Advice to a friend dealing with their chaotic startup...

Startups are inherently chaotic. No chaos = no opportunity. Startups exist because there is uncertainty, and new things to learn. (1/7) #startup

During a period of rapid growth, all things (structures, processes, etc.) eventually break. Some chaos is self-inflicted, and too much chaos can cause collapse / chronic harm (2/7) #startup
Agility is solving today’s problem, while not limiting your ability to solve tomorrow’s problem. There’s always a temptation to solve tomorrow’s problems.

There are good ideas everywhere, and opportunities everywhere. So focus is hard (3/7) #startup
Startups require an almost supernatural level of focus. You have to focus, while knowing full well many things are broken, and need work. Nothing is truly repeatable or efficient at this point, even when we want it to be (4/7) #startup
And that’s hard...so we tend to load up on the good ideas.

Pursuing all the good ideas will leave you (and others) burnt out. Self-inflicted chaos (5/7) #startup
You always have to ask… “what’s the one thing?”. This level of focus is the antidote to feeling like you need to cut corners...asking “what’s the one thing?” and doing an awesome job you can be proud of (6/7) #startup
It’s the little steps, executed well, the little promises...kept, that help the company win (7/7) #startup

More from Startups

1/ If you want to find out what is in the Y Combinator S19 batch, @Golden has compiled (using public signals) a near complete list of truly exciting companies.

If we are missing any or you want to help improve the data you can edit the topics.

https://t.co/9QGLiEPsn3


2/ Here is the direct public query if you want to check it out:

https://t.co/aqb8qYN4y9

[Note: no off the record cos are in here unless they have been publicly launched already]

3/ Also, here are 2,000+ other YC companies we have generated information

4/ We used the Golden Research Engine to generate this information, which you can find out more about here and ping me if you want a
From day 1, I intended to build @shoutoutso_ in public, and part of it is to be transparent with numbers, talk openly about our highs and lows, and share lessons as we grow!

I have been doing individual posts on numbers every week so wanted to one big thread with all updates 👇🏽

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