by Y Combinator1/25/2017
Daniel Gross and Craig Cannon go through questions submitted on Hacker News.
To submit a question for Office Hours, send an email to Macro@YCombinator.com with a few sentences of context (e.g. what your company does) and your question.
0:57 – Is it more valuable to build a startup community or join an existing one?
2:02 – How to get students to use your app?
3:06 – What are the most common methods to overcome the chicken/egg problem in a marketplace app?
3:57 – Should you raise money before building a product?
4:25 – How important is it to talk about the tools (e.g. AI/machine learning) that you use to build a product?
5:29 – Is there a point at which you should switch to machine learning?
6:47 – How important is it to raise money?
8:14 – How worried should startups be about people copying them?
10:00 – Should I focus on something I’m passionate about or a startup idea that I think could work but I’m not passionate about?
11:48 – How can a young person without a degree get a job at a startup?
13:44 – Should I launch without a technical cofounder?
15:55 – How much equity should you give to early hires?
16:15 – How can you be someone that lives on the bleeding edge of technology?
18:14 – What should I do to prepare to be a founder?
20:00 – We feel pressured to get into machine learning, should we?
21:19 – How feasible is it to fly to Silicon Valley to raise money?
22:41 – What are the most common mistakes first time founders make?
23:43 – Does YC accept founders under 18?
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Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. Twice a year we invest a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200). The startups move to Silicon