Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.
Most good founders that I know at any given time have a set of small overarching goals for the company that everybody in the company knows.
Many of the best YC companies have had phenomenally small number of employees for their first year, sometimes none besides the founders.
If you're not in college and you don't know a cofounder, the next best thing I think is to go work at an interesting company.
So always keep momentum, it's this prime directive for managing a startup.
You certainly don't need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.
Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go.
In the early stage of a startup, hiring senior people is usually a mistake. You just want people that get stuff done.
You need to figure out what the 2 or 3 most important things are, and then just do those.
If you pivot, do it fully and with conviction. The worst thing is to try to do a bit of the old and the new-it's hard to kill your babies.
The biggest PR hack you can do, is not hire a PR firm.
You need this sort of a tailwind to make a startup successful.
The most important thing is that there is clear reporting structure and everyone knows what it is.
As you grow, it feels hopelessly corporate but it really is worth putting in place these compensation bands.
Starting a business is like riding a wave between life and death. If you can hang on long enough, you're bound to succeed
I really believe that the single hardest thing in business is building a company that does repeatable innovation... and just has this ongoing culture of excellence as it grows.
We've seen a lot of data at YC now, and the most successful companies and the ones where the investors do the best... end up giving a lot of stock out to employees- year after year after year.
The role of the board is advice and consent. If the CEO does not lay out a clear strategy and tries to get the board to set one, it will usually end in disaster.
Losing focus is another way that founders get off track.
Just put a little pin in your mind: when you cross 50 employees, there are a new set of HR rules that you have to comply with.
Move fast. Speed is one of your main advantages over large companies.
As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company.
M&A negotiations feel really fun. This is one of the biggest killers of companies, is they entertain acquisition conversations.
You want to continue to be run by great products, not process for it's own sake.
You need someone that behaves like James Bond more than you need someone that is an expert in some particular domain.
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