#137 - Startup School Podcast Preview with Kevin Hale

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Today’s episode is a preview of the Startup School podcast.
We’re putting all the Startup School lectures on their own podcast feed. You can subscribe here:
iTunes
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This is the first lecture from Startup School 2019. It’s Kevin Hale on How to Evaluate Startup Ideas.
It’s also not too late to sign up for Startup School.
The course just started and the deadline to sign up is August 4th. Select companies who complete the course will also receive 15,000 dollars in equity-free funding.
Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.
Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/
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Topics
00:00 - Intro
00:42 - Why we're starting with evaluating ideas
2:07 - YC doesn't just fund companies with traction
3:31 - How can I predict if an investor will like my idea?
5:57 - A startup idea is a hypothesis
7:37 - The problem
11:37 - The solution
13:07 - The insight
14:42 - Founder's unfair advantage
15:42 - Market growing 20% a year
16:22 - Product 10x better
17:12- Acquisition model
18:37 - Monopoly
19:32 - Threshold belief
19:52- Miracle belief
20:42 - Example: YC
24:02 - Example: Wufoo