Examples
Here are example question and answers
Question: What do you recommend for first time startup founders?
Answer: So I'll give a couple of pieces of advice. First, don't be afraid to ask questions and get help from people who have done this before. It is really easy as an early stage founder to feel like you should know everything about your business or that asking other people will make it seem like you aren't smart enough to run the company yourself. But in reality, there are so many things that you just won't learn by reading books or watching videos on YouTube. And if you try to figure them out all by yourself, you're gonna waste tons of time and energy doing stuff wrong when someone else could tell you how to do it right immediately. Second, find some way to measure what matters most to your business. This can be anything from revenue to active users to retention rate. Whatever metric you choose, pick 1 thing that you think best represents whether your product is working well at its core. Then track it every day and use it to guide your decision making. If something isn't growing fast enough, then maybe you need to change course. Or if something is growing too quickly, maybe you need to scale up faster than expected. The point here is not to obsess over any single number but rather to keep tabs on which parts of your business are performing well and which ones might need more attention. Third, build relationships with investors. You may never raise money from these specific individuals, but they've seen hundreds of companies go through YC and they understand exactly why startups fail. They also tend to be pretty good at spotting promising ideas even though those ideas haven't been executed yet. Investor meetings are great opportunities to practice pitching your idea and getting feedback on it. Even better, they often lead to introductions to potential customers, employees, partners, etcetera. Finally, remember that building a successful company takes years. Don't expect to launch your MVP tomorrow and become the next billion dollar unicorn within months. That almost never happens. Instead, focus on learning as much as possible during the earliest stages of your company. Build something that works and iterate until it doesn't suck anymore. Once you reach that point, repeat the process again and again until you've built something truly valuable. Alright. Thank you very much everyone.
Question: What advice do you have for startup founders who want to build with AI tech?
Answer: So my last piece of advice is, if you're a founder and you wanna use artificial intelligence in your company. You should be building it yourself. It's not that hard. There are lots of resources out there on the internet. And I think this is something where you can really differentiate from other companies by doing it yourself. Thank you very much.
Question: How can an artist start a business selling art successfully?
Answer: So let's talk about how to sell your work. This is something that I think artists have the most trouble with, and it's really important because if you don't know how to do this well, then you won't be able to make money from what you love doing. And so here are some tips for getting started on this journey of learning how to sell your own work. First off, you need to understand who your customer is. You should not just assume that everyone will want to buy your stuff or even like your stuff. It turns out there's actually a lot more people in the world than just you. There might be other people who would rather spend their time and money on things besides yours. So first step is figuring out exactly who those customers are. Secondly, you wanna figure out where they hang out online. If you're trying to reach them through social media, which is probably the best way these days, you gotta find out where they go online. What platforms do they use? Do they read blog posts? Are they active on Instagram? Or maybe they only listen to podcasts. Maybe they never get on Facebook at all. Whatever platform they're using, you need to learn how to speak their language. Third thing is you need to create content specifically designed to appeal to those potential customers. Now, when we say content, we mean anything that you put up online. That could include photos of your paintings, videos of yourself painting, articles explaining why someone else should care about buying your artwork, whatever it may be. The point is you need to give people a reason to pay attention to you. Fourth tip is you need to build relationships with those potential customers. Don't try to trick anyone into liking you by pretending to be someone you aren't. Instead, show them who you truly are as an artist and as a person. People respond much better to authenticity than they do to fakeness. Fifth tip is you need to ask for sales directly. Most artists hate asking for sales. They feel uncomfortable talking about themselves and their work. But guess what? No one wants to hear about your feelings. Your fans want to see your artwork. They want to hear about new projects you've been working on. They want to hear about any events coming up soon. In short, they want to hear about everything related to your art career except for how you personally feel about it. Sixth tip is you need to keep track of every single sale you ever make. Even if it seems small, write down each transaction somewhere. Keep track of how many pieces sold, how much revenue was generated, and how long did it take to complete each piece. These numbers will help you determine whether you're making progress over time. Finally, number 7, you need to experiment constantly. Try different ways of reaching your audience. Try different types of products. Try different prices. Try different promotions. Just remember that nothing works forever. Everything eventually gets stale. So always be looking for new ideas and new experiments to run. Alright. Let me summarize today's lecture. We talked about how to identify your unique value proposition. How to turn that into a compelling story, and finally, how to communicate that story effectively to others. Next week, we'll dive deeper into the topic of communicating your story. Specifically, we'll look at how to tell stories visually. Thanks again for watching. See you next week.