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all-about-startups

Basics​

Who should start a startup​

Startup investors invest in companies whose creators they think would be good startup founders. More often than not, YC investors will invest in people rather than products.

Here are the core qualities a good startup founder has:

  • resilience: getting the first 10-100 users to try out your product is the absolute hardest part of being a startup founder. If you get past this part and never give up, you have the skill of resilience.
  • it's ok to be motivated by money: your initial motivations don't matter that much. What it matters is your continued work on a startup.

To build resilience and consistency when working on a startup, you need two things:

  1. genuine interest in the problem: the problem you're solving has to be interesting to you
  2. love the people you're working with

Here are some questions to ask yourself whether or not you should build a startup:

  • "Can I handle the worst-case scenario?": Can you handle the worst-case scenario of leaving your full-time job for a year and solely working on your startup? If you're a college student or freshly graduated, the answer is probably yes, because the worst case scenario is you losing a year of salary despite you living with your parents.

Benefits of starting a startup​

  • you will learn a lot: You will learn a lot from your msitakes and figure out what you enjoy
  • you will get better career opportunities: being a self-starter shows on your resume and helps you get hired better.
  • you will meet a lot of good people

How to decide on a startup product​

It's better to make a product that a few people really love than one a lot of people are indifferent towards.

Go all in, commit​

The three things that make starting a startup less risky are the dead-obvious things:

  1. Build your product and launch it
  2. Talk to your customers

NOTE

Trying to keep multiple career paths open (like keeping a job at Google while starting a company) is often counterproductive; founders who commit fully are more likely to compete effectively against those splitting their focus.

Paul Graham Essays​

Maker vs Manager schedule​

The only real cognitive work can get done with deep work, like programming, writing, or practicing music. To manage large amounts of deep work and get real things done, switch into maker mode so you context switch less and are able to do important work without getting interrupted.

For less cognitive-draining tasks like checking emails or drafting pull requests, do those tasks in manager mode, which can be interrupted and should not interrupt maker mode.

  • maker's schedule: Makers (like developers) require long, uninterrupted blocks of time—ideally 8 hours—to maintain mental context. Interruptions, even for meetings or emails, are highly disruptive to deep work.
  • manager's schedule:  Managers often operate in shorter, fragmented increments (e.g., 20-minute blocks). The speakers emphasize that even founders who are not coding need to protect "maker time" for high-impact activities like sales and customer discovery.

NOTE

Prioritize tasks from your to-do list rather than letting your inbox or social media dictate your schedule

This is how you should structure your day:

  • Maker mode session 1 for 4 hours
  • Manager mode before lunch
  • lunch
  • Make mode session 2 for 4 hours
  • Manager mode

So here are the actionable steps you must do:

  1. Block social media: Use website blockers; your willpower isn't enough.
  2. schedule your day: Schedule your day in blocks of maker mode and manager mode.
  3. time log: Monitor and record where your time is going so you truly can measure your time and thus manage and improve it.

Successful people are abnormally autistic about protecting their time and blocking social media, because if you don't the world will steal your time from you.