#142 - Startup School Week 1 Recap: Kevin Hale and Eric Migicovsky

Listen to this episode from Y Combinator Startup Podcast on Spotify. We've cut down the first week of Startup School lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast. First, a lecture from Kevin Hale. Kevin is a YC partner and a cofounder of Wufoo. His lecture is about How to Evaluate Startup Ideas.Then, a lecture from Eric Migicovsky. Eric is a YC partner and the founder of Pebble. His lecture is about How to Talk to Users.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/***Topics00:00 - Intro00:43 - Kevin Hale on How to Evaluate Startup Ideas2:04 - How can I predict if an investor will like my idea?2:50 - A startup idea is a hypothesis5:44 - Problem6:59 - Solution8:16 - Insight8:57 - Unfair advantages13:45 - Two beliefs about startups15:19 - Eric Migicovsky on How to Talk to Users17:36 - Three common errors people make when talking to users20:20 - Five questions to ask in a user interview20:28 - What's the hardest part about doing the thing you're trying to solve?21:02 - Tell me about the last time that you encountered this problem21:22 - Why was this hard?23:08 - What, if anything, have you done to try to solve this problem?24:10 - What don't you love about the solutions you've already tried?25:21 - Three stages in which talking to users is extremely beneficial26:07 - Idea stage30:40 - Prototype stage33:41 - Iterating towards product market fit