#145 - Startup School Week 4 Recap - Kat Mañalac and Gustaf Alströmer

We've cut down the fourth week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast.First a lecture from Kat Manalac. Kat is a partner at YC. Her lecture focuses on how startups should think about launching and why you should do it repeatedly.Then a lecture from Gustaf Alströmer. Gustaf is also a partner at YC and in his lecture he covers how to measure product market fit and growth channels.Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/***Topics00:00 - Intro00:35 - Kat Mañalac - How to Launch (Again and Again)1:51 - Ways to launch2:14 - Why launch continuously?3:15 - Silent launch4:25 - Friends & Family5:40 - Strangers7:03 - Online communities12:08 - Request access13:29 - Social media15:13 - Pre-order16:13 - New Product or Feature17:42 - Build your own community19:20 - Launching isn't one moment in time19:48 - Gustaf Alströmer - Growth for Startups21:06 - Most startups have nothing22:13 - Do things that don't scale27:13 - Startups take off because founders make them take off28:23 - Measuring product market fit31:20 - Retention34:33 - Worse ways to measure product market fit35:23 - Bad metrics to measure as product market fit36:18 - Growth channels and tactics38:17 - Conversion rate optimization41:26 - Growth channels to explore45:33 - Referrals and vitality48:05 - Paid growth50:09 - Search Engine Optimization53:00 - Making decisions using A/B testing55:02 - Summary