Summaries Entrepreneurship and Startups Building a Successful Startup: Insights from Zach Sims at Startup School NY 2014

This is a summary of a YouTube video "Zach Sims at Startup School NY 2014" by Y Combinator!

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The key idea of the video is that building a successful startup requires perseverance, passion, and the ability to pivot and learn from experiences and advice.

• 👨‍💻
  00:00

  Codecademy CEO shares start-up story and lessons learned.
• 📧
  03:21

  💻 At 13, the speaker emailed manufacturers to build a waterproof iPod case, learning quickly and building something successful despite being young and inexperienced on the internet.
• 💡
  06:37

  After struggling to find a tech community in NYC, the speaker learned from Sam by working for free and tutoring SATs, and sought out experiences to improve her skills.
• 📱
  08:44

  GroupMe was created by two friends who solved their own communication issues and became successful, while the speaker addressed the gap between education and employment.
• 💼
  12:20

  Founders pivot from job recruitment website to programming job platform after receiving valuable advice from Y Combinator.
• 💼
  16:44

  Ryzach co-founders struggled to find programmers for their startup, pivoted to become random idea generators, and eventually built a CRM for club promoters with Y Combinator funding.
• 💻
  19:20

  Codecademy founders overcame obstacles to create a programming teaching platform that quickly gained popularity and proved that millions of people want to learn programming.
• 💻
  24:22

  Keep going and never quit, even when faced with obstacles and criticism, and be passionate about what you're working on when building a startup like Codecademy.

Detailed summary

• 👨‍💻
  00:00

  Codecademy CEO shares start-up story and lessons learned.

  • Zach Sims, Co-Founder and CEO of Codecademy, shares his start-up story and how they teach people programming skills.
  • The speaker questioned the qualifications of the other speakers at the event and noted that they needed a "cliché" dropout to fill the lineup.
  • The speaker shares their story of starting Codecademy, including key lessons and mistakes to avoid when starting a company.
• 📧
  03:21

  💻 At 13, the speaker emailed manufacturers to build a waterproof iPod case, learning quickly and building something successful despite being young and inexperienced on the internet.

  • At the age of 13, the speaker emailed different iPod case manufacturers to build a waterproof case for his iPod, which he successfully received after six months of communication.
  • Being young and inexperienced didn't matter on the internet, as it allowed the speaker to learn quickly and build something successful.
  • Started learning about the internet by picking up a book on PHP and MYSQL for Dummies, but despite reading a bunch of For Dummies books, it never really clicked and never built anything with the knowledge.
• 💡
  06:37

  After struggling to find a tech community in NYC, the speaker learned from Sam by working for free and tutoring SATs, and sought out experiences to improve her skills.

  • In college, the speaker struggled to find like-minded individuals interested in technology and startups in New York City in 2008.
  • Learned from Sam by working for him for free and tutoring SATs, then sought out experiences that would help her become better in her field.
• 📱
  08:44

  GroupMe was created by two friends who solved their own communication issues and became successful, while the speaker addressed the gap between education and employment.

  • GroupMe, a group chatting application, was created by two friends who experienced communication issues at a music festival and went on to become popular at TechCrunch Disrupt.
  • GroupMe's early success was due to solving a problem that the founders themselves faced, leading to rapid growth and eventual acquisition by Skype.
  • The speaker realized that the skills he learned in college were not relevant to the job market and decided to address the gap between education and employment with a friend.
• 💼
  12:20

  Founders pivot from job recruitment website to programming job platform after receiving valuable advice from Y Combinator.

  • They started building a job recruitment website called "Come Recruit Us" in 2011, which allowed students to log in with their Facebook account and state where they wanted to work.
  • The founders received feedback that their idea was not good, but they applied to Y Combinator and received valuable advice to simplify their pitch, leading to an invitation to interview.
  • They realized their initial idea was a bad one and decided to focus on helping programmers find jobs instead, spending the next 48 hours building a platform for programming challenges and job searches.
  • The speaker and their team had a rough start when they locked themselves out of their Air B and B before their Y Combinator interview, but despite initial doubts from the partners, they were accepted into the program and received their first check.
• 💼
  16:44

  Ryzach co-founders struggled to find programmers for their startup, pivoted to become random idea generators, and eventually built a CRM for club promoters with Y Combinator funding.

  • Started a company called Ryzach with a friend named Ryan, moved to Silicon Valley and lived in a friend's apartment until they got their own office and apartment.
  • Startups struggle to find and evaluate programmers, but programmers are not interested in participating in a platform that offers job opportunities through fun challenges.
  • The speaker and their team went back to the drawing board and became random start-up idea generators, but with funding from Y Combinator, they decided to work on building a CRM for club promoters.
• 💻
  19:20

  Codecademy founders overcame obstacles to create a programming teaching platform that quickly gained popularity and proved that millions of people want to learn programming.

  • The speaker and his partner struggled with coming up with good ideas, but through frustration and determination, they learned programming skills and decided to teach others the important skill of programming.
  • Despite being told that there was no market for a programming teaching platform, the founders of Codecademy were passionate about their idea and worked tirelessly to build the first version, which they eventually presented to investors and Y Combinator.
  • Don't be too embarrassed when launching for the first time, and building for yourself makes it much easier.
  • Codecademy was launched with the aim of making programming easy for people with no prior knowledge, and it quickly gained popularity with over 1000 people using the site on the first day.
  • Codecademy went from being the least popular company in Y Combinator to the fastest growing one by teaching people to program and proving that millions of people want to learn programming.
• 💻
  24:22

  Keep going and never quit, even when faced with obstacles and criticism, and be passionate about what you're working on when building a startup like Codecademy.

  • Starting a company is like being a cockroach, you have to keep going and not quit, even when faced with obstacles and criticism, and it's easier when you care about what you're doing.
  • Codecademy was built to address the massive problem of unemployment among US college graduates and the shortage of programming jobs, with over 24 million people having used it to date.
  • People with no prior programming experience can learn to code on Codecademy and build successful companies, and everyone should take advantage of the internet and tools available to optimize their learning.
  • Startups are a roller coaster, but never give up and be passionate about what you're working on.