Sam Altmanのスタートアップへのアドバイス

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB-86ng14Fo&t=0s

この動画の日本語要約です。
Sam Altmanは、スタートアップの創業時に主にやるべき3つの主要な作業とその方法について紹介します。まず、ユーザーに愛される製品を開発すること、次に成長する方法を見つけること、そして最後に防御可能なビジネスを構築することです。Altman氏は、スタートアップが内部的に問題が多いことを認識して受け入れることが重要だと強調しています。 また、チーム構成と支出管理に注意する必要があり、集中力と闘志があるスタートアップが成功する傾向があると話します。 また、アイデアを考える時、新しいものを作るより、すでに成功したアイデアを他の地域に適用する代替案を考えることが未来を開くことができるとアドバイスしています。

KEY POINTS

スタートアップ成功の重要な作業は、ユーザーが愛する製品を開発することであり、Y Combinatorによれば、少数の愛される製品を作ることが成功への鍵である。

• 多くのスタートアップが少数のユーザーが本当に愛する製品を作ることで成功している。

• スタートアップの最初の任務は、一部の人々が本当に愛する製品を作ることである。

成功するスタートアップは、広告や紹介プログラムよりも、ユーザーが本当に愛する製品を作ることが成長の秘訣であり、成功に必要な成長ハックはスタートアップが初めて見つけることが一般的である。

• ユーザーが本当に愛する製品を作ることが、成功するスタートアップの成長の鍵である。

• 成功したスタートアップは、通常、そのスタートアップにとって初めての効果的な成長戦略を発見する必要がある。

スタートアップのアイデアは、競争相手との優位性を維持できるものでなければならず、成功した場合に優位性を維持できるかが重要な基準となる。

• 成功したスタートアップは、成長方法を理解し、守りやすいビジネスモデルを構築する必要がある。

• 起業家が考慮すべき重要な質問は、「勝利した場合に優位性を維持できるか」であり、優れたアイデアの基準の一つとされる。

スタートアップの成功には、良い人材の採用と適切な時にリストラを行うことが不可欠であり、倹約文化を持つことが成功への近道である。

• 成功するスタートアップは、素早いリストラの実施と倹約文化を重視している。

• 良い人材の採用だけでなく、必要に応じて素早くリストラを行うことも成功の要素である。

1. 🚀 スタートアップ成功のための主要な作業

• 最初の重要な作業は、ユーザーが愛する製品を開発することです。

• Y Combinatorでは、少数のユーザーが愛する製品を作ることが多くのユーザーに好かれる製品を作るよりも重要と教えています。

• 小さなユーザー基盤から始め、そこから拡大することが成功したスタートアップの共通点です。

• 多くのスタートアップが、少数のユーザーが真に愛する製品を作ることで成功しています。

• よって、スタートアップの最初の任務は一部の人々が本当に愛する製品を作ることです。

Okay, so, I'm going to talk about the three main tasks that start-ups need to do. And then I'm going to give some general advice about how to do this. But the nice thing is that these three things are doable. So the first topic that start-ups need to do is they need to build a product that users love. One of the most important things that we try to teach at Y Combinator is that it's more important to build something that a few users like, a few users love, than something that a lot of users like. Of course, what you'd like to do is build a start-up that a lot of users love, but that's sort of too hard to do as a start-up, otherwise, you know, if that were doable, a big company would do it. So in practice, you always have to choose between building something that a small number of users like, a small number of users love, you know, sort of the intense vertical strategy, or the shallow horizontal strategy of building something that a lot of users like. And now that we've funded 900 start-ups, we have seen again and again that it's easier to start with something that a few users really love than something that a lot of users really like. It's the same sort of area on the graph, but it turns out to be much easier to expand from that. All of the most successful start-ups that we've funded have started with something that a small number of users love, and they've expanded from there. So this is your first task as a start-up, is to build a product that some people love..

2. 🚀スタートアップの成長と課題

• ほとんどのスタートアップは成長に至らない。成功するスタートアップは製品に本当に愛される初期ユーザーを持つ。

• 成長するための秘訣は、広告や紹介プログラムなど多くの方法があるが、最も重要なのは第一歩。ユーザーが本当に愛する製品を作ること。

• GoogleやFacebookなどの成功企業は成長ハックを必要とせず、忠実なユーザーが口コミで広めることが最善の成長戦略。

• 成長を助ける様々な方法はあるが、本当に効果的な成長ハックは通常、そのスタートアップにとって初めて発見しなければならない。

After you've done that, most start-ups never get there. Most start-ups never ever get there. Most start-ups build something that people like a little bit, they kind of say, yeah, that's okay, but they wouldn't be really bummed if it went away. And the start-ups that go on to be huge, they have early users that would be really, really disappointed if their product went away. Anyway, after you do that, your next task is to figure out how to grow. And this is the question that we get asked at YC the most. How do I grow? And so here's the answer to this. There are things that work for growth, you know, they're the same five things that everyone talks about, advertising, referral programs, like Freddie just announced, you know, you go on and on. There are a lot of things that work for growth. But the thing that works the best for growth is step one. It's building a product that users really love. If you think about the really big companies, Google, Facebook, companies like that, they didn't have to growth hack. You probably heard about it from a friend, and then you told another friend about it. And we always remind start-ups that this is the best long-term growth strategy. There are other growth hacks that help things get started, but start-ups usually have to discover these for the first time, that the growth hacks that really work are usually brand new for any given start-up. So the second big challenge is to figure out how you're going to grow..

3. ️💡スタートアップアイデアの3つの重要性

• スタートアップアイデアは、勝利した場合に優位性を維持できるようなものでなければなりません。競争相手との激しい戦いを避け、ネットワーク効果や競争上の利点、独占などが必要です。

• ビジネスを築くためには、成長方法を理解し、守りやすいビジネスモデルを構築する必要があります。

• スタートアップアイデアを検討する際に、起業家に問う重要な質問は、「勝利した場合に優位性を維持できるか」です。成功した場合に何故勝利し続けるかについての回答があるかが、優れたアイデアの基準の一つとされます。

And then the third thing that you have to do is figure out how to build a defensible business. So you want a start-up idea where if you win, then you're going to stay the winner. It's so hard and it takes so much work to win in the first place. What you really don't want to see happen is you win, you know, you become a large company in a space, and then you're constantly having to fight off competitors. You want something, like Peter Thiel recently called this a monopoly, but you want some network effect or competitive advantage or monopoly such that if you win, you'll remain the winner. And this is so important that it's, you know, it's something to think about when you're first thinking about a start-up idea. When someone pitches me a new start-up idea that they're thinking about, one of the first questions I ask is this. If you win, will you stay the winner? And the best ideas have answers from the very beginning about why if they win, they'll stay the winner. This is one of the most important criteria of a good idea. But anyway, once you figure out how to grow, you want to build this defensible business. And those are really the only three things that you have to do.

4. 🚀スタートアップの重要なポイントとは？

• 人々が愛する製品を作り、成長させる方法を見つけるのはそれほど難しくありません。

• スタートアップは内部で深く壊れていると考えることが重要であり、誰もが問題を抱えており、それは大きくなる一方です。

• 最初の3つのポイントに取り組んでいる創業者の多くは、試行錯誤の末、困難に直面し、困難が混乱の原因であると思い込んでしまうことがありますが、成功した場合でも、次の10年間は問題に向き合うことになると覚えておくべきです。

• 途中で諦めないでください。

So it's not so hard. Build a product that people love, figure out how to grow it. So the next, for the rest of this, before I go to questions, I want to talk about some tips about how to do all of that. And I want to start by echoing something that Freddie mentioned in his talk, because it's so important to remember.. Which is that all start-ups are deeply broken on the inside. One of the things that we tell companies at YC is that it's okay that you have real problems and that you feel like you're an imposter and you feel like you're the only start-up with real problems. All start-ups have problems. And the problems only get bigger. So a lot of founders that are doing those first three things I talked about, and on a good path to get them done, give up on their start-ups, because they feel like things are broken and it's unusual that things are broken. And that for most start-ups, things aren't broken. So the first thing to remember is that it's okay that things are screwed up. Unfortunately, things are always going to be screwed up. And if you are successful, you are going to be dealing with problems for the next ten years. Don't give up because of that.

5. 💼ハイヤリングの重要性と共に、リストラも成功に必要な要素

• YC内でスタートアップの最も大きな失敗要因は、チームの問題だ。

• CEOの多くの仕事の中で、最も重要だと思うのは採用だ。

• 成功に重要なのは良い人材の採用だけでなく、必要なら素早くリストラを行うことも重要。

• Mark Zuckerbergのすごいところは、優秀な人材の採用だけでなく、うまくリストラを行ったこと。

• 創業者にとって、早急にリストラを行うのは難しいが重要なスキルのひとつ。

The next thing I want to talk about is about hiring. Team problems are the biggest killer of start-ups inside of YC. Everyone thinks that, you know, start-ups die at the hands of competitors. But start-ups commit suicide much more often than start-ups get killed by somebody else. If you don't have a good team, eventually the start-up will implode. And if you do have a great team, the start-up will just go on to do better and better things. So there are a number of jobs that the CEO has. But hiring, I think, is the most important. If you don't hire really well, your company will never be a big success.. As your company gets bigger and bigger, the only thing the CEO gets to decide on is the company's strategy and who the players are, who the people are. Everything else gets done by other people. So you have to hire incredibly well. You have to spend like a third of your time hiring people and recruiting the best people in the world. Even still at YC, this is the biggest part of my job. You know, I can't advise every start-up, but I can make sure we get the best partners in the world. And then if you make a mistake hiring, you have to fix it incredibly quickly. Most founders understand that it's important to hire really well. And most founders prioritize that. But it's also important to fire people quickly that aren't sort of A members of the team. And most founders don't understand this. Or they understand it, but it's so painful they don't want to do it. One of the things that someone once told me was most impressive about Mark Zuckerberg is not that he hired pretty well, because a lot of founders do that, but that he fired well. And he could fire people quickly that weren't working out. And this is really hard to learn how to do as a founder.

6. 💸スタートアップの成長に不可欠な出費と倹約

• スタートアップの多くが資金不足で倒産する中、過度の出費と倹約は致命的。

• スタートアップにとって倹約は重要であり、収支をコントロールすることが成功の鍵。

• 無駄な出費を抑え、黒字を残すことが自律を保ち、成功への近道。

• 成功したスタートアップは極度の倹約文化を持ち、出費を徹底的に見直す姿勢が成功につながると言える。

The next thing is about spending and frugality. This is probably the next most common cause of death of the start-ups that we funded. It's really important as a start-up to remain frugal. If you don't do this, the culture gets messed up in all sorts of ways. And if the start-up spends more money than it makes, then the start-up is dependent on the mercy of investors.. But if the start-up is profitable, because the start-up controls costs really well, then the start-up is under its own control. So it's really, really important to be as frugal as possible. And many of the best start-ups that we have ever funded in the early days have taken this to crazy levels. Some people take this a little bit too far. But the best start-ups are very frugal, and they have a culture in the early days of extreme frugality. And that seems to be really important for success.

7. 💡スタートアップの成功の鍵：焦点と強度

• 成功するスタートアップは、非常に焦点を絞り、強度を持って取り組んでいます。

• 最高のスタートアップは、今重要な1~2つのことに集中し、それらを非常に強く追求しています。

• それに対して、失敗するスタートアップは多くの計画を話すが、それらに進展しない状況が続き、速度が遅い。

• 結果として、成功するスタートアップはスピードが速く、連続的に改善を積み重ねることが重要とされています。

One thing that I get asked all the time is how I can tell if a start-up is going to do well during YC. And my answer to this is a two-part answer, and the two words are focus and intensity. And the best start-ups are very focused and very intense. In practice, we see the start-ups about once a week. And the bad start-ups, when we see them every week, we talk about the same things, and they're talking about all these different plans and making progress on none of them. And so it's the same conversation. It's like Groundhog Day every week. The best start-ups, though, are incredibly focused on the one or two things that really matter right now, and they do those things incredibly intensely. So we could have a conversation one week. We could agree on the two most important things for the start-up to do. And then the next week, we meet again.. Not only did the start-up do those two things, but in the process of figuring that out, of doing those two things, they figured out all these other new things to do, and they did those as well. And the speed at which the best start-ups operate is incredible. Bad start-ups talk about, I'm going to do that next week. I'm going to do that next month. And good start-ups talk about, I'm going to do that in the next hour, and that other thing in the next four hours. If you think about a start-up as sort of successive iteration, and you can get like 5% better every iteration, if every iteration is four hours, that compounds really fast. If every iteration is two weeks, it compounds much slower. almost a universal observation across the best startups that we funded. They are incredibly focused on a tiny number of things, but the right things. And they do those things very intensely. And so if you look at the week over week progress of those startups, they dominate the startups that make a lot of big plans and never get anything done.

8. 💡アイデアの重要性と成功のカギ

• 良いアイデアを持つ方法が不確かな人が多い。アイデアについて最初に言いたいことは、存在すべき市場を創出することはできないということだ。

• アイデアは多くの面を変えることができますが、人々が根本的に欲しがらないものを作っていて、それを欲しがるようにすることができない場合、そのアイデアは救いようがありません。

• アイデアに関して覚えておくべき最も重要なことは、存在すべき市場を創出することはできないということです。他のすべては変えることができます。

• また、最高のアイデアは直感に反するものです。最高のスタートアップのアイデアは悪く思えるが、実際には良い。良いアイデアと悪いアイデアの間に位置するスタートアップのアイデアが欲しい。

Let's see what else do we want to talk about here. I want to talk a little bit about ideas. Because most people aren't sure how to have a good idea. So the first thing I want to say about ideas is the only thing that you can't do is create a market that doesn't want to exist.. So there's a lot of things that you can change about an idea, but if you're building something that people fundamentally don't want, and you can't make them want it, which you usually can't, that idea is unsalvageable. So the most important thing to remember about ideas is that you cannot create a market that doesn't want to exist. Everything else you can change. The next thing about ideas is that the best ones are counterintuitive. The very best startup ideas sound bad, but are good. If you imagine a Venn diagram and here you have sounds like a bad idea, and here you have is a good idea, you want the startup ideas that are right in the middle. The things that are obviously good ideas, the big companies do. The things that sound like bad ideas and are bad are still bad. And the magic area is this thing in the middle. So some of the startups that we funded that have been most successful sounded like a terrible idea. Airbnb, no one wants to stay on strangers' couches. And it took some evolution for that idea to get to this idea of renting out the whole apartment.

9. 💡Redditでアイデアを共有するリスクとアイデア実装の秘訣

• Redditでは人々がリンクを共有することが想像以上のリスクを伴う。

• 明らかに良いアイデアと聞こえるものには懐疑的で、一般的なアイデアほど競争が激しくなることに警戒する。

• 成功した起業家たちは自らよく理解している問題を解決しようとしており、直接的な経験から自らのアイデアを熟考できる。

• アイデアが悪いと言う人を無視し、実際に構築してみることが唯一の判定方法であることに留意する。

Reddit, people are going to share links. That sounds like a terrible idea. The things that sound like obviously good ideas, I'm always skeptical if I hear something that sounds like an obviously good idea. Because it means a lot of people are going to do that and the competition is going to be brutal. The other thing about ideas is that the founders that we have funded that have been most successful are working on an idea that they themselves understand very well. So they're solving a problem that they have direct personal experience with. Because that's how they can really evaluate it. One last point on ideas. Ignore people telling you your idea is bad. They may be right, but the only way to know is to actually build it out.

10. 💡シリコンバレーのスタートアップ文化とアイデアの脆弱性

• シリコンバレーの特徴は、スタートアップに対するエキサイティングな態度で、他の地域とは異なります。

• アイデアを信じることの重要性と、悪いアイデアの裏に素晴らしいアイデアが潜んでいることを強調。

• アイデアはとても脆弱で、良いアイデアでさえ他のスタートアップによって否定されかねないため、守られる必要がある。

• Yコンビネーターではスタートアップ同士が共同作業することは許可されず、アイデアを守るための配慮が行われている。

And I think the thing that works about Silicon Valley that's different than Mexico City or almost anywhere else in the world is the default response if someone says, hey, I'm going to start a startup, here's my idea. The default response is to be excited and think like, oh, why might that work? And in most of the rest of the world, the default response when you tell someone your idea is to say, oh, that's not going to work. And this is really toxic for startups. Because you have to believe in yourself. And the good ideas, because they sound like bad ideas, are so fragile and so killable that you have to be really careful to insulate yourself against this. In fact, we don't have a co-working space at Y Combinator. We don't let the startups work together. They all work in their own office or their own apartment.. And part of the reason for this is that ideas are so fragile. And ideas, the good ideas sound so bad that even other startups will often convince you not to work on what would be a great idea. So I've been meeting with Mexican startups for the last couple of days. And the startups have been incredible. Really, really great. But I did notice one pattern that I have noticed elsewhere in the world. And I want to, I think this is a really important point. So I'd like to make it.

11. ️💡スタートアップの革新的アイデアは世界中で成功する可能性がある。

• アメリカ外の多くのスタートアップは、米国で成功しているアイデアをそのまま取り入れることが一般的だが、真に巨大な企業はそうではない。

• アイデアをコピーするのではなく、その地域のニーズを考え、新しいソリューションを見つけることが重要。

• 成功したものをコピーするのではなく、その地域独自の問題に焦点を当てることで、世界を変える可能性がある。

• 成功を収めたものを超える新たなアイデアを追求し、自己を制限しないことが重要。

You know, the world today is really connected. You can start a startup here and take on the best startups anywhere in the world with a brand new idea. Something fundamentally new. And yet, what a lot of startups outside of the United States do is say, we're going to be the Uber for Latin America. We're going to be the, you know, like the WhatsApp for the Philippines. We're going to, whatever. You know, we're going to take an idea that's working in the United States and do it better in our local market. And that's okay. That sometimes works. But that's not how the really giant companies get created. What would be better to do instead of saying we're going to build Uber for Latin America is to say, you know what? The fundamental idea of Uber is that people need to be able to move easily. And however, Mexico City is very different than San Francisco.. And so rather than build the Uber for Mexico City, because I'm an expert in this market, I'm going to think about how to really solve that problem and not build the Uber for Mexico City, but build this totally new thing for Mexico City which accomplishes the same human need. And if you do that, who knows? You may take on the entire world. You may figure out something better than Uber for everywhere else. But don't constrain yourselves. If I can sort of leave with one piece of advice before we go to Q&A, don't constrain yourselves with thinking that you have to build something that has worked in the U.S. and build a version of that for Latin America. Just build something better than what has worked in the U.S. And maybe you'll take on the rest of the world by doing that. Also, if you do that, we'd love for you to apply to Y Combinator or even if you don't, even if you're just thinking about that. We run two batches a year, one from June to August, one from January to March. It's only three months. You can come to Silicon Valley. You can build up a network and connections there and then you can come back here. But we'd love to hear from you...