Corso Future Founder Course Progress

Course delivered in English
Lessons: 17 + 6 Excercises
Livello: Masterclass
Access: Free Online Course (Audit)

Startup School is a free online program for founders actively pursuing their own startup.

Future Founder track for people who want to start a company in the future but are not actively working on one.

Participation in the course is self-guided:

• 6 Week course
• 17 Curriculum Tutorial
• 6 Practical Exercises

COURSE STRUCTURE

Future Founders Track Welcome
YC President Geoff Ralston welcomes participants to the future founder track of Startup School.

Why to Not Not Start a Startup
YC founder Paul Graham discusses 16 common reasons why potential founders choose not to start a startup. For each reason, he attempts an evenhanded analysis of its merits, separating the real blockers from the imaginary ones. This essay was first written in 2007 but is still relevant today.

Before the Startup
Paul Graham discusses the things you should do before founding a company to ensure you're prepared. He also dispels some myths and misconceptions potential founders have about the sort of preparation that isn't actually necessary.

How to Get Startup Ideas
YC Partner Jared Friedman shares advice on how to get startup ideas. This video was recorded for the future founder track in Startup School 2020.

How to Get Startup Ideas (Paul Graham)
The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself.
Read this if: you aren't sure if your startup idea is good, or if you don't have an idea yet

How to Talk to Users
YC Partner Eric Migicovsky shares a framework for asking questions and collecting feedback from your users.
Watch this if: you haven't started talking to users yet, your users are asking for conflicting features, you aren't getting valuable information from talking with users

How to Pitch Your Startup
In this lecture, YC Partner Kevin Hale goes over how to package up your idea and communicate it to an investor. He shares his tips on how to craft your pitch in a clear and concise way that effectively grabs your audience's attention.
Watch this if: you want investors to pay attention to your startup. people have a hard time understanding what your startup does

How to Find the Right Co-Founder
YC Partner Harj Taggar shares advice on how to find the right co-founder for your startup. This lecture was filmed for the future founder track of Startup School 2020.

How to Work Together
YC Partner Kevin Hale talks about the importance of building a successful working relationship with your cofounders, and setting up processes to optimize for the strengths of your team.
Watch this if: you and your cofounders argue a lot, your cofounders aren't doing their fair share of work, you want to have more effective conversations with your cofounder

How to Split Equity Among Co-Founders
Michael Seibel - Read this if: you have a cofounder (or want one) and want to know how to split your equity

How to Plan an MVP
YC CEO and Partner Michael Seibel shares his approach to building an MVP and getting your first users as a pre-launch startup.
Watch this if: you haven't built an MVP yet, you're trying to figure out which features to put in your MVP, you're building an MVP but don't have anyone using it yet, your MVP is taking longer than expected to launch

How to Launch (Again and Again)
YC Partner Kat Manalac presents on how startups should think about launching and why you should do it repeatedly.
Watch this if: you haven't launched yet, you launched, but it didn't go well

How to Prioritize Your Time
YC Partner Adora Cheung shares her framework for how founders can efficiently make use of their time. She covers ways to identify and prioritize tasks, in addition to how you can measure their impact on your company.
Watch this if: you aren't sure that you're focusing on the right tasks, you're easily distracted while working on your startup, you feel like your startup isn't progressing fast enough

YC’s Essential Startup Advice
Geoff Ralston, Michael Seibel - Read this if: you are a founder

Do Things That Don't Scale
Paul Graham - Read this if: you want to know how to find your first customer and make them love your product

Startup = Growth
Paul Graham - Read this if: you have product in customers hands and are now working to grow

Future Founders Parting Advice
YC President Geoff Ralston shares his parting message with the participants of the future founder track of Startup School.

Below we define the three ‘stages’ that most founders will fall into during their Startup School participation. Please note that these are general categorizations. You may not feel perfectly aligned with one of these stages, and you may progress through these stages (forward or backward) during Startup School!

• Stage 1 - You are in the process of validating your idea and building an initial product. You are talking to potential users about your idea.
• Stage 2 - You have built an MVP and may have some users. You are talking to these early customers, getting their feedback, and iterating.
• Stage 3 - You have a product with many active users. You are working on growing revenue/users/sales.
• Startup School Curriculum

Throughout the course, we aim to accomplish the following:

• Encourage and inspire people to consider starting a company as a way to positively impact the world.
• Teach people how to start a startup, and equip them with the resources and tools to help prepare them now and in the future.
• Build a community of entrepreneurs who can encourage, teach and support one another.

Participation in Startup School includes access to:

• Startup School’s library content and curriculum tailored to your startup stage
• Tools to track your company’s growth and progress
• A community of international founders through the Startup School forum
• Virtual group sessions every other week via online video
• A personalized dashboard to track your participation with Startup School
• Programming and resources from the Y Combinator team (previous courses have included live Q&A sessions, office hours with YC alumni, and AMAs with startup founders)

Sign up if you are ready to participate! If you would like to spectate, you can create a profile with access to the program content. However, you will not be able to fully participate in Startup School until you sign up with a startup.

Our team thoughtfully compiled video lectures and blog posts from Y Combinator partners and industry leaders. The curriculum is based on the stage of your startup. The library includes a larger curation of quality startup content.

To become Startup School certified (SUS Certified), you must:

• Submit a company update 8 weeks in a row (complete an 8-week streak)
• Participate in one group session
• Watch and read all of the curriculum content

We have a new Future Founder track for people who want to start a company in the future but are not actively working on one.

• This course takes 6 weeks. The current one runs from November 9, 2020 - December 20, 2020.
• In order to complete this course, you must:
• Watch and read all of the curriculum content
• Complete all accompanying exercises
• We also hold weekly video calls featuring a Q&A with a YC partner as well as group breakout sessions.