#143 - Startup School Week 2 Recap: Michael Seibel, Adora Cheung, and Ilya Volodarsky

About this episode

<p>We've cut down the second week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast.<br><br>First, a lecture from <a href="https://twitter.com/mwseibel">Michael Seibel</a>. Michael is CEO and a partner at YC. His lecture is about <a href="https://youtu.be/1hHMwLxN6EM">How to Plan an MVP</a>.<br><br>Then, a lecture from <a href="https://twitter.com/nolimits">Adora Cheung</a>. Adora is a YC partner and a cofounder of Homejoy. Her lecture is about <a href="https://youtu.be/lL6GdUHIBsM">How to Set KPIs and Goals</a>.<br><br>Last, a lecture from <a href="https://twitter.com/ivolo">Ilya Volodarsky</a>. Ilya is a cofounder of Segment. His lecture is about <a href="https://youtu.be/LLerCc7MOQo">Analytics for Startups</a>.<br><br>Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.<br><br>Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/</a><br><br>***<br><br>Topics<br><br>00:00 - Intro<br><br>00:43 - Michael Seibel - How to Plan an MVP<br><br>1:25 - The goal of a pre-launch startup<br><br>3:10 - Iterating vs pivoting<br><br>3:59 - Lean MVP<br><br>5:06 - Heavy MVP<br><br>6:19 - Launching<br><br>7:35 - Learning is easier with an MVP<br><br>8:07 - How to build an MVP quickly<br><br>10:17 - Adora Cheung - How to Set KPIs and Goals<br><br>11:51 - What are the right KPIs to set?<br><br>15:50 - Revenue or active users<br><br>16:28 - Why choose active users?<br><br>18:55 - Biotech or hardtech KPIs<br><br>20:25 - Secondary metric<br><br>21:25 - What if you haven't launched?<br><br>22:20 - Setting goals<br><br>23:47 - How fast should you grow?<br><br>25:13 - Defining your own goals<br><br>28:40 - Tracking progress<br><br>30:27 - Ilya Volodarsky - Analytics for Startups<br><br>30:46 - Why analytics?<br><br>31:36 - Funnel<br><br>32:51 - Collecting data, analytics, and data flow<br><br>34:16 - Metric - Signups per week<br><br>35:28 - Metric - Retention cohorts<br><br>36:30 - Which metric to pick?<br><br>36:57 - Have I reached product market fit?<br><br>37:27 - Metric - Revenue<br><br>37:51 - Dashboards<br><br>38:35 - Advisor updates<br><br>39:01 - The startup stack<br><br>42:13 - Recommendations for the MVP process<br></p>