Podcast-conversations with YC founders whose startups failed

https://open.spotify.com/episode/74Fp4VRL4ohsvqpM4FmbNy

by thinkwithlucie • 4 years ago

105 48 4 years ago

open.spotify.com

drcode• 4 years ago

Hi, sounds interesting- is it available outside of Spotify?

yuppiepuppie• 4 years ago

Seems like it https://twitter.com/thinkwithlucie?s=20&t=r9TEtQtGFRgD9pKBYF...

Brajeshwar• 4 years ago

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-29-why-do-star...

throwaway1584972• 4 years ago

Also, This series is good, although sadly, I dont see much new content being added.

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/lessons-from-a-failed-s...

Also, if I were to give one advise to startup founders. Ignore all advice online about how to succeed. It's mostly whitewashed stuff. Unless you know the founder privately, 1-on-1, it is useless. The only honest ones are from failed founders.

uh_uh• 4 years ago

Whitewashed as in the secret sauce is kept secret to avoid giving away leverage?

thinkwithlucie9• 4 years ago

I've contacted founders who completely deleted that experience from their Linkedin and pretended they were never involved with the startup, others wanted to seek YC's permission or were charging a fee to speak with me...crazy

beaconstudios• 4 years ago

Startups often use dirty tactics and connections to grow, but will later go on to say they just worked hard and found product market fit. The public example that comes to mind is reddit astroturfing their community to grow it, and that's a really mild example. Startups can do some pretty evil shit to get going.

throwaway1584972• 4 years ago

No. Whitewashed as as in give an aura of we did no shady things, we never faked anything, we did not have to give an extreme discounts to anyone, all our discussions with customers were straight forward. We just walked into people's offices, gave presentation and they were a contract, there are no externalities to our product, we are very profitable and stress free at each step of the journey.

chrispeel• 4 years ago

I wasn't able to find a link that would work with Overcast.

thinkwithlucie9• 4 years ago

You can add this URL: https://anchor.fm/s/6e02cc2c/podcast/rss

paisawalla2• 4 years ago

It would be great to be able to add this podcast via RSS. Seems like it's only available on Apple or Spotify

thinkwithlucie9• 4 years ago

https://anchor.fm/s/6e02cc2c/podcast/rss

ta988• 4 years ago

Thanks a lot, really excited to listen to your podcast!

paisawalla2• 4 years ago

Thank you, consider please adding it to Pocket Casts: https://pocketcasts.com/submit/

ryanSrich• 4 years ago

Is there a podcast URL I can use to add to Overcast?

thinkwithlucie9• 4 years ago

https://anchor.fm/s/6e02cc2c/podcast/rss

eole6663• 4 years ago

90% of startups fail : https://review42.com/resources/what-percentage-of-startups-f... There is no surprise a startup is failing, most of them propose products nobody needs and are a big waste or time, energy and money.

But hey, creating a startup and trying to make it an unicorn is still trending. Still tons of people with too much money have a hobby investing in bullshit tech things, so there is hope for each founder to find a lot of founding money if they are good at selling their product idea, no matter how bad or good it actually is.

And then, when the initial cash flow runs dry, the startup fails, time to create another one !

michihuber• 4 years ago

so what? that’s the cost of making the other 10% happen.

and that’s how society becomes prosperous.

eole6663• 4 years ago

Yes, and the society is doing great and is very prosperous those days, thanks to all those succeeding startups, that's really cool.

Just keep creating startups with all this money, and everything will be fine. No problem at all.

jacquesm2• 4 years ago

That stat is well supported, but I wonder what the percentage of failure is within YC, are there any stats on this?

thinkwithlucie9• 4 years ago

that's a great question, yes, you can use the startup directory to run the stats on inactive startups. on average, every third startup fails If you consider all batches, the average failure rate is 32%

mosdl2• 4 years ago

You can swap startups with restaurants and it still holds true, not sure what the point is.

eole6663• 4 years ago

For me, there is quite a difference between investing millions or even billions in some trending startup who mainly know how to sell their crap tech idea, and investing a reasonable amount of money in a restaurant that will actually serve food to people.

DantesKite• 4 years ago

I wonder what's the most common cause for failure. Or if there's even a common cause.

thinkwithlucie9• 4 years ago

From my interviews, it seems like cofounder issues and product market fit are the most common reasons. Excited to speak with more founders to prove this point

Oras2• 4 years ago

Co-founder issues would be very interesting to hear more about.

I’m a solo founder and really getting sick from posts everywhere from VCs and investors against going solo.

Don’t get me wrong, being solo is hardest than anticipated but imagine with all the hard work you put, you have the emotional rollercoaster of dealing with a co-founder when you discover you’re not good fits few months or years down the line.

YC always urge to find a co-founder yet there are no stats about how many startups failed due to mismatch or issues between the co-founders.

hackernewds2• 4 years ago

It should be obvious there can't be a common cause

ozten• 4 years ago

Off topic: I think Spotify should have created two products - Spotify Music and Spotify Podcast.

AlwaysRock2• 4 years ago

Why seperate them?

thinkwithlucie9• 4 years ago

just uploaded a video version of episode 30 using the new Spotify video feature, works great btw! Powered by Mux <3

FractalHQ• 4 years ago

For one, it’s infuriating that all of the music in my house stops if I want to listen to a podcast. Refuse to even try Spotify podcasts for that reason alone. I often have quiet background music on with a podcast in the foreground.

Podcast-conversations with YC founders whose startups failed

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