#147 - Startup School Week 6 Recap - Tim Brady on Culture and Dalton Caldwell on Pivoting

We've cut down the sixth week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast. First a lecture from Tim Brady . Tim’s a partner at YC. His lecture covers the importance of building a good culture early and shares six things that you can do now to help create a solid foundation for your startup. Then a lecture from Dalton Caldwell . Dalton is a partner at YC and he’s also the head of admissions. His lecture covers pivoting and his advice on how founders should think about it. 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 - Tim Brady on Building Culture 1:13 - Culture is behavior and the right behaviors support a good business 4:38 - Six things new startups can do now 5:00 - 1. Be proud of the problem you are solving 7:31 - 2. Create a long term vision that others will follow 9:36 - 3. List your values then model the behavior 12:34 - 4. Align your culture with your customer 14:49 - 5. Discuss the importance of diversity to your company 16:43 - 6. Put a hiring process into practice. Plan to evolve it. 18:24 - Dalton Caldwell on Pivoting 18:53 - The term "pivot" 20:20 - Why pivot? 21:33 - Good reasons to pivot 22:35 - Good reasons not to pivot 23:13 - Why people take too long to pivot 26:01 - Anecdotes 27:22 - Product market fit 28:34 - How to find a better idea 30:40 - It's ok to not work on an idea that requires venture capital 31:34 - Venture vs. non-venture scale ideas 32:52 - When is the best time to pivot 33:48 - More pivoting thoughts 35:07 - Idea quality scores 37:11 - Brex 39:51 - Retool 41:37 - Magic 43:22 - Segment 45:16 - Dalton's summary