Y Combinator | Secrets You Can Learn From Your Customers @ycombinator | Uploaded April 2023 | Updated October 2024, 5 days ago.
YC partners Michael Seibel and Dalton Caldwell discuss how spending real time with your users can unlock insights and growth.
Hear the stories of how Airbnb and Brex built billion-dollar companies by forging genuine connections with customers. Learn why having too much money and too many people can actually slow down learning. And discover how to accelerate insight into your product by making your users feel special.
Successful startups don’t just build technology – they solve human problems. The key is listening to the people who really matter: your customers.

Apply to Y Combinator: yc.link/DandM-apply
Work at a Startup: yc.link/DandM-jobs

Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Intro
00:30 - Having a Plan
01:15 - How to Learn
01:39 - Empathy for Users
03:01 - The Gold Mine
04:29 - You Can't Fake It
05:18 - Brex Pivot
06:47 - The Edge Cases
07:33 - Caring More Than 0
08:18 - It's Complicated
09:17 - Turing It Around
09:55 - Starcraft
10:23 - Asking What They What
12:49 - It's Easy to Not Care
13:20 - Caring = Learning
14:17 - Takeaways