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Save Your Startup During an Economic Downturn

Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel discuss Paul Graham's essay "Default Alive or Default Dead." They share strategies to cut your company's burn rate and keep your startup alive to see another day. Paul Graham's essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html Trevor Blackwell's startup growth calculator: http://growth.tlb.org Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Introduction 00:23 - Default alive or default dead 02:14 - The calculator 02:59 - Founder's distraction - Fundraising game 07:32 - Fundraising leverage 09:57 - Math are different 11:29 - Kill or cure 15:37 - The fatal pinch 19:22 - Tough decisions when default dead 19:40 - Headcount 20:46 - Ad Spend 22:50 - Raising prices 25:16 - Personal bankruptcy - Taking a big hit to growth rate 26:28 - Twitch's pirate ship 32:22 - Takeaways 32:27 - Survive to thrive 33:15 - To burn or not burn 34:06 - 10x better if operationally intensive business #ycombinator #startups #burnrate

Michael SeibelhostDalton Caldwellhost

May 6, 202235mWatch on YouTube ↗

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EPISODE INFO

Released: May 6, 2022
Duration: 35m
Channel: Y Combinator
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel discuss Paul Graham's essay "Default Alive or Default Dead." They share strategies to cut your company's burn rate and keep your startup alive to see another day. Paul Graham's essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html Trevor Blackwell's startup growth calculator: http://growth.tlb.org Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Introduction 00:23 - Default alive or default dead 02:14 - The calculator 02:59 - Founder's distraction - Fundraising game 07:32 - Fundraising leverage 09:57 - Math are different 11:29 - Kill or cure 15:37 - The fatal pinch 19:22 - Tough decisions when default dead 19:40 - Headcount 20:46 - Ad Spend 22:50 - Raising prices 25:16 - Personal bankruptcy - Taking a big hit to growth rate 26:28 - Twitch's pirate ship 32:22 - Takeaways 32:27 - Survive to thrive 33:15 - To burn or not burn 34:06 - 10x better if operationally intensive business #ycombinator #startups #burnrate

SPEAKERS

Michael Seibel
host
Y Combinator partner and startup founder (Justin.tv/Twitch), known for advising founders on fundraising and runway.
Dalton Caldwell
host
Y Combinator partner and entrepreneur (founder of App.net/Picplz), focused on practical startup execution and fundraising strategy.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Y Combinator, featuring Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell, Save Your Startup During an Economic Downturn explores default Alive or Default Dead: Controlling Your Startup's Survival Downturn Default alive means that without any more investor money, revenue growth will make a startup profitable before cash runs out, and Dalton Caldwell describes it as a binary with no third option.

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