What should startup founders prioritize before PR, partnerships, and hiring?

Focus first on building a product users want and speaking directly with users to understand their needs.

How can a startup get its first customers before it has scalable marketing?

Use hands-on, unscalable tactics such as personally recruiting users, providing concierge support, and gathering direct feedback.

What legal entity is most investor-friendly for a U.S. startup?

A Delaware C corporation is generally the standard choice for venture-backed U.S. startups.

Free Course Image How to start and build a startup

Free online course How to start and build a startup

Duration of the online course: 16 hours and 11 minutes

New

Turn an idea into a real company: take this free startup course to validate demand, build traction, grow sustainably, and learn investor-ready fundamentals.

In this free course, learn about

Prioritize building a great product and talking to users over PR, partnerships, or hiring early
Early hiring: move slowly, hire only when necessary, and focus on exceptional talent + culture fit
Startup success comes from making something people want, not fundraising tricks or growth hacks
Get zero-to-one traction by doing things that don't scale and iterating from direct user feedback
Strategy for durable advantage: start with a niche, dominate it, then expand to build a monopoly
Sustainable growth hinges on strong retention: users must keep coming back and getting value
Reduce churn by tight feedback loops: watch users, measure behavior, and improve onboarding/UX
Validate demand before scaling systems: manual workflows, concierge MVPs, and scrappy experiments
Fundraising basics: tell a compelling, evidence-backed story and show strength (momentum, insight, team)
Build scalable culture via clear values, consistent behaviors, and what you reward/allow daily
Enterprise markets: higher willingness to pay, clearer ROI, and easier monetization than many consumer apps
Founder/CEO operating: set priorities, make high-quality decisions, and build an execution machine
Management discipline: consider second-order effects and avoid decisions that create new problems later
Scale topics (org structure/HR) matter after strong product-market fit; before that, ship + talk to users

About the free online course

Starting a startup can feel overwhelming because the stakes are high and the path is rarely linear. This free online course helps you move from a rough idea to a focused, testable plan, building the habits and decision-making skills that founders rely on when everything is uncertain. Instead of chasing hype, you will learn how to prioritize what actually creates momentum early: deep customer understanding, fast execution, and a product people genuinely want.

You will develop a founder’s mindset for choosing problems worth solving, narrowing your focus, and turning constraints into progress. The course emphasizes practical ways to get early traction, especially when you have few users and limited resources, and it highlights how to learn quickly from real conversations, not assumptions. You will also explore what separates durable businesses from short-lived trends, including strategies for positioning, defensibility, and avoiding competing on the wrong terms.

As your startup grows, the challenges change. You will learn how to think about growth that lasts, reduce churn by improving what users truly value, and make smarter product decisions with continuous feedback. The course also covers the founder responsibilities that emerge with scale: building a strong culture, hiring with intent, operating effectively, and making management decisions that do not create hidden long-term costs.

If fundraising is on your roadmap, you will gain a clear view of how investors evaluate early-stage companies and how to communicate strengths with credibility. You will also understand the basics of legal structure and the operational foundations that help a startup move faster without creating avoidable risks. By the end, you will have a clearer, more confident approach to validating demand, building what matters, and leading a startup through its earliest and most defining stages.

Course content

Video class: Lecture 1 - How to Start a Startup (Sam Altman, Dustin Moskovitz) 43m
Exercise: When choosing what to focus on in the earliest stage of a startup, what should be prioritized above things like PR, partnerships, and hiring?
Video class: Lecture 2 - Team and Execution (Sam Altman) 46m
Exercise: In the early days of a startup, what is the recommended approach to hiring?
Video class: Lecture 3 - Before the Startup (Paul Graham) 48m
Exercise: According to the lecture, what is the most important thing a startup must do to succeed (more than fundraising tricks or “growth hacks”)?

Video class: Lecture 4 - Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing (Adora Cheung) 52m
Exercise: When trying to grow a startup from zero users, what is the recommended approach to getting early traction and feedback?
Video class: Lecture 5 - Competition is for Losers (Peter Thiel) 50m
Exercise: When starting a startup, what approach best helps you build a monopoly over time?
Video class: Lecture 6 - Growth (Alex Schultz) 47m
Exercise: What is identified as the single most important factor for sustainable growth in a startup?
Video class: Lecture 7 - How to Build Products Users Love (Kevin Hale) 48m
Exercise: Which approach is recommended to reduce churn and improve product decisions early on?
Video class: Lecture 8 - How to Get Started, Doing Things that Don't Scale, Press 52m
Exercise: When starting a startup, what is a strong early approach to validate demand before building scalable systems?

Video class: Lecture 9 - How to Raise Money (Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, Parker Conrad) 50m
Exercise: When deciding whether to invest, which approach best matches the idea of “invest in strength vs. lack of weakness”?
Video class: Lecture 10 - Culture (Brian Chesky, Alfred Lin) 50m
Exercise: Which approach best supports building a startup that can scale for the long term?
Video class: Lecture 11 - Hiring and Culture, Part 2 (Patrick and John Collison, Ben Silbermann) 50m
Exercise: When building culture early in a startup, which set of actions was described as making up most of culture?

Video class: Lecture 12 - Building for the Enterprise (Aaron Levie) 46m
Exercise: When choosing a startup market, what key factor makes enterprise software attractive compared to many consumer products?
Video class: Lecture 13 - How to be a Great Founder (Reid Hoffman) 49m
Exercise: Which approach best reflects how a strong founder manages the many competing demands of building a startup?
Video class: Lecture 14 - How to Operate (Keith Rabois) 46m
Exercise: As a leader building a startup, what is the primary responsibility described for your role?
Video class: Lecture 15 - How to Manage (Ben Horowitz) 49m
Exercise: When making a critical management decision in a startup, what is the key discipline a CEO should practice to avoid dangerous side effects?
Video class: Lecture 16 - How to Run a User Interview (Emmett Shear) 46m

Video class: Lecture 17 - How to Design Hardware Products (Hosain Rahman) 47m
Exercise: When building a startup product, what role should user research play in deciding what to build?
Video class: Lecture 18 - Legal and Accounting Basics for Startups (Kirsty Nathoo, Carolynn Levy) 48m
Exercise: What is the simplest, most investor-friendly choice for forming a startup’s legal entity in the U.S.?
Video class: Lecture 19 - Sales and Marketing; How to Talk to Investors (Tyler Bosmeny; YC Partners) 48m
Exercise: When doing early-stage startup sales calls, what is the most important behavior to increase your chance of closing?
Video class: Lecture 20 - Later-stage Advice (Sam Altman) 48m
Exercise: When should founders start focusing on management structure, HR, and other scaling topics instead of prioritizing code and talking to users?

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