If this is your first time reading, I recommend you start with my 6-month challenge and table of contents of weekly posts for the past 13 weeks.
tl;dr YC Startup School last weekend was great. Not amazing in blow-your-mind amazing, but met some great people. Been working out kinks in MVP v3 but it’s pretty set to go next week — no more doubts and roadmap guesswork anymore. But… I am beginning to have some doubts on the viability. I also did an interesting social experiment in rejection in the exercise of asking for a 10% discount on coffee.
On a non-startup related note, this week overall has kind of majorly sucked and been absolutely crazy in terms of my work hours vs. sleep hours, externalities like my tire completely blowing up on me on the highway and more. It’s been pretty terrible.
I think I’m running on 3-4 hours of sleep right now, actually.
I. YC Startup School 2013
II. Crazy week and crazy events
III. Thoughts on Cusoy’s viability
IV. Timeline to failure
V. Asking for a 10% discount on coffee
VI. Next week and key lessons learned
17. The Value of Community
A surprising number of founders said what surprised them most about starting a startup was the value of community. Some meant the micro-community of YC founders:
The immense value of the peer group of YC companies, and facing similar obstacles at similar times.
which shouldn’t be that surprising, because that’s why it’s structured that way. Others were surprised at the value of the startup community in the larger sense:
How advantageous it is to live in Silicon Valley, where you can’t help but hear all the cutting-edge tech and startup news, and run into useful people constantly.
– Paul Graham, What Startups Are Really Like
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