Thread by @bbourque

Y-Combinator has invested in 3,000+ startups worth over $600 billion today.

Here are 22 startup insights from YC's legendary cofounder, Paul Graham (Vol. 1):

"One of the biggest things holding people back from doing great work is the fear of making something lame."

"Competitors are rarely what kills startups. Poor execution does."

"Looking just at existing competitors can give you a false sense of security.

You should compete against what someone else could be doing, not just what you can see people doing."

"The way to succeed in a startup is not to be an expert on startups, but to be an expert on your users and the problem you're solving for them."

"If something that seems like work to other people doesn't seem like work to you, that's something you're well suited for."

"You don't want to start a startup to do something that everyone agrees is a good idea, or there will already be other companies doing it."

"You have to do something that sounds to most other people like a bad idea, but that you know isn't."

"How do you turn your mind into the type that startup ideas form in unconsciously?

1. Learn a lot about things that matter, then
2. work on problems that interest you
3. with people you like and respect. "

"The highest compliment we can pay to founders is to describe them as 'earnest.' This is not by itself a guarantee of success. You could be earnest but incapable. But when founders are both formidable and earnest, they're as close to unstoppable as you get."

"It's easier now to start and grow a company than it has ever been. That means more people start them, that those who do get better terms from investors, and that the resulting companies become more valuable."

"If you want to do great things, you'll have to work very hard."

"The best test of whether it's worthwhile to work on something is whether you find it interesting."

"There has never been a better time to be a nerd.

In the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from dealmakers to technicians — from the charismatic to the competent — and I don't see anything on the horizon that will end it."

"What YC looks for, above all, are founders who understand some group of users and can make what they want.

This is so important that it's YC's motto:

'Make something people want.'"

"It matters a lot who you surround yourself with.

If you're surrounded by conventional-minded people, it will constrain which ideas you can express, and that in turn will constrain which ideas you have."

"When experts are wrong, it's often because they're experts on an earlier version of the world."

"If you're thinking about getting involved with someone — as a cofounder, an employee, an investor, or an acquirer — and you have misgivings about them, trust your gut."

"Such a high proportion of successful startups raise money that it might seem fundraising is one of the defining qualities of a startup. Actually it isn't.

Rapid growth is what makes a company a startup."

"Because fundraising is so distracting, a startup should either be in fundraising mode or not."

"The biggest factor in most investors' opinions of you is the opinion of other investors."

"If you want to raise money, the best thing you can do is get yourself to the point where you don't need to."

"The most important reason investors like you more when you've started to raise money is that they're bad at judging startups.

Judging startups is hard even for the best investors.

The mediocre ones might as well be flipping coins."

"If you build something to solve your own problems, then you only have to find your peers, which is usually straightforward."

"The most common unscalable thing founders have to do at the start is to recruit users manually.

Nearly all startups have to.

You can't wait for users to come to you. You have to go out and get them."

That's it, volume 1 of 22 gems from @paulg.

You can read his original essays at paulgraham.com/articles.html

If you enjoyed this please retweet the first tweet because your friends might too.

Follow me at @bbourque for more threads on startups and marketing.

Also - I'm launching an episodic newsletter with takedowns on landing pages and optimization case studies across industries.

To learn how to convert more visitors into customers, please subscribe:

getrevue.co/profile/bbourq…