don’t know how little they know about this strange world.
How to Present to Investors.
Explain what you’re doing and why users will want it.
The Equity Equation.
You should always feel richer after trading equity.
A Fundraising Survival Guide.
Founders have to treat raising money as a dangerous process.
The Venture Capital Squeeze.
Why not let the founders have that first million, or at least half million?
Elements of Sustainable Companies
What a top VC firm looks for, and the format they want to see it in.
How to write a killer deck, and get funded.
Your presentation is one of the first steps to articulating your idea.
Valuation.
It is much better to think of a venture capital deal as a loan plus an option.
OTHERS
Hiring is Obsolete.
The market is a lot more discerning than any employer.
How to Make Wealth.
To get rich you need to get yourself in a situation with two things, measurement and leverage.
A Student’s Guide to Startups.
Starting a startup could well become as popular as grad school.
The Other Road Ahead.
You may not believe it but Microsoft is scared of you.
What Business Can Learn from Open Source.
There may be more pain in your own company, but it won’t hurt as much.
What the Bubble Got Right.
Even a small increase in the rate at which good ideas win would be a momentous change.
The High-Res Society.
The economy of the future will be a fluid network of smaller, independent units.
The Cult of the NDA.
Cases where trade secrets and/or patents are both protectable and essential are rare.
YC
Startup School
Y Combinator’s free 10-week massively open online course (MOOC). Learn the fundamentals of running a startup.
Our Blog
Essays and updates from the YC community.
Our Podcast
We talk with people who are shaping the future.
YC World
Explore Y Combinator companies by country.
OUR VIDEOS
How to Start a Startup Class
Everything we know about how to start a startup, for free, from some of the world experts.
Startup School Videos
Videos from Startup School 2017, Y Combinator’s free 10-week massively open online course (MOOC).
Videos of our Events
Official videos from public Y Combinator events.
DOCUMENTS
Safe Financing Documents
Y Combinator’s open-source simple agreement for future equity.
Sales Template Agreement
Y Combinator’s open-source Sales Template Agreement
Series A Term Sheet Template
Y Combinator’s Series A term sheet with clean and standard terms.
