Former YC CEO Michael Seibel: “Launches aren’t special”

“A lot of founders have this misconception about launching. They see big companies launch stuff and they assume that’s what startups do… They have in their head that that’s what a successful company looks like when they launch.”

Michael asks the audience if they remembered the launches of Google, Facebook, or Twitter. Of course, no one remembers:

“It turns out launches aren’t that special at all. If you have this idea of your magical launch you want to do, throw it away…. The number one thing that’s really important is to get some customers… Let’s push the press launch off and let’s push the ‘get any customers launch’ really, really soon. That’s our goal here.”

Until you put a product in front of people, you have no idea if it’s going to work.

“Spending all that time on a pitch deck is not as valuable as spending your time building anything that you can give to a customer.”

Full video: Y Combinator “Michael Seibel - How to Plan an MVP“ (Aug 2019)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Michael Seibel insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: "Best startup advice from Michael Seibel"