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 a moderator and join a group of companies.

Have virtual group 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 Moderator 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 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 Kirsty Nathoo (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 Collin (Front)
Week 10: Life as a Founder
By Daniel Gross (YC)
evaluation

You must submit at least 8 out of your 10 weekly updates and attend 8 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.