The first moves for a first-time founder

The Founders work group splits on whether a first-time founder should research or ship first, with lessons from Coda, Pinterest, Justin.tv and Notion.

Updated October 13, 2026

Begin, choose a cofounder with care and get something in front of strangers early. The group splits on how much diligence and polish should come first.

Do the diligence before the code. Shishir Mehrotra would treat the company as an investment you can make only once: a team that can't picture losing, a space that matters and a secret good enough to start. He asks would-be founders to write "Things I'd like to see different in the world" and then talk to people already in the space, competitors included.
Ship something rough and learn from it. Emmett Shear's order is a cofounder, a rough product, then user conversations meant to learn rather than confirm. A gamer who wanted to make $17 a month streaming led Justin.tv to an ad button that split the money 50/50.
Purpose before thesis. Reid Hoffman suggests a short written theory of the game, tested against smart skeptics. For a founder with no idea yet, he would start with a statement of purpose and open-ended conversations, and write a falsifiable thesis once an idea shows up.
Make one thing worth a stranger's time. Ben Silbermann's first app, Tote, crammed in too many features and had nothing special about it. He would build something you want yourself and ship once one thing is worth a stranger's time. Ivan Zhao sides with Ben on that bar and with Emmett on speed. Notion spent two to three years on a premise most people didn't want, so he would first check that strangers have the problem.

Group chat with Emmett, Ben, Ivan, Reid, Shishir — the Founders work group

Question:

What are the first steps for a first-time founder?

Shishir MehrotraCEO of Superhuman (formerly Grammarly). Co-founder of Coda and former Chief Product Officer of YouTube

Before you write any code, treat starting a company as an investment decision. It's an extreme one, because an investor spreads bets across many companies and you can only invest in one. When I look at a company, I ask three questions, and I'd ask the same three about your own idea

YouTube:

1️⃣ Is this a team that doesn't know how not to win? Whatever it runs into, it can't picture losing.

2️⃣ Is it working in a space that matters?

3️⃣ Does it have a secret that's at least good enough to get started? You don't need the whole answer on day one, only enough of an insight to earn the next step.

My second concrete step is a document I ask every would-be founder to write, titled "Things I'd like to see different in the world." Once you have it, go talk to the people already working in your space, competitors included. First-time founders often tell me they can't do that because they'd be a competitor. I think that's backwards. If you can't talk to the people who know the space best, your odds in it are poor. Those conversations might talk you into joining them. They might convince you the space isn't worth it, or show you they've got it backwards and you should compete

YouTube.

I put this much weight on diligence because starting a company is about the most extreme one-way door decision there is. Joining a company is closer to a two-way door, since you can leave. Coda began with my co-founder Alex DeNeui asking me to help him brainstorm a pivot for his startup. One of us wrote "what if you could make docs as powerful as apps" on the wall, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. That obsession, plus 20 years of working with Alex, is what took me through the door

YouTube.

Ben SilbermannFounder and Chairman of Pinterest. Founder of How We Feel

The first step is to start. I spent years at Google talking about wanting to do a startup, and my girlfriend (now my wife) finally told me to either do it or stop talking about it. That push mattered more than any plan I had.

YouTube

So once you've started, here is what I'd do, in order:

Build something you personally want. Pinterest came from an idea Evan and I shared: a place to collect the cool things we found online and browse other people's collections. I collected insects as a kid, so it felt natural to me.Apple Podcasts
Ship when you have one thing you're proud of. Our first product was an iPhone shopping app called Tote. We crammed in too many features, it was hard to ship, and nothing about it was special. My rule since then: ship when one thing is worth a stranger's time, because if it isn't, you get no useful feedback.YouTube+1
Serve the small group who love it. Three months after launch, Pinterest had about 3,000 registered accounts. We built around those few fanatical users, and they described what Pinterest was better than we could.forbes
Weigh advice, then decide for yourself. Many VCs passed on us because we focused on images and had two non-technical cofounders. Their concerns deserved a look, but the future is unwritten, and every investor has a list of companies they passed on that went on to succeed.YouTube

My goal at the start was simple: I wanted to see a stranger using something I made and finding it useful. That is a good first milestone for any founder.

Reid HoffmanCo-founder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI and Manas AI. Partner at Greylock

Start by writing down your theory of the game, and then go find smart people who think you're wrong. Being contrarian means having a theory of the market that differs from the skilled competitors around you. Customer research doesn't count, because other founders can find the same research. So step one is a short written thesis. Step two is pressure-testing it with smart skeptics who will tell you exactly why it fails. Contrarian and right is the target. Interest from investors doesn't confirm your conviction.

Next, pick your cofounder with the seriousness you'd bring to choosing a life partner, because you'll go through the valley of the shadow together. That person doesn't have to be someone you've known since high school. I go to my network and ask, "Who are the best people I can meet?" Then I meet great people without a fixed job description in mind.

Apple Podcasts

Third, treat your plan as an experiment. A common mistake is building an elaborate plan for a product without testing one assumption with one customer. Get something imperfect in front of users early. Mark Zuckerberg's test is useful here: "Is this going to destroy the company? If not, let them test it."

Medium

Fourth, go where the networks for your kind of company already exist. In my Stanford lecture I used the example of a fashion company. It might be a great idea, but moving to Silicon Valley to build it makes little sense, because the supporting networks for fashion are somewhere else.

YouTube

Finally, accept the trade-off. Starting a company is jumping off a cliff and assembling the plane on the way down. Founders don't get balance in the early years, so make the jump knowing the cost.

Question:

Shishir's first step is diligence before writing any code. He has the founder write a document called "Things I'd like to see different in the world" and then talk to people already working in the space, competitors included. From your public work at YC and on Justin.tv, would you tell a first-time founder to do that first, or to build and launch something rough first? What specific step comes first in your order, and what public source backs it?

Emmett ShearCEO of Softmax. Founder of Justin.tv and former CEO of Twitch

Build and put something rough in front of users first, and treat those users as your diligence. When Justin, Kyle and I started, the only thing we knew starting a company meant was "make a product and put it on the Internet." We applied to YC with Kiko, the calendar we were already building, and the early YC interview was heavy on "show us a demo."

Apple Podcasts What YC was really testing was whether you'd thought about how you'd get customers and make money, and how you responded when challenged, because everyone knows the answer is going to change.

Apple Podcasts

The reason I put building first: the hard part of a startup is figuring out which problem to solve. Solving it is the easy part. I expected the opposite coming out of a CS degree.

Spotify A document of what you'd like to see changed in the world is a fine starting point, but real users answer the "which problem" question better than competitors do. I'd also be careful with the strong thesis Reid describes as a first step. On Twitch I held off on forming hypotheses, because once you have one you hunt for evidence that confirms or disconfirms it and miss the bigger picture.

Spotify

So my order is:

1- Find a cofounder. It's one of the few pieces of startup advice I think holds broadly.

Spotify

2- Ship something rough.

3- Talk to users to learn, and let them change the idea. Founders who only validate end up with worse ideas.

Spotify A gamer told us he'd love to make $17 a month streaming, so we built a button that ran a mid-roll ad and split the money 50/50. We invited about 50 streamers, and they loved it.

Apple Podcasts

4- Before committing, ask yourself honestly whether four to five years of mild success that often feels like failure sounds tolerable.

Spotify

Question:

Reid, you put a short written thesis first, then pressure-testing it with smart skeptics. Emmett says that on Twitch he deliberately held off on forming hypotheses, because once you have one you hunt for confirming evidence and miss the bigger picture. For a first-time founder with no idea yet, which should come first: writing the thesis or open-ended customer conversations? How do you keep a written thesis from turning those conversations into validation exercises? Please cite a public source.

Reid HoffmanCo-founder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI and Manas AI. Partner at Greylock

If you have no idea yet, start with the open-ended conversations. Write down a purpose before you write a thesis. Sara Blakely is my favorite example. While she was selling fax machines door to door, she wrote in her journal, "I want to invent a product that I can sell to millions of people that will make them feel good." That sentence had no market theory in it. It gave her a question to keep asking, "Is this my big idea?", until cutting the feet off a pair of pantyhose answered it. Big ideas rarely arrive as a lightning strike. Founders who find them were already on the hunt.

Medium The purpose statement is close to Shishir's "things I'd like to see different" document. It points your attention somewhere without deciding the answer for you.

The thesis comes once an idea shows up, and that's where Emmett's warning applies. Three habits keep it from turning user conversations into validation:

Write it as a falsifiable hypothesis, in the lean startup way, so you know in advance what evidence would kill it.Apple Podcasts
Spend real time with smart people who are convinced you're wrong. Agreement is cheap. Even investor interest doesn't confirm your conviction.
Test with customers in the same weeks you write. One of the most common mistakes is building an elaborate plan without testing one assumption with one customer.

So my order for a first-time founder is purpose first, then conversations and rough experiments, then a written thesis that you keep trying to break. Emmett's $17-a-month streamer is the kind of signal a loosely held, written thesis helps you recognize, because you notice when a user contradicts what you wrote down.

Question:

Ivan, the group splits on how finished a first product should be. Emmett says ship something rough and let users change the idea. Ben says ship only when one thing is worth a stranger's time, because his feature-crammed first app, Tote, got no useful feedback. Early Notion was rebuilt from scratch before it found its footing. What would you tell a first-time founder to do first, and how do they know when their product is ready to show strangers? Please cite public interviews or writing.

Ivan ZhaoFounder of Notion

I'd side with Ben on the bar and with Emmett on the speed. The first Notion was too rough in the wrong place. We spent two to three years on what was roughly "Webflow meets Figma," an easier programming environment, and the craft was fine. What failed was the premise: most people don't want to program their own tools. They want something off the shelf that solves their problem quickly. No amount of polish would have fixed that, and shipping it sooner would have told us sooner.

Apple Podcasts

So the first step is to check whether strangers have the problem you're solving, before you put serious craft into the solution. Notion itself started because my artist friends needed websites and I got tired of building them by hand. That was a real problem. My wrong assumption was that they wanted to become toolmakers like me.

Spotify

How do you know it's ready? On a founding team you need someone to argue that question. I'm the obsessive one. I spent literally months on our marketing site, and two days on a single tweet storm about the history of relational databases. Simon was the one saying "it's good enough, let's get it out." Those arguments were healthy. If you are a solo founder with my temperament, find someone who will play Simon for you.

Apple Podcasts

After you ship, expect the signal to come slowly. Product-market fit never arrived for us as one moment. People started caring, then paying, then investors started reaching out (one mailed dog treats to an office address we had never published). Until then, the useful measure is whether the product is closer to what's in your head than it was last week.

YouTube

Keep the team small while you search. A low headcount kept Notion profitable, so we didn't have to raise every 18 to 24 months and could keep building.

Apple Podcasts

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the signs of product-market fit?
A small group who would be upset to lose the product, then growth you can explain, from users who look like the market you want to win. Fit rarely arrives as one moment.
How is early traction different from product-market fit?
Traction responds to a launch, press or founder effort and fades when that stops. Fit keeps compounding through the product's own loop, and the love repeats with strangers who match the first fans.
What should you do when product-market fit isn't coming?
Make the next attempt a bounded test with a target and a deadline the cash can cover, check that the test was fair, and change course on a miss. With no promising group or runway left, return the capital.
How do you pressure-test a startup idea?
Set a behavior bar before the team gets attached, put an early version into someone's real work, and write down the ways the company could fail even if early users love it.
When should a founder drop an idea?
When people who have the problem can find the product, try the full version and still don't come back. Low signups and investor doubt alone are weak reasons to quit.
How do founders find a problem worth solving?
Start from a problem you will care about for years, find people whose behavior shows they have it too, and know why you can make progress where others see risk.
How do you size a market before building?
Start from a behavior people already have, ask what has kept anyone from winning the market, and let growth or repeat use tell you its size.
How does a startup stand out in a crowded market?
Pick one experience people return to, start with the people whose choice brings everyone else, and check whether users come back for a second job.
Where can an AI startup win against the model companies?
Around what takes sustained work to copy: a group's accumulated taste, a team's workflow, trust between people or a creator's audience.
How do you validate an idea with customers?
Go out to learn, ship one thing worth a stranger's time, watch who comes back on their own and then ask them why.
How do you choose a consumer products category?
Look for a need people already recognize, evidence that they act on it, and unit economics that work across the whole purchase cycle.

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Frequently Asked Questions

The first moves for a first-time founder

Founders

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the signs of product-market fit?

How is early traction different from product-market fit?

What should you do when product-market fit isn't coming?

How do you pressure-test a startup idea?

When should a founder drop an idea?

How do founders find a problem worth solving?

How do you size a market before building?

How does a startup stand out in a crowded market?

Where can an AI startup win against the model companies?

How do you validate an idea with customers?

How do you choose a consumer products category?

Your ideas, super powered.

The first moves for a first-time founder

Founders

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the signs of product-market fit?

How is early traction different from product-market fit?

What should you do when product-market fit isn't coming?

How do you pressure-test a startup idea?

When should a founder drop an idea?

How do founders find a problem worth solving?

How do you size a market before building?

How does a startup stand out in a crowded market?

Where can an AI startup win against the model companies?

How do you validate an idea with customers?

How do you choose a consumer products category?

Your ideas, super powered.