10 Curated Guides From Y Combinator

Worth revisiting time and time again

Author

Michael Houck
December 07, 2025

Hey y’all — these days, under the stewardship of YouTube king Garry Tan, Y Combinator puts out a ton of content across all channels (even their Instagram has 525,000 followers).

They’re a content behemoth.

But it wasn’t always like that.

For most of YC’s history they mainly published posts on their own website, sort of like how their co-founder Paul Graham posts his legendary essays on his site.

Today, these posts are a little harder to find than their video content, but there are so many classic gems in there that this week I wanted to highlight 10 I’d recommend to any founder. Check them out below…

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10 Curated Guides From Y Combinator

Concise and actionable — this guide from former YC President Geoff Ralston covers everything from what not to do when talking with investors, to when to actually raise in the first place.

Biggest Mistakes First Time Founders Make | link

Former YC CEO Michael Seibel reminds you why things like actually launching, talking to users, and caring about the problem you're solving actually do matter.

In 20 minutes, Sam Altman shares a comprehensive list of 25 things successful startups do (and why they matter).

How to Design a Better Pitch Deck | link

A very in-the-weeds guide on how to get your pitch deck ready for investors and the limited time they have to read through it.

How to Build the Future (with Elon Musk) | link

Sam Altman and Elon discuss the 5 biggest problems to focus on in society and more in a wide ranging conversation.

YC Partner Kat Manalac sets the record straight on launching: No one probably cares about your early launches, so ship new products and features continuously.

Talking to users is how you learn what people want from your startup, which lets you build something that will actually work as a business. Here's a framework to do that most efficiently.

Building a startup from nothing with someone else can be stressful, but maintaining a healthy relationship with open communication is essential. YC Partner Kevin Hale talks about how to make sure that happens.

No, this isn't a guide on how to grow faster or be more impervious to competition. It's about the other side — your health and mentality as a founder — and why that plays a bit role in startup success.

You're going to work on your startup for years and think about it constantly during that time. It makes sense to have a framework for evaluating which idea you actually choose to work on.

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