Startup School is a free online program for founders actively pursuing their own startup.
Throughout the course, we aim to accomplish the following:
- Encourage and inspire people to consider starting a company as a way to positively impact the world.
- Teach people how to start a startup, and equip them with the resources and tools to help prepare them now and in the future.
- Build a community of entrepreneurs who can encourage, teach and support one another.
Participation in the course is self-guided and based on the stage of your startup.
Below we define the three ‘stages’ that most founders will fall into during their Startup School participation. Please note that these are general categorizations. You may not feel perfectly aligned with one of these stages, and you may progress through these stages (forward or backward) during Startup School!
Stage 1
You are in the process of validating your idea and building an initial product. You are talking to potential users about your idea.
Stage 2
You have built an MVP and may have some users. You are talking to these early customers, getting their feedback, and iterating.
Stage 3
You have a product with many active users. You are working on growing revenue/users/sales.
Participation in Startup School includes access to:
- Startup School’s library content and curriculum tailored to your startup stage
- Tools to track your company’s growth and progress
- A community of international founders through the Startup School forum
- Virtual group sessions every other week via online video
- A personalized dashboard to track your participation with Startup School
- Programming and resources from the Y Combinator team (previous courses have included live Q&A sessions, office hours with YC alumni, and AMAs with startup founders)
Sign up if you are ready to participate!
If you would like to spectate, you can create a profile with access to the program content. However, you will not be able to fully participate in Startup School until you sign up with a startup.
Our team thoughtfully compiled video lectures and blog posts from Y Combinator partners and industry leaders. The curriculum is based on the stage of your startup. The library includes a larger curation of quality startup content.
To become Startup School certified, you must:
- Submit a company update 8 weeks in a row (complete an 8-week streak)
- Participate in one group session
- Watch and read all of the curriculum content
We have a new Future Founder track for people who want to start a company in the future but are not actively working on one.
This course takes 6 weeks. The current one runs from November 9, 2020 - December 20, 2020.
In order to complete this course, you must:
- Watch and read all of the curriculum content
- Complete all accompanying exercises