pg’s articles are all about how to build a great product (Startup=Growth, for example). Are these VC tips-and-tricks secret insider-only info? They don’t publish anything like that
> YCombinator was (in 2008) oriented around learning what magic words to say to investors and exactly when to time techcrunch launch articles, etc. There seemed to be no time given to "how to make a great product”
I've watched many of the videos on YouTube. I would say that each speaker consistently emphasizes the need to "build something users want" before making a big press launch, before applying growth hacking techniques, before talking to investors, etc.
They always say that in the first 5 minutes of the talk, and then go onto more tactical stuff.
They do teach you about hacking investors, or maybe more charitably seeing it from their side, and seeing their motivations.
I think it's true that you can't teach the "build something users want" part, so a lot of the advice is lower level than that.
Advice about building things tends to sound very vague and general, and for every rule there's an exception. Probably the most memorable advice is "live in the future and build what's missing", which I think is true, but hard to implement if you're not the right person.
Whereas the hacking tactics are more specific and actionable (although more likely to be out of date).
“Startup = Growth” is pure actionable advice and probably the most useful document i’ve ever seen on starting companies (I say that as someone who has founded 3 venture funded startups and two bootstrapped before that)
> YCombinator was (in 2008) oriented around learning what magic words to say to investors and exactly when to time techcrunch launch articles, etc. There seemed to be no time given to "how to make a great product”