The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.

The track record for founders that don't already know each other is really bad.

The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever.

Here's a good rule of thumb: don't worry about a competitor at all, until they're actually beating you with a real shipped product.

The thirteenth search engine- and without all the features of a web portal, most people thought that was pointless.

You really want to know your cofounders for a while, ideally years.

The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.