Free, open to everyone and highly educational Stanford class “How to Start a Startup” has just ended. But all the materials, including talks by star speakers, such as Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, Ben Horowitz, Sam Altman, Brian Chesky and others are going to be available online. For quick reference, here is the complete collection of all course materials:
Videos.
Lectures
| Date | Speaker | Topic |
| 9/23/14 | Sam Altman, President, Y Combinator Dustin Moskovitz, Cofounder, Facebook, Cofounder, Asana, Cofounder, Good Ventures |
Welcome, and Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part I Why to Start a Startup |
| 9/25/14 | Sam Altman, President, Y Combinator | Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part II |
| 9/30/14 | Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator | Before the Startup |
| 10/2/14 | Adora Cheung, Founder, Homejoy | Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing |
| 10/7/14 | Peter Thiel, Founder, Paypal, Founder, Palantir, and Founder, Founders Fund | Competition is For Losers |
| 10/9/14 | Alex Schultz, VP Growth, Facebook | Growth |
| 10/14/14 | Kevin Hale, Founder, Wufoo and Partner, Y Combinator | How to Build Products Users Love |
| 10/16/14 | Walker Williams, Founder, Teespring Justin Kan, Founder, Twitch and Partner, Y Combinator Stanley Tang, Founder, DoorDash |
Doing Things That Don’t Scale PR How to Get Started |
| 10/21/14 | Marc Andreessen, Founder, Andreessen Horowitz and Founder, Netscape Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel Parker Conrad, Founder, Zenefits |
How to Raise Money |
| 10/23/14 | Alfred Lin, Former COO, Zappos and Partner, Sequoia Capital Brian Chesky, Founder, Airbnb |
Culture |
| 10/28/14 | Patrick Collison, Co-Founder, Stripe John Collison, Co-Founder, Stripe Ben Silbermann, Founder & CEO, Pinterest |
Hiring and Culture, Part II |
| 10/30/14 | Aaron Levie, Founder, Box | Building for the Enterprise |
| 11/4/14 | Reid Hoffman, Partner, Greylock Ventures and Founder, LinkedIn | How To Be A Great Founder |
| 11/6/14 | Keith Rabois, Partner, Khosla Ventures | How to Operate |
| 11/11/14 | Ben Horowitz, Founder, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founder, and Opsware | How to Manage |
| 11/13/14 | Emmett Shear, Founder and CEO, Twitch | How to Run a User Interview |
| 11/18/14 | Hosain Rahman, Founder, Jawbone | How to Design Hardware Products |
| 11/20/14 | Kirsty Nathoo, Carolynn Levy,Partners, Y Combinator | Legal and Accounting Basics for Startups |
| 12/2/14 | Tyler Bosmeny, Founder and CEO, Clever Michael Seibel, Partner, Y Combinator Qasar Younis, Dalton Caldwell,Partners, Y Combinator |
Sales and Marketing How to Talk to Investors Investor Meeting Roleplaying |
| 12/4/14 | Sam Altman, President, Y Combinator | Later-Stage Advice |
Readings
- 9/23/14, Lecture 1, Sam Altman and Dustin Moskovitz – Ideas and Products; Why to Start a Startup
- #1: Advice for Ambitious 19 year olds by Sam Altman
- #2: Good and Bad Reasons to Become an Entrepreneur by Dustin Moskovitz
- 9/25/14, Lecture 2, Sam Altman – Teams and Execution
- #3: Stupid Apps and Changing the World by Sam Altman
- #4: Do things that Don’t Scale by Paul Graham
- 9/30/14, Lecture 3, Paul Graham – Before the Startup
- #5: How to Get Startup Ideas by Paul Graham
- #6: Excerpt from Steve Jobs’s 1995 interview with Computerworld’s Oral History Project – watch from 1:10:53 onwards
- 10/2/14, Lecture 4, Adora Cheung – Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing
- #7: From Failure to $37M in Funding with Adora Chueng
- #8: Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing by Jessica Livingston
- 10/7/14, Lecture 5, Peter Thiel – Business Strategy and Monopoly Theory
- #9: Chapter 3-5 of Zero to One by Peter Thiel
- 10/9/14, Lecture 6, Alex Schultz – Growth
- #10: How we put Facebook on the path to 1 billion users – Chamath Palihapitiya; (user-provided transcript)
- #11: Does Slow Growth Equal Slow Death? by Joel Spolsky
- #12: A Recipe for Growth – Adding Layers to the Cake by Jeff Jordan
- #13: Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s Early Days by Mike Isaac
- #14: The Secret Behind Pinterest’s Growth Was Marketing, Not Engineering by Liz Gannes
- #15: Growth Accounting & Triangle Heatmap Explanation by Danny Ferante
- #16: Startup = Growth by Paul Graham
- #17: Chasing Facebook’s Next Billion Users by Douglas MacMillan
- #18: Ready to Grow Breakout Session at f8
- 10/14/14, Lecture 7, Kevin Hale – How to Build Products Users Love
- #19: Your App Makes Me Fat by Kathy Sierra
- #20: What Makes a Design Intuitive by Jared Spool
- #21: Creative mornings with Ben Chestnut; (user-provided transcript)
- #22: What Makes Marriages Work by John Gottman, Nan Silver
- Bonus Material
- BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model
- Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines, Harvard Business Review
- The Sanctity of Marriage, This American Life
- Creating Passionate Users
- 10/16/14, Lecture 8, Walker Williams, Justin Kan, Stanley Tang – Doing Things that Don’t Scale, PR, How to Get Started
- #23: The Press is a Tool by Alexia Tsotsis
- 10/21/14, Lecture 9, Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, Parker Conrad – How to Raise Money
- #24: Why Software is Eating the World by Marc Andreessen
- #25: How to Convince Investors by Paul Graham
- #26: How to Raise Money by Paul Graham
- #27: Linkedin’s Series B Pitch to Greylock by Reid Hoffman
- Ron Conway’s Recommended Reading List
- 10/23/14, Lecture 10, Alfred Lin and Brian Chesky – Hiring and Culture, Part I
- #28: The Happiness Culture: Zappos isn’t a Company — it’s a Mission, Fast Company
- #29: Don’t Fuck Up the Culture by Brian Chesky
- 10/28/14, Lecture 11, Patrick Collison, John Collison, Ben Silbermann – Hiring and Culture, Part II
- #30: What’s It Like to Work for Stripe by Alex Maccaw
- #31: How to Hire by Sam Altman
- 10/30/14, Lecture 12, Aaron Levie – Building for the Enterprise
- #32: The Continuous Productivity of Aaron Levie, MIT Technology Review
- #33: Robert Cialdini’s six principles of influence
- #34: Marc Andreessen on the Future of Enterprise by Alexia Tsotsis
- 11/4/14, Lecture 13, Reid Hoffman – How to Be a Great Founder
- #35: The Information Age to the Networked Age: Are you Network Literate? by Reid Hoffman
- #36: The Alliance: A Visual Summary by Reid Hoffman
- #37: What I Wish I Knew Before Pitching LinkedIn to VCs by Reid Hoffman
- #38: If, Why, and How Founders Should Hire a “Professional” CEO by Reid Hoffman
- #39: The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups by Paul Graham
- 11/6/14, Lecture 14, Keith Rabois – How to Operate
- #40: Bill Walsh, The Score Takes Care of Itself, pp. 2-31, 137-146, 202-203
- #41: Andy Grove, High Output Management, Chapters 3 (optional), 4, 9, 11, 13, 14
- 11/11/14, Lecture 15, Ben Horowitz – How to Manage
- #42: Making Yourself a CEO by Ben Horowitz
- #43: A Good Place to Work by Ben Horowitz
- #44: How to Minimize Politics in Your Company by Ben Horowitz
- 11/18/14, Lecture 17, Hosain Rahman – How to Design Hardware Products
- 11/20/14, Lecture 18, Carolynn Levy, Kirsty Nathoo – Legal and Accounting Basics for Startups
- #46: How to Work with Lawyers at a Startup by Mark Suster
- #47: Startup Company Lawyer by Yokum Taku
- 12/2/14, Lecture 19, Tyler Bosmeny, Michael Seibel, Dalton Caldwell, Qasar Younis – Sales and Marketing, How to Pitch, Investor Meeting Roleplaying
- #48: SaaStr – From-the-trenches sales advice by Jason Lemkin, founder of EchoSign
- #49: How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success In Selling by Frank Bettger (1949)
- #50: Five ways to build a $100 million business by Cristoph Janz
- #51: Pitching Hacks! How to pitch startups to investors by Venture Hacks