#146 - Startup School Week 5 Recap - Kirsty Nathoo and Kevin Hale

Y Combinator

We've cut down the fifth week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast.
First a lecture from Kirsty Nathoo. Kirsty is a partner and CFO of YC. Her lecture focuses on the most common mistakes startups make with their finances and how they can avoid making them.
Then a lecture from Kevin Hale. Kevin is also a partner at YC and he’ll talk about the importance of building a successful working relationship with your cofounders and processes you can use to do so.
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 - Kirsty Nathoo - Startup Finance Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
2:08 - #1 - Not knowing what to look at: bank balance, money coming in, and money going out
2:56 - Burn
3:41 - Runway
4:59 - Growth rate
5:48 - Default alive - http://growth.tlb.org and http://paulgraham.com/aord.html
8:09 - #2 - Not looking often enough: every week
9:04 - #3 - Under-Representing Expenses
12:27 - #4 - Out-sourcing responsibility
15:11 - #5 - Scaling too quickly
20:08 - #6 - Letting runway get too low before fundraising - https://blog.ycombinator.com/advice-startups-running-out-of-money/
23:21 - Kevin Hale - How to Work Together
24:49 - Everyone fights
25:43 - Four things to avoid: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling
27:40 - Make a plan before you fight: divide and conquer
31:11 - Know thyself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s9ACDMcpjA
34:12 - Document a process
36:20 - Use nonviolent communication
37:19 - Observation vs evaluation
39:16 - Emotions vs thoughts - https://www.slideshare.net/nonviolent/evaluative-words-list-nonviolent-communication
41:50 - Universal needs
43:38 - Requests vs demands
45:46 - How to Deliver Constructive Feedback in Difficult Situations - https://medium.com/s/please-advise/the-essential-guide-to-difficult-conversations-41f736e63ccf
46:01 - Pay down your emotional debt
47:18 - Practice having level 3 conversations