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

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/ *** 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