When Should You Trust Your Gut?

About this video

• Video Title: When Should You Trust Your Gut?
• Channel: Y Combinator
• Speakers: Dalton, Michael
• Duration: 00:12:11

Overview

This video discusses when startup founders should trust their intuition versus when they should rely on external validation and expertise. The speakers differentiate between founders who possess deep industry expertise and those who are new to a field, offering advice tailored to each scenario.

Key takeaways

• Situational Trust in Gut Feelings: Founders should trust their gut more when they have significant prior experience and expertise in a specific industry or product type.
• Building Expertise: For founders without existing domain knowledge, the focus should be on building expertise and learning from external feedback rather than relying heavily on intuition.
• Two Founder Archetypes: The video presents two common founder types: those who previously built valuable products within a company and want to productize them, and those with technical skills but no clear idea, needing to build expertise.
• Avoiding Extremes: Founders should avoid the extreme of blindly following their gut without validation (like an "evil genius" persona) and also the extreme of having no opinion or confidence (like a "mom test" only approach).
• Self-Awareness is Key: Understanding whether you are bringing expertise to the table or need to build it is crucial for deciding how much to trust your instincts versus seeking external validation.