Unique Startup Ideas | 2min snip from Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth

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Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Resilience, tar pit ideas, pivoting, more | Dalton Caldwell (Y Combinator, Managing Director)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

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Unique Startup Ideas

Having a unique startup idea is crucial for success. People tend to gravitate towards similar startup ideas based on their shared information consumption, such as podcasts, Twitter, and blog posts. To stand out, entrepreneurs should venture towards unexplored territories like the mountains and deserts, rather than sticking to well-trodden paths in cities like San Francisco.

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Dalton Caldwell is Managing Director and Group Partner at Y Combinator. Prior to YC, he was the co-founder and CEO of imeem (acquired by MySpace in 2009) and the co-founder and CEO of App.net. During his time at YC, he’s advised more than 35 YC unicorns, including DoorDash, Amplitude, Webflow, and Retool, and has worked across 21 different YC batches. He’s also racked up more than 6,500 office hours with founders. In our conversation, we discuss:

• Why founders need to adopt the mindset “Just don’t die”

• The most common reason startups fail

• When to pivot, and characteristics of a good pivot

• The concept of “tar pit ideas” and examples of bad startup ideas

• Why investors say no to startups

• The importance of market size in investment decisions

• The pitfalls of founders over-delegating

• Effective ways to talk to customers

• 20 ideas Dalton is looking to fund

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