A lot of the advice we give startups is tactical; meant to be helpful on a day to day or week to week basis. But some advice is more fundamental. We’ve collected here what we at YC consider the most important, most transformative advice for startups. Whether common sense or counter-intuitive, the guidance below will help most startups find their path to success.

It’s such an important message. Things that are instantly adored are usually just slight variations over existing products. We love them because they’re familiar. The most innovative products – the ones that truly change the world – are almost never understood at first, even by really smart people.

A few ideas that had a big impact on how I think about investing.

In the Harvard Business Review article “Why Design Thinking Works,” Jeanne Liedtka reveals the results of a seven-year study she did looking at 50 business projects in a range of sectors. What she found was this: “I have seen that…design thinking…has the potential to do for innovation exactly what TQM [total quality management] did for manufacturing: unleash people’s full creative energies, win their commitment, and radically improve processes.”

We have decided to run the S20 batch remotely, because amid the COVID-19 crises, the safety of founders and YC staff is our top priority. Interviews for the batch will be remote, and office hours, evening talks, and meetups throughout the batch will all take place over video conferencing, as well as on our online platform and forum for YC founders.

Increasing women’s voice, influence, and control of money.

Redesigning the help-seeking experience to feel welcoming and free of judgment, regardless of where young people are in their journey.

There are probably 100 reasons why your company is great, but people can only really remember a few of them after a short presentation or pitch. With each one of you, we sat down and figured out the 5 to 7 most important ideas people should know about your startup. These 5 to 7 points are the ones you want investors to remember.

Niko Nao leverages social networks to offer a brighter, more positive narrative around HIV testing for young men in Kenya.

A platform for tracking customer satisfaction among refugees in real-time

An emerging literature focuses on learning from failures — both in terms of entrepreneurship and strategy more broadly. For some recent examples, see studies by Ariño and de la Torre (1998), Eggers (2012), and Kim & Miner (2007). It might appear that learning from success should be taken for granted — the actor has done something well and will naturally repeat the behavior.

Pay attention to your users. Give direct feedback about ideas, both good and bad.

How contraceptive education is empowering teens in the DRC to take care of their sexual health, and their future

How Asili is laying the foundation of a new DR Congo

Ronnie Chatterji and Charlie Williams have put together an excellent research podcast series. They describe it as “Big ideas from business school professors.” It offers an excellent bridge between cutting edge business research and the world of practice.

Supporting a network of Catholic Sisters to create community-led change

How low-cost sensors and more accurate data can transform farming in Myanmar

Building financial trust, confidence, and literacy through design

How a series of craft workshops is helping young women in Benin build confidence and make informed decisions about their future

Most cold messages are poorly constructed wastes of time. But it is crucial that we all get better at cold contacting – both sending and receiving. Cold outreach is the only way we will burst the startup/VC bubble and introduce genuine diversity into a historically hermetic system.

These spaces are galvanizing girls to connect mind, body, and heart.

Thirty years of entrepreneurial research concludes personality traits don’t necessarily predict entrepreneurial success, according to the author.

Using radio and social media to reduce youth violence in Guatemala City

Every entrepreneur eventually reaches the same point. It is the gutter moment when they lie face-down in the mud. Rusty tin cans and cigarette butts lay nearby. It is the moment they wonder why they are still doing this—and most seriously consider quitting.

This is another in a series of columns on "how much things cost." This time, some metrics on the cost of employees.

This friendly digital assistant is helping financial coaches bridge aspiration and action

Designing for what Zimbabwean farmers want most

Branding, formalizing, and scaling India's produce service.

Sixty-three percent of Americans desire self-employment. So what’s stopping them? And, are those who work for themselves really more satisfied than those working for others? In their 1998 article, “What makes an entrepreneur?” Blanchflower and Oswald analyzed data gathered from the United States and other industrialized countries, uncovering answers to these fundamental questions about who becomes an entrepreneur.

Open a Book, Spark an Imagination

Build resiliency into your organizational structure to be prepared for the unexpected.

Here are a few ideas for you to consider if you are inclined to do a little thinking, instead of just sitting, while on the beach. Do you know where you are going?

Define the goals of your crowdsourcing effort.

Investing is maybe 60% science, the rest art. Yes, it has numbers and formulas and rules. But the soft stuff you can’t measure or hardly even describe – the art of the business – makes all the difference in the world.

Leveraging storytelling and tween culture to put girls in the driver’s seat

Startup companies need to purchase equipment, rent offices, and hire staff. More importantly, they need to grow. In almost every case they will require outside capital to do these things. The initial capital raised by a company is typically called “seed” capital. This brief guide is a summary of what startup founders need to know about raising the seed funds critical to getting their company off the ground.