Startup School is a free online course for founders actively pursuing their own startup.

our goals

Throughout the course, we aim to accomplish the following:

  1. Encourage and inspire people to consider starting a company as a way to positively impact the world.
  2. Teach people about how to start a startup, and equip them with the resources and tools to help prepare them now and in the future.
  3. Build a community of entrepreneurs who can encourage and teach each other.
participation
Participation in the course will follow two tracks:
Startup School
If you/your team are actively pursuing a startup, or will be starting one for the program. Sign up here.

In addition to having full access to all the lectures and class office hours, you will also:

Be assigned an advisor and join their group of companies. Advisors are members of the YC alumni network.

Have virtual advisory sessions, in the form of Group Office Hours, every week via online video.

Have access to a community of international founders through the Startup School forum.

Be responsible for updating your Advisor on your progress once a week.

Audit
If you currently don’t have any plans to start a startup in the immediate future, but would like to learn.

You can follow along and have full access to all 10 lectures and class content, released once a week here.

course format

Lectures will be taught by YC partners
and industry leaders.

Week 1: Introduction to the course. The story of your Startup
By Geoff Ralston (YC)
Week 1: How to Start A Startup and be a Great Founder
By Sam Altman (YC)
Week 1: Startup Mechanics +
By Kirsty Nathoo and Carolynn Levy (YC)
Week 2: A conversation with Paul Graham
By Paul Graham (YC)
Week 2: Building Products
By Michael Seibel (YC)
Week 3: Finding Product Market Fit - Case Study
By David Rusenko (Weebly)
Week 3: How to Measure Your Product
By Suhail Doshi (Mixpanel)
Week 4: How to Get Users and Grow
By Gustaf Alströmer (YC)
Week 4: Product Design / Prototyping / Design Thinking
By Garry Tan (Initialized)
Week 5: PR for Growth
By Kat Manalac (YC)
Week 5: Sales From $0 to $1 Million
By Tyler Bosmeny (Clever)
Week 6: Building an Engineering Team
By Harj Taggar & Ammon Bartram (TripleByte)
Week 6: How to Apply and Succeed at YC
By Dalton Caldwell (YC)
Week 7: Running Your Startup
By Adora Cheung (YC) & Patrick Collison (Stripe)
Week 7: Startup Technology - Advice from CTOs
By Jared Friedman (YC)
Week 8: Fundraising Fundamentals
By Geoff Ralston (YC)
Week 8: All you need to know about Safes, Notes & Equity
By Jon Levy (YC)
Week 9: Investor Meetings
By Aaron Harris (YC)
Week 9: The Path to $100B
By Paul Buchheit (YC)
Week 10: How to talk to users
By Mathilde Colin (Front)
Week 10: Life as a Founder
By Daniel Gross (YC)
evaluation

You must submit at least 9 out of your 10 weekly updates and attend 9 out of 10 group office hour sessions.

Upon successful completion, you will receive a certificate of completion and the opportunity to share what you're working on with the public.

100 startups that complete the course will be chosen to receive $10K in equity-free funding.