Y Combinator is an American seed accelerator which was launched in March 2005. Y Combinator is consistently ranked at the top of U.S. accelerators.

### [Startup Playbook - Closing Thought](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/closing)
Remember that at least a thousand people have every great idea. One of them actually becomes successful. The difference comes down to execution. It’s a grind, and everyone wishes there.

### [Startup Playbook - Fundraising](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/fundraising)
Most startups raise money at some point. You should raise money when you need it or when it’s available on good terms. Be careful not to lose your sense of frugality or to start solving.

### [Startup Playbook - Making Money](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/money)
Oh yes, making money. You need to figure out how to do that. The short version of this is that you have to get people to pay you more money than it costs you to deliver your good/service.

### [Startup Playbook - Competitors](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/competition)
A quick word about competitors: competitors are a startup ghost story. First-time founders think they are what kill 99% of startups. But 99% of startups die from suicide, not murder.

### [Startup Playbook - Hiring & Managing](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/hiring)
Hiring is one of your most important jobs and the key to building a great company (as opposed to a great product). My first piece of advice about hiring is don’t do it. The most successful people I know seem to have a knack for hiring.

### [Startup Playbook - Jobs of the CEO](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/ceo)
Earlier I mentioned that the only universal job description of the CEO is to make sure the company wins. Although that’s true, I wanted to talk a little more specifically about how a CEO should prioritize their work.

### [Startup Playbook - Focus & Intensity](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/focus)
If I had to distill my advice about how to operate down to only two words, I’d pick focus and intensity. These words seem to really apply to the best founders I know.

### [Startup Playbook - Growth](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/growth)
Growth and momentum are the keys to great execution. Growth (as long as it is not “sell dollar bills for 90 cents” growth) solves all problems, and lack of growth is not solvable by any.

### [Startup Playbook - Great Execution](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/execution)
Although it’s necessary to build a great product, you’re not done after that. You still have to turn it into a great company, and you have to do it yourself—the fantasy of hiring an “executive” to do this is just that: a fantasy.

### [Startup Playbook - A Great Product](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/product)
Here is the secret to success: have a great product. This is the only thing all great companies have in common. If you do not build a product users love you will eventually fail. Yet for some reason, many founders seem to think that building a great product is the end of the process.

### [Startup Playbook - A Great Team](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/team)
Mediocre teams do not build great companies. One of the things we look at the most is the strength of the founders. When I used to do later-stage investing, I looked equally hard at the founders and the idea.

### [Startup Playbook - The Idea](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/idea)
One of the first things we ask YC companies is what they’re building and why. We look for clear, concise answers here. This is both to evaluate you as a founder and the idea itself. It’s important to communicate your vision effectively.

### [Startup Playbook - Intro](https://article.voxsnap.com/ycombinator/intro)
We spend a lot of time advising startups. Though one-on-one advice will always be crucial, we thought it might help us scale Y Combinator if we could distill the most generalizable parts of our advice into a set of guidelines.