#147 - Startup School Week 6 Recap - Tim Brady on Culture and Dalton Caldwell on Pivoting

Y Combinator

We've cut down the sixth week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast.
First a lecture from Tim Brady. Tim’s a partner at YC. His lecture covers the importance of building a good culture early and shares six things that you can do now to help create a solid foundation for your startup.
Then a lecture from Dalton Caldwell. Dalton is a partner at YC and he’s also the head of admissions. His lecture covers pivoting and his advice on how founders should think about it.
Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.
Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/
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Topics

00:00 - Intro
00:38 - Tim Brady on Building Culture
1:13 - Culture is behavior and the right behaviors support a good business
4:38 - Six things new startups can do now
5:00 - 1. Be proud of the problem you are solving
7:31 - 2. Create a long term vision that others will follow
9:36 - 3. List your values then model the behavior
12:34 - 4. Align your culture with your customer
14:49 - 5. Discuss the importance of diversity to your company
16:43 - 6. Put a hiring process into practice. Plan to evolve it.
18:24 - Dalton Caldwell on Pivoting
18:53 - The term "pivot"
20:20 - Why pivot?
21:33 - Good reasons to pivot
22:35 - Good reasons not to pivot
23:13 - Why people take too long to pivot
26:01 - Anecdotes
27:22 - Product market fit
28:34 - How to find a better idea
30:40 - It's ok to not work on an idea that requires venture capital
31:34 - Venture vs. non-venture scale ideas
32:52 - When is the best time to pivot
33:48 - More pivoting thoughts
35:07 - Idea quality scores
37:11 - Brex
39:51 - Retool
41:37 - Magic
43:22 - Segment
45:16 - Dalton's summary