95: What Makes or Breaks a Startup with Jessica Livingston of Y Combinator
As the guiding hand for dozens of successful startups in the past 10 years. Jessica Livingston of Y Combinator shares her invaluable insight into startup life
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan · Foundr Media
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Show Notes
Dubbed "the world's most powerful startup incubator" by Fast Company, Y Combinator (YC) has been plucking startups from garages, dorm rooms, coffee shops, and assorted founder hangouts for over a decade.
With a combined valuation of more than $65 billion among its alumni, a list that reads like a who’s who of startup fame—think AirBNB, Reddit, Dropbox, Instacart, Scribd, Weebly—YC has become a Silicon Valley institution. It is described as an elite founders boot camp, a place where ideas are incubated, annihilated, refined, and polished for a period of three months, ready to be served up to a bevy of hungry investors.
As co-founder of this entrepreneurial playground, Jessica Livingston has seen it all: the tears, the tantrums, and the triumphs, while getting a bird’s eye view of some of the startup world’s biggest success stories.
In this interview you will learn:
- How to close the gap between a failed startup and a wildly successful one
- What Y Combinator is looking for when they take on new startups
- The exact process that Y Combinator puts startups through in order to ensure success
- The key traits and qualities shared by every successful founder
- What signs to look out for that your startup may be doomed
- & much more!