#20: Why do 98% of websites suck?

It’s a simple fact that most startup ideas are not going to work out. As Chris McCormick points out in this post, “Just like most tweets never get a retweet, most GitHub projects have no users, and most Hacker News posts never get an upvote. That’s a simple truth”. So it makes sense to kill the bad ones quickly. Chris argues that by looking to ‘validate’ a business concept you are inherently creating a bias towards a positive outcome - so don’t validate them, invalidate them. Whether or not you agree with this approach, his post is a fantastic read and full of great tips to invalidate your business idea. (8 min read)

🎁 Bonus Read: James Fleischmann’s - 19 Product Testing and Marketing Validation Techniques.

YC’s is still one of the most sought-after accelerator programs to join. Founders from around the world apply every quarter to join their latest batch. However, it’s said their acceptance rate is between 1.5% to 3% - that’s harder than getting accepted into Harvard. As much as we know about YC and its positive effects we know little about the financial costs of enrolling. Mat Sherman explores the true cost of enrolling into YC and the implication it can have based on their terms. Mat’s analysis doesn’t just cover YC but also Venture Capital in general and if it’s the right option to consider when building your business.

“If you’re focused on the capital, you’re looking at the wrong side of the deal” (9 min read)

🎁 Bonus Listen: Alexis Ohanain (Co-Founder of Reddit) discusses what it was like being in the first cohort of YC.

🎁 Bonus Read: Corey Haines wrote this fantastic post exploring all the options available when fundraising for your startup.

Jelmer and Marcus are both prolific makers, so when they wrote this post about a new framework to help makers manage multiple side-projects with no code I was all ears.

“Side projects are like potato chips. You can’t just have one”.

No-code has allowed us to take a series of smaller bets as opposed to big moonshot bets over a longer period of time and resources (Max Haining summarised it perfectly with this graphic). “You can make multiple smaller bets, see how they perform, and double down on one that works.” By creating a series of small bets we can decrease our risk - additionally, no-code tools are disposable to an extent with limited associated cost apart from your own time. (6 min read)