Startup Playbook
by Sam Altman · read the original
YC's operating manual condensed: a clear idea with a 'why now', relentlessly resourceful founders, a product a small group loves, growth as oxygen, and execution as the only thing that turns any of it into a company.
- 1
The Idea: Clear, and Why Now
One sentence, a reason it must happen now, and ideally a problem you have yourself. The best ideas sound bad at first, which is exactly why they're available.
- 2
The Team: Relentlessly Resourceful
Bet on determination and resourcefulness over raw brilliance, communicate crisply, and pick cofounders you have real history with. Cofounder breakups kill startups.
- 3
Product: A Small Group That Loves You
Optimize for intensity of love in a small group, not breadth of mild approval. You can expand love; you can't compound 'like.'
- 4
Building It: Live With Your Users
Run the loop: build, show users, learn, repeat, in days not months. Recruit the first users by hand and keep the product ruthlessly simple.
- 5
Growth: The Oxygen Supply
Growth is the startup's oxygen and its morale. Pick one honest metric, obsess over it, and never lose momentum, because regaining it is far harder than keeping it.
- 6
Execution: The CEO's Job, Focus, Intensity
Ideas are abundant; execution is the product. The CEO sets vision, recruits, raises, and enforces the bar, with focus on few things and relentless speed on those.
- 7
Competition: Worry About Yourself
99% of startups die from suicide, not murder. Spend the worry budget on your own product and execution, not on competitors' announcements.
- 8
Making Money and Raising It
Know your unit economics and reach ramen profitability early. For fundraising, traction beats pitch polish, parallel conversations create urgency, and clean terms beat max valuation.