Speakers in the public record
Claim mix
belief 12evaluation 6recommendation 3uncertainty 3preference 2observation 1
Evidence policy
Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.
Claim ledger
The useful parts, with receipts.
27 published records
“I think a lot of founders are afraid of doing sales and they don't know how to do sales, and they think they need these really experienced sales coaches and they need all this training, and I'll be like, "Well, go on to Amazon and find the most popular sales books like Getting to Yes that everyone reads, and just read those and that'll get you 80% of the way there." You know what I'm saying? They want to hire someone for millions of dollars to give them sales coaching. I'm like, "Well, have you read these really basic sales books?" And they're like, "No." And so I think that's a low cost way to go on Amazon, Getting to Yes and a few other of the top sellers, I forget the names, and just read those, and that is your crash course on how to be great at sales.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“The way to summarize that is if you look at all the startup stories that we have at YC and all the companies we funded over all the years, the underlying theme is that rationally the founder should have given up at some point.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think that the advice that he's referencing here is just how important it is to not overdelegate and for the founders to stay close to things, as well as watch out for the trap of hiring super senior people with fancy resumes, really early in a startup.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think evidence that they actually have thought about it. As per I said earlier, that they've done research, that they have opinions, that they care about it.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“Do I value what I'm spending my time on? And I think that you just can go back to this over and over and over again as a good prompt on how to decide what to do with your life.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think in the example of the Zip founders, they were both such great experts and I knew Rujul really well.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“Build it once you have some conviction and then you're like, "Oh, I think I would have a customer.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think with Zip, they were just beasts at getting companies on calls with them to ask them about procurement.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I would argue that if we define it as the company had a near death experience where it was going poorly and the founders seriously wondered if it was all going to be over, a hundred percent of the time people go through that where the founder's like, "Yeah, I guess we're done.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think a lot of founders are afraid of doing sales and they don't know how to do sales, and they think they need these really experienced sales coaches and they need all this training, and I'll be like, "Well, go on to Amazon and find the most popular sales books like Getting to Yes that everyone reads, and just read those and that'll get you 80% of the way there.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think that's a really important point there is you don't need to necessarily have that experience before you start the company, could come from trying to build the company.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“There's only so many years we get to have our careers, doing something that makes you miserable and the only reason you're doing it is to avoid losing face and you know in your heart is not going to work, I don't know, that seems like a pretty big opportunity cost on literally your life.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think if you just care a lot about your customers and you care a lot about the product, your instincts are pretty good on what to spend time on.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think in the case of Stripe, I don't want to tell Patrick's story for him, but I recall him saying at some point he wasn't as sure that Stripe was going to work until they were a year or two in.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think that's such a good piece of advice that it's not necessarily they don't believe in what you're doing, it's they have better options and they're waiting for something that hits the higher bar because they have a lot of options.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“A founder hearing this might feel like, "Man, I don't know if I'm so convinced this is going to work.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“A bad startup idea is, I don't know, something that is obviously bad or something where you just can't get any positive feedback on.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“Coming back to Zip real quick, they went through I think six different pivots before they landed on this idea that is now a billion-dollar business.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“Because back in the day, if I would've been like, "Well, I guess startups aren't for me, I guess tech isn't for me.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think founders are afraid that they're going to run out of money and that's why they're going to shut down. And it's way more common that their idea doesn't work and they have a big fight with their co-founder, and then they can't agree on what to work on, and then they just like, "I don't want to do this anymore.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think growth and growth hacking and doing all this analytics, A/B testing stuff, is a total waste of time for very early startups. And that one of the weird things about having lots of startup advice on the internet, again, this is one of the reasons we started making videos at YC, is a lot of the advice was catered towards later stage companies.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“A few years ago, startups around trucking were super new and fresh because no one was doing them and they worked really well and then it became completely conventional wisdom to do trucking related startups.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“I think a lot of folks, the inclinations are to build a landing page and buy some Instagram ads and try to get people to sign up for something. And again, maybe that's something, but I think a lot of the reason people do that is they're just shy and they don't want to put themselves out there because it's a little awkward to go talk to people.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“TI funded Razorpay, which is I think the largest payment processor in India, and the TAM of that was tiny because no one was using credit cards in 2015 in India.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“You can do the same thing in a different way. And then the other point there is, again, coming back to you just need to be really excited and enjoy the work you're doing because that'll drive you forward and make you be successful.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“Again, this is one of those where I like to give very bespoke nuanced advice on a case by case basis to the folks in YC.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
“These are just very different personality types. But the thing that I would argue folks that build really big companies have in common is they just really want it and they really believe in themselves and they really believe they can make it work.”
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast