Ask HN: What to watch after How to Start a Startup?

8 points by travis_bickle ↗ HN
After completely watching How to Start a Startup[1] 2-10 times (depending on lecture) and reading and watching all the readings[2], what should I watch now?

A. There are plenty of reading resources (many shared on HN), but I am looking for videos.

B. There are plenty of great talks (but what I want is detailed videos (instructional) just like HTSAS)

C. I haven't read (m)any books on the topic, do you recommend that I rather do that? In that case, please make my work easy and give a ordered list of books (ordered to complement HTSAS).

[1]: HTSAS: http://startupclass.samaltman.com/

[2]: http://startupclass.samaltman.com/lists/readings/

6 comments

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Read Paul Graham's essays, Start Small Stay Small, personal MBA, Lean Startup, Zero to One by Peter Thiel, 5 hour Workweek, Rework by 37signals. All of these are fantastic reads. In no particular order. Many of them available as audiobooks.

If you want to start a startup I would advise you to come up with an idea and start working on your product. Learn the necessary technology as you go. You really don't need to know so much on the "business" side of things when you start.

"How to Get Startup Ideas" by PG and Start Small Stay Small really cover 90% of what you need to know when you begin.

Sorry, can't recommend any videos, I guess How to Start a Startup are the most useful ones.

(comment deleted)

  If you want to start a startup I would advise you to come up with an idea and start working on your product.
I just want to know more about it, I know that it wouldn't be as helpful as doing it yourself and it won't be a comprehensive guide.
After these awesome videos, you now know how to start a startup. Next up: grow the startup. There is lots of good reading on growth (like this post by Paul Graham from 2012, which is still super valid: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html). But since you are looking for videos, you should check out the free video on Growth Hacking by Mattan Griffel on onemonth (also a Y-Combinator company - http://mbsy.co/cs72Z).
Let me share the following with you;

I just came across a question about how to end a small business start-up failure and make a success of it. It's always so frustrating to invest so much in planning and execution of a business idea, only for it to fail. You try another one another time, same process, same result: failure. Many attempts, many failures, and you believe that you have done everything right, spent money on ads and other forms of promotion, yet, no encouraging results. What is the way forward?

I think most do everything right except getting the foundation right and, getting this right is the most important requirement for business success. What's this foundation? It is RESEARCH. You go into business first, to satisfy a particular need which affects a good number of people and then to make money for yourself. So, if this group of people got what they needed from you, then, you are in business.

How do you identiy a need? It is by asking the right questions that you will be able to ascertain with some degree of accuracy, what the need is. It is when this is established, that you can use that your brilliant idea to give the people a good deal. If you don't follow the process of identifying the need first and then fashioning out a better way to satisfy the identified need, then unfortunately, your business start up is doomed to fail. http://ayietim.wordpress.com.

PS: Don't forget to read up books that give in an easy to understand language, detail information on the business you wish to invest in.

Now would be a good time to try something, rather than watch more. A lot of people learn better by doing. Think of it as the exercises at the end of the class. Even if you don't have the idea yet, it would definitely help your learning.