August 2009Kate Courteau is the architect who designed Y Combinator's office.Recently we managed to recruit her to help us run YC when she's notbusy with architectural projects. Though she'd heard a lot aboutYC since the beginning, the last 9 months have been a total immersion.I've been around the startup world for so long that it seems normalto me, so I was curious to hear what had surprised her most aboutit. This was her list:1. How many startups fail.Kate knew in principle that startupswere very risky, but she was surprised to see how constant thethreat of failure was — not just for the minnows, but even for thefamous startups whose founders came to speak at YC dinners.2. How much startups' ideas change.As usual, by Demo Day abouthalf the startups were doing something significantly different thanthey started with. We encourage that. Starting a startup is likescience in that you have to follow the truth wherever it leads. Inthe rest of the world, people don't start things till they're surewhat they want to do, and once started they tend to continue on theirinitial path even if it's mistaken.3. How little money it can take to start a startup.In Kate'sworld, everything is still physical and expensive. You can barelyrenovate a bathroom for the cost of starting a startup.4. How scrappy founders are.That was her actual word. I agreewith her, but till she mentioned this it never occurred to me howlittle this quality is appreciated in most of the rest of the world.It wouldn't be a compliment in most organizations to call someonescrappy.What does it mean, exactly? It's basically the diminutive form ofbelligerent. Someone who's scrappy manages to be both threateningand undignified at the same time. Which seems to me exactly whatone would want to be, in any kind of work. If you're not threatening,you're probably not doing anything new, and dignity is merely asort of plaque.5. How tech-saturated Silicon Valley is."It seems like everybodyhere is in the industry." That isn't literally true, but there isa qualitative difference between Silicon Valley and other places.You tend to keep your voice down, because there's a good chance theperson at the next table would know some of the people you're talkingabout. I never felt that in Boston. The good news is, there'salso a good chance the person at the next table could help you insome way.6. That the speakers at YC were so consistent in their advice.Actually, I've noticed this too. I always worry the speakers willput us in an embarrassing position by contradicting what we tell thestartups, but it happens surprisingly rarely.When I asked her what specific things she remembered speakers alwayssaying, she mentioned: that the way to succeed was to launch somethingfast, listen to users, and then iterate; that startups requiredresilience because they were always an emotional rollercoaster; andthat most VCs were sheep.I've been impressed by how consistently the speakers advocatelaunching fast and iterating. That was contrarian advice 10 yearsago, but it's clearly now the established practice.7. How casual successful startup founders are.Most of the famousfounders in Silicon Valley are people you'd overlook on the street.It's not merely that they don't dress up. They don't project anykind of aura of power either. "They're not trying to impressanyone."Interestingly, while Kate said that she could never pick outsuccessful founders, she could recognize VCs, both by the way theydressed and the way they carried themselves.8. How important it is for founders to have people to ask for advice.(I swear I didn't prompt this one.) Without advice "they'd justbe sort of lost." Fortunately, there are a lot of people to helpthem. There's a strong tradition within YC of helping other YC-fundedstartups. But we didn't invent that idea: it's just a slightlymore concentrated form of existing Valley culture.9. What a solitary task startups are.Architects are constantlyinteracting face to face with other people, whereas doing a technologystartup, at least, tends to require long stretches of uninterruptedtime to work. "You could do it in a box."By inverting this list, we can get a portrait of the "normal" world.It's populated by people who talk a lot with one another as theywork slowly but harmoniously on conservative, expensive projectswhose destinations are decided in advance, and who carefully adjusttheir manner to reflect their position in the hierarchy.That's also a fairly accurate description of the past. So startupculture may not merely be different in the way you'd expect anysubculture to be, but a leading indicator.
