yc-startup-fundamentals
YC Startup Fundamentals
Complete Y Combinator startup methodology distilled into actionable frameworks for early-stage company building.
Core Principle
Starting a successful startup requires the right team composition, extreme frugality, rapid iteration, and relentless focus on growth—not complex strategies or large amounts of capital.
Team Formation
Requirements Before Starting
Assemble these elements before developing any idea:
- 2-4 co-founders (not 1, not 5+)
- At least 50% engineers on founding team
- Each founder has ~1 year runway saved (ramen-level living, not comfortable lifestyle)
- All founders have quit their jobs (full commitment required)
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Create compelling investor one-pagers and email briefs that capture attention and get meetings. Distill your pitch into scannable, high-impact documents with traction-focused cold emails and distribution strategy.
28investor-pitch-deck-builder
Create a compelling 10-15 slide investor pitch deck that tells your startup story, demonstrates market opportunity, proves traction, and makes a clear ask. Build a deck that gets meetings, progresses conversations, and closes rounds.
21contract-review
Review legal contracts, NDAs, employment agreements, SaaS terms, and M&A documents. Identifies unfavorable terms, suggests redlines, and compares to market standards. Use for contract analysis, due diligence, or negotiation prep.
12founder-coach
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9startup-idea-validation
Use when validating a startup idea before building. Produces evidence-based GO/NO-GO decisions using a 9-dimension scorecard (problem, market, timing, moat, unit economics, founder-market fit, feasibility, GTM, risk), a validation ladder (interviews -> smoke test -> concierge/WoZ -> paid pilot), and riskiest-assumption-first experiments.
5market-sizing-analysis
This skill should be used when the user asks to "calculate TAM",
5