I recently paid a visit to the Y Combinator offices with some fellow Google Experts. Michael Seibel talked about the YC philosophy, and he answered questions from the group. His thoughts on international startups were particularly interesting. The general idea was that international startups can and should focus on their markets, which may be plenty big enough, but that they should probably beware of local investors (with the exception of China). Valley investors will probably give better terms and valuations (again, with the exception of China) than local investors. He also thought that for many international companies, spending 3 months in Silicon Valley to go through the Y Combinator program was probably worthwhile.

What’s going on with US tech funding?

For anyone who’s curious about startups, there is an excellent podcast series called “How to Start A Startup” (first episode in video form is the above video). It’s a Stanford class, run by Y Combinator (the premier startup accelerator, of which TiKL is an alum), and it goes through just about every conceivable aspect of how to start a startup.

While all of the content applies to the specific type of company that startups are, there are really excellent episodes on all sorts of things that people with different interests, and roles will find useful. From managing, to getting a new company off the ground, to figuring out how to build a product that people are going to love.