producttesting

Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel on software hacks that don't scale. Companies discussed include Google, Facebook, Twitch, and imeem. Watch the first video on doing things that don't scale here: https://youtu.be/4RMjQal_c4U

Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/

We've cut down the fourth week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast.

First a lecture from Kat Manalac. Kat is a partner at YC. Her lecture focuses on how startups should think about launching and why you should do it repeatedly.

Then a lecture from Gustaf Alströmer. Gustaf is also a partner at YC and in his lecture he covers how to measure product market fit and growth channels.

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/

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Topics

00:00 - Intro

00:35 - Kat Mañalac - How to Launch (Again and Again)

1:51 - Ways to launch

2:14 - Why launch continuously?

3:15 - Silent launch

4:25 - Friends & Family

5:40 - Strangers

7:03 - Online communities

12:08 - Request access

13:29 - Social media

15:13 - Pre-order

16:13 - New Product or Feature

17:42 - Build your own community

19:20 - Launching isn't one moment in time

19:48 - Gustaf Alströmer - Growth for Startups

21:06 - Most startups have nothing

22:13 - Do things that don't scale

27:13 - Startups take off because founders make them take off

28:23 - Measuring product market fit

31:20 - Retention

34:33 - Worse ways to measure product market fit

35:23 - Bad metrics to measure as product market fit

36:18 - Growth channels and tactics

38:17 - Conversion rate optimization

41:26 - Growth channels to explore

45:33 - Referrals and vitality

48:05 - Paid growth

50:09 - Search Engine Optimization

53:00 - Making decisions using A/B testing

55:02 - Summary