- The type of information you consume is important for aspiring founders
- Media that focuses on fundraising can be discouraging and unconstructive
- It is better to consume media that inspires you to build and give to others
- Consuming too much fundraising-related media can make you feel like you need permission or approval to start a company
- The first step to starting a company is figuring out who you want to work with and what you want to build, not fundraising
- Establishing thought leadership and notoriety is not necessary for success as a founder
- Most successful founders have no presence in the early stages of their company
- Thought leadership can be a distraction from what really matters in making your company work
- Content marketing is effective for promoting products or services, but it may not be relevant to your core business
- Be thoughtful about the information you consume and if it is inspiring you in the right direction
- Avoid consuming content that is discouraging or off track
- Focus on consuming content that makes you a better founder and human being

YC Partner and Head of Admissions Dalton Caldwell on consuming tech media and being careful to choose things that encourage you to do more.

https://twitter.com/daltonc

Topics
00:00 - Consume information that encourages you to do more
1:25 - You don't need permission from investors to start a company 
2:30 - Is thought leadership important?
4:05 - Your thought process is influenced by the information you consume

You want to really think about what kind of information you're consuming.

You want to be very thoughtful that it's information that encourages you to do more and to actually work on the thing you're aspiring to do and that isn't implicitly discouraging.

There's a lot of media and information you consume out there that's very much hero-worshipping investors that talks about fundraising above the actual product, that talks about how hard it is or all the negativity around doing things in technology.

And those are all well and good, but if you're consuming it day after day after day, and sometimes I meet founders where they don't even have a startup idea yet, but because they consume all this information about fundraising 24-7, they're completely focused on fundraising without even knowing what their startup idea is, right?

And I would argue that is not super constructive and that I think it'd be so much better for aspiring founders to be consuming media that inspires them to build things and to give things to other people and gives them more positive feedback on the things they're doing and not really on fundraising That comes later after you've built something And the other thing that could be secretly not good about consuming too much fundraising related media is you feel like you can't do it.

You feel like You need the approval of external parties or investors to even begin.

And that can't be further from the truth.

When I meet aspiring founders, they usually think the first thing to do to start a company is to first make a pitch deck and go raise money.

The first thing to do is figure out who you wanna work with and what the first thing you wanna build is.

And if the kind of people that you follow or the kind of blog posts that you read or the kind of forms that you're members of is really focused on building things and making things and holding you up and giving you positive feedback for making things.

I would argue that's a great kind of information flow to give yourself every day.

But if it's 100% focused on the nuts and bolts of valuation and board meetings and branding and things like that, I just, I find it to be a little bit discouraging for people who haven't even begun their startup.

Another question I sometimes hear from aspiring founders is how important it is to establish thought leadership and to get notoriety for themselves as individuals.

And I can definitely see why people think that because especially if you're consuming a lot of thought leadership, right, if you're following a bunch of people on Twitter or reading blog posts, you get the idea that to replicate the success of the people that are putting out the content, you yourself need to be doing exactly the same thing.

The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of successful founders that we funded at YC have effectively no presence whatsoever, especially not in the early stages, especially not in the first 5 or 6 years of the lifetime of their company.

And that kind of exposing yourself to all that noise or putting a lot of energy into establishing thought leadership can be a huge distraction from doing what really matters of making your company work.

And the other thing to really understand is a lot of the stuff where people spend a lot of energy on putting information out on the internet is content marketing.

What they're trying to do is to promote their product or service.

And it's a really effective marketing channel, but they're not doing it because that's what got their startup successful in the very early days.

They're doing it because it's a channel that works.

And so if you're 1 of those people where thought leadership is an amazing way to get more customers and you can actually prove that improves your bottom line, you should definitely be doing it.

But on the other hand, if it has nothing to do with your core business and what makes your startup grow, it's not necessarily a great use of time.

So if you've heard the thing that your personality is heavily influenced by the 5 people you spend the most time with, I would argue that your thought process of founder is heavily influenced by the 5 most common information sources you get.

And so because of that, I want you to be really thoughtful about what kind of information you're consuming, if it's inspiring you to build more things, if it's inspiring you to work harder, if it's inspiring you to be rowing in the right direction.

And if there's pieces of information or there's content that you're consuming that's kind of discouraging or blowing you off track, just stop reading it, stop consuming it.

And so in conclusion, think about, is this content that I'm consuming serving me well and making me a better founder and a better human being?

Or is it making me kind of depressed and sad?


Speaker 0: You want to really think about what kind of information you're consuming. You want to be very thoughtful that it's information that encourages you to do more and to actually work on the thing you're aspiring to do and that isn't implicitly discouraging. There's a lot of media and information you consume out there that's very much hero-worshipping investors that talks about fundraising above the actual product, that talks about how hard it is or all the negativity around doing things in technology. And those are all well and good, but if you're consuming it day after day after day, and sometimes I meet founders where they don't even have a startup idea yet, but because they consume all this information about fundraising 24-7, they're completely focused on fundraising without even knowing what their startup idea is, right? And I would argue that is not super constructive and that I think it'd be so much better for aspiring founders to be consuming media that inspires them to build things and to give things to other people and gives them more positive feedback on the things they're doing and not really on fundraising That comes later after you've built something And the other thing that could be secretly not good about consuming too much fundraising related media is you feel like you can't do it.

You feel like you need permission. You feel like You need the approval of external parties or investors to even begin. And that can't be further from the truth. When I meet aspiring founders, they usually think the first thing to do to start a company is to first make a pitch deck and go raise money. And that's not.

The first thing to do is figure out who you wanna work with and what the first thing you wanna build is. And if the kind of people that you follow or the kind of blog posts that you read or the kind of forms that you're members of is really focused on building things and making things and holding you up and giving you positive feedback for making things. I would argue that's a great kind of information flow to give yourself every day. But if it's 100% focused on the nuts and bolts of valuation and board meetings and branding and things like that, I just, I find it to be a little bit discouraging for people who haven't even begun their startup. Another question I sometimes hear from aspiring founders is how important it is to establish thought leadership and to get notoriety for themselves as individuals.

And I can definitely see why people think that because especially if you're consuming a lot of thought leadership, right, if you're following a bunch of people on Twitter or reading blog posts, you get the idea that to replicate the success of the people that are putting out the content, you yourself need to be doing exactly the same thing. And I would suggest that is not true. The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of successful founders that we funded at YC have effectively no presence whatsoever, especially not in the early stages, especially not in the first 5 or 6 years of the lifetime of their company. And that kind of exposing yourself to all that noise or putting a lot of energy into establishing thought leadership can be a huge distraction from doing what really matters of making your company work. And the other thing to really understand is a lot of the stuff where people spend a lot of energy on putting information out on the internet is content marketing.

What they're trying to do is to promote their product or service. And it's a really effective marketing channel, but they're not doing it because that's what got their startup successful in the very early days. They're doing it because it's a channel that works. And so if you're 1 of those people where thought leadership is an amazing way to get more customers and you can actually prove that improves your bottom line, you should definitely be doing it. But on the other hand, if it has nothing to do with your core business and what makes your startup grow, it's not necessarily a great use of time.

So if you've heard the thing that your personality is heavily influenced by the 5 people you spend the most time with, I would argue that your thought process of founder is heavily influenced by the 5 most common information sources you get. And so because of that, I want you to be really thoughtful about what kind of information you're consuming, if it's inspiring you to build more things, if it's inspiring you to work harder, if it's inspiring you to be rowing in the right direction. And if there's pieces of information or there's content that you're consuming that's kind of discouraging or blowing you off track, just stop reading it, stop consuming it. And so in conclusion, think about, is this content that I'm consuming serving me well and making me a better founder and a better human being? Or is it making me kind of depressed and sad?

And always go towards the positive. You

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Consume Information That Encourages You To Do More - Dalton Caldwell