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

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:00)
Seeing everything people apply to YC with, people all kind of have the same idea.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:04)
One of these themes is simple, pragmatic advice. Sell shit, make money.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:07)
One of my mantras is just don't die. Being coached and being reminded of the fundamentals and basics puts you in the right mindset.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:15)
You have this concept of tar pit ideas.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:17)
Seems like an unsolved problem. You'll get all this positive feedback from the world, and people have been starting that startup since the 90s.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:23)
Recently, you put out a request for startups, 20 categories of ideas that YC wants to fund.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:28)
We're trying to mix up some of the information diet about what kind of ideas people might be contemplating they are currently.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:33)
A lot of people say you're the king of the pivot.

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:36)
A good pivot is like going home. It's warmer, it's closer to something that you're an expert at.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:41)
Are there other patterns you find across startups that do well?

**Dalton Caldwell** (0:43)
There's a lot of founders that come this close to it all being over, and through sheer will, kind of just keep it going.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:54)
Today, my guest is Dalton Caldwell. Dalton is Managing Director and Group Partner at Y Combinator, where he's worked for over 10 years across 21 different YC batches, including working closely in the earliest days of Instacart, Retool, Brex, Deal, DoorDash, Webflow, Replet, Amplitude, Whatnot, Razorpay, and 20 other unicorns. Prior to Y Combinator, Dalton was the co-founder and CEO of iMeme, which was acquired by MySpace, and co-founder and CEO of app.net, which was an early ads-free competitor to Twitter. Dalton has seen and worked with more startups than nearly any human alive. And in our conversation, we get incredibly tactical and deep on the startup journey.
Why it all comes down to simply not losing hope and not letting your startup die. What to do when your startup is struggling and how to know when it is time to give up. What makes a great pivot and signs it's time to pivot. How to actually talk to customers. Why every single startup goes through a point where they feel like all hope is lost. Why investors say no to startups. What most often leads to startups failing. Why you need to avoid overdelegating early on. Plus startup ideas that you should avoid. And also 20 ideas Dalton is looking to fund. Also so many great stories and lessons. This episode is action packed. With that, I bring you Dalton Caldwell after a short word from our sponsors. And if you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously.
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