#151 - Startup School Week 10 Recap - Ali Rowghani on How to Lead and Kevin Hale and Adora Cheung on Startup School 2019 by the Numbers

We've cut down the tenth week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast. First, a lecture from Ali Rowghani . Ali is a partner at YC. His lecture covers how to lead . Then a lecture from Kevin Hale and Adora Cheung . Kevin and Adora are both partners at YC. Their lecture breaks down this year’s Startup School by the numbers and they share tips on what helped companies most. 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 00:36 - Ali Rowghani - How to Lead 1:36 - Ali's background 2:56 - There's no single archetype for a great leader so be yourself 5:16 - Great leaders think and communicate clearly 9:56 - Great leaders have good judgement about people 12:56 - Great leaders have strong personal integrity and commitment 13:46 - The transparency test 14:41 - The best way to measure great leaders is in terms of the amount of trust they engender in the people that work with them 15:21 - The science of trust 16:08 - The art of trust 16:36 - Optimize for trust 17:40 - Kevin Hale and Adora Cheung - Startup School 2019 by the Numbers 19:24 - Startup School grew during the course 20:24 - Did SUS make a difference? 21:14 - 106 SUS companies were accepted into YC 23:17 - How can you replicate their success? 23:44 - Be clear and concise 26:59 - Edit your company description 28:04 - Weekly updates submitted 28:39 - Top 7 biggest obstacles for SUS companies 29:04 - Top 7 KPI movers 29:59 - Top 7 user insights 31:04 - Average startup weeks to launch 31:54 - Average hard tech or biotech startup weeks to launch 32:54 - % of weekly updates from launched startups 33:34 - Group sessions 33:59 - Companies got better at explaining their ideas, selling themselves, and getting others excited 35:09 - Founders like qualitative feedback 36:09 - No shows 37:19 - Morale 37:49 - Technical, launched, full-time, revenue generating, non-flaky, non-solo founder startups that talk to users are happier 41:14 - Summary