Hi HN -- Kat here. Catheryn Li and I worked on launching this version of the library. This is Phase 1 -- we'll be adding more content from YC's archives, and new content as more is made. Seeing this thread and what you're searching for will give us a better sense of what we're missing. If you have feedback or ideas - let us know: catheryn@ycombinator.com and kat@ycombinator.com.
Hi Kat and Catheryn. Useful library, thanks for working on it.
I have two quick suggestions for you:
1) Show creation date AND last modification date on each document; and allow users to see creation date when they search. Why? Because certain topics age better than others.
2) Make a zip archive of all resources that people can download and consult offline. Why? Because not everyone lives in California or in developed countries, and more or less >50% of internet users in the world have spotty access, particularly in developing countries. You want to give these people a way to download the entire thing when they're using WiFi in an internet cafe, and then watch things back home where they have no internet.
Re #2: Do you have thoughts on how folks will update their archive after the initial sync? KA-Lite had a similar offering in the education space, but redownloading a .zip to get five new files when 95% of the content is the same seems not ideal.
(There's stuff like zsync, but then you have to use a compatible compressor, and those tend to be pretty obscure...)
You name each zip release with a number and a date. For example #1 will be dated today.
Each time you update you increase the # by 1 and mark the date. You provide seperate small update files named #2 update, #3 update. If I had downloaded the full archive #1, I can just download #2 and #3 update and have the latest version.
If I never downloaded the library I can just download the most recent version and then keep it updated using update files.
I spent a lot of time compiling and digging through YC resources in March and had a few things to share from my experience: (I am behind ycadvice.com)
- Types of content so I can isolate videos quickly.
- Sidebar is sorted alphabetically. This way some of the important categories get buried at the bottom - in our experience, links at the bottom see much less interaction than at the top. Would it also make sense to have a view categories are sorted based on their "subjective" importance ? Alphabetical is awesome for searching a particular thing, but sometimes not so good for discovering important categories.
- We never really did this, but having some kind of popular vs less popular resources is also nice as a future idea.
- Happy to share our resources/list with you in any way if it helps.
This is excellent compilation of startup resources. I just wanted to explore how YC funded startups think about Design and quickly used filters 'Design'+'UX+Design' and stumbled upon this awesome 'Scaling Product & Design at Airbnb' conversation video by Joe Gebbia and Reid Hoffman! I will be bookmarking this and exploring frequently. Many thanks!
Thanks for all the resources! Just one suggestion: there is a lack of material on branding. Some of the largest companies in the world have been built essentially on the uniqueness and reliability of their brand. Coke, Starbucks, fashion houses, Amazon, Facebook, the list goes on. Definitely something that startups should consider IMO.
First of all, thank you! This is such a great collection.
One thing I would like to see more of is resources on customer retention. I know you have about 4/5 articles / videos on it, but they didn't directly address measuring retention and best practices on how to make sure you're not building a leaky bucket. Since customer stickiness is so important, I think it should merit a lot more resources.
I've founded or been early at 6 different startups now, and in each I've felt so overwhelmed by all the things I need to know or think about, leading to a stack of 'articles to read / videos to watch' that never gets drawn down. I'd love to see crowdsourced or curated summaries for each article or link, and a rating system to be able to see which are a) staff picks, and b) community picks, so I can start with the highest quality resource. Maybe even bootstrap this with a summarizer bot of some kind.
2. PROBLEMS & SEQUENCING
Framing these according to what problem I'm facing would also be great. E.g. Getting initial customers, making architectural investment or not, etc. I'd love to be able to pick this resource up, put in the problem I'm facing, and get wisdom out.
Related is sequencing, because at different stages of company different problems come up. Would love to see a dashboard for my startup (or my role in the startup) that focuses on resources that matter to the problems I'm facing now. If this dashboard were built by YC, it could capture three perspectives side by side - internal company comments, internal YC community comments, and broader HN comments. That'd be fantastic.
3. COMMENTS & COMMUNITY STORIES
Finally, I think drawing upon the wisdom of founders / early stage operators with a comments system would be great. I love reading war stories from founders because they often do the job of tying a general principle to something that resonates with me. I'd be careful to frame the community in a way to get these types of quality contributions and not just typical forum fodder. A common use pattern on HN is starting in the comments section THEN moving to the resource if the comments seem interesting, and I see the same opportunity here.
Those all sound like reasons to apply to YC. :) We've funded a good number of companies at this point that were farther along when they applied and had millions in revenue (MessageBird, for example, who was just on HN a couple days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624854). I recommend reaching out to some of those alum and talking to them about their experience.
Thank you for clarifying! Do you offer the "standard deal" to such companies, or do you propose something more custom in these situations? I didn't see mention of this on ycombinator.com.
While it's true that we have some companies in the batch that are well past launch, in S18 only 44% of the companies we funded had revenue and roughly 40% were not launched prior to YC.
If you're working on a water startup, and you'd like to apply to YC, you should still do it. You can apply to YC with any type of company -- it doesn't have to line up with an RFS. Our blog post for water startups is still out there -- it's just not a current RFS. As I mentioned in a comment above, this isn't an exhaustive list of the ideas we'd like to fund.
Well, I think there's a lot of promise in weather modification for the purposes of transporting fresh water long distances. I'm probably not ready to apply right now for that idea, but if someone is out there working on that, good job and we should chat.
Looking at shooting silver iodide pellets up in the sky or painting deserts black? Lots of issues with weather modification. Virtual water is the most cost effective way to transport water, by far, unless you have some crazy new product
The RFS isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of the ideas we're interested in funding. It's a list of ideas we'd like even more founders to apply with. We get a lot of blockchain and crypto applications -- and if that's what you're working on, I recommend you apply with it.
