#149 - Startup School Week 8 Recap - Adora Cheung on Prioritizing Your Time and Kevin Hale on Evaluating Startup Ideas

We've cut down the eighth week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast. First a lecture from Adora Cheung . Adora’s a partner at YC. Her lecture covers how to prioritize your time . Then a lecture from Kevin Hale . Kevin is also a partner at YC. His lecture is the second part of his talk on how to evaluate startup ideas . 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 00:32 - Adora Cheung - How to Prioritize Your Time 2:12 - Real vs fake progress 4:10 - How to determine if you're prioritizing the right tasks 4:42 - Keep a spreadsheet of ideas related to moving your primary KPI 7:32 - Grade the new and old ideas once a week based on potential impact 9:52 - Consider the complexity of each task 11:32 - Don't try to do everything at once 11:52 - How do I know I'm prioritizing my time well? 13:42 - What if I can't complete my tasks in time? 14:02 - Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule 15:32 - Moving fast 16:47 - Kevin Hale - How to Evaluate Startup Ideas Pt. 2 18:52 - How to apply to Y Combinator 20:17 - As a YC partner, you don't need to sell me 21:12 - Can I understand the idea? Am I excited by it? Do I like the team and want to work with them? 21:47 - How do I describe my company in a very efficient manner? 22:52 - Making your idea legible 25:12 - Things to avoid when describing your company 27:34 - Be conversational 28:02 - Avoid jargon, no preamble, and be reproducible 28:47 - Nouns: what are you making, what is the problem, and who is the customer 32:47 - Using the X for Y formula of explaining your startup 36:57 - Be concise without leaving out the key nouns 40:47 - How to adjust a description