Video · ~50 min
How to Evaluate Startup Ideas
Kevin Hale · Y Combinator Startup School Free Beginner
Kevin Hale is a YC partner and cofounder of Wufoo, so this is both the investor lens (what makes a bet worth backing) and the operator lens (someone who built and sold a company). His core move is treating an idea as a hypothesis about why the company will grow fast, which is exactly the question to ask before you sign up for years on it. Use it as a starting point to pressure test your own idea, not as a verdict.
- An idea is a hypothesis for why the company will grow quickly, made of a problem, a solution, and an insight, so be honest about whether the growth story holds.
- You need an unfair advantage, a concrete reason you will win and reach people faster than everyone else, before the years of commitment make sense.
- Evaluate your own idea the way an investor would, since that is the same lens that tells you whether it is big enough to be worth your life.
