Where Do Great Startup Ideas Come From? – Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel

Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel talk about where the ideas for Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe came from. Then they discuss what you can learn from these founders.

To create Rookies Mistakes we asked YC founders: Is there a simple fact you wish you knew when you started your company or a rookie mistake you wish you could take back?

Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Rookie Mistakes
00:30 - 3 common themes
00:35 - 1. Timing
00:48 - 2. Idea
00:59 - 3. Market
01:10 - AirbnB
01:24 - Competition
02:47 - Payments
03:08 - Free listing
03:36 - Solving their own problem
04:35 - Used their own product
04:46 - What were the takeaways when they launched?
05:04 - Criticisms
07:35 - Coinbase
07:46 - Buying Bitcoin
09:22 - Not the first mover
09:33 - Online gold is 10x better than gold
09:54 - Criticisms
11:08 - Undercounted
12:10 - Impossible time raising money on demo day
12:31 - Stripe
12:39 - Context
14:14 - Peer problem
14:42 - Go-to-market
15:19 - What would a programmer want?
16:38 - Most expensive product
16:58 - Criticisms
18:46 - Contrarian
18:59 - They had to build great good products
19:33 - Takeaway
19:37 - Incumbents
19:48 - Don't care about experts
19:53 - Market Research
20:07 - Market math