Office Hours with Kat Manalac

Kat Manalac and Craig Cannon go through questions submitted on Hacker News. To submit a question for Office Hours, send an email to Macro@YCombinator.com with a few sentences of context and your question. --- 0:08 - Kat's intro. 1:24 - I want to start an incubator/accelerator in Ecuador for local founders with global scope. How would you suggest regional office leaders foster entrepreneurship in developing countries? 3:20 - How would you go about starting an incubator in another country? 3:56 - If I know someone who would be great for YC, what’s the best way to connect them to you? 5:11 - I brought my friend onboard as a cofounder seven months back. We haven't incorporated yet so there's no paperwork involved. The first three months were very productive as we both worked on the web app but as soon as I started looking into the business side of things and asked him to concentrate on technology his output has gone down drastically. He hasn't delivered any new features in the last four months. Here are the things he told me when asked about his lack of work: 1. Lost motivation but still want to continue working. 2. Not getting enough time to work on startup, we both are still working on our day jobs. How can I deal with this situation? Letting him go is an option but it is really tough to find a co founder. 7:47 - As a founder of company in the early stages, how should you identify a target customer base and how do you recommend developing a plan to market and sell to them? How do you identify your first customers? 9:30 - I was part of a previous YC batch and didn't get anywhere meaningful due to a mismatch in team dynamics and, to be honest, a bit of hubris. I think I've come away with a new-found perspective and I'd like to reapply to YC and try again, but I'm worried that my past mistakes will reflect poorly on my future potential. How do you, as investors, view self-inflicted failure? 11:17 - Which are the most common mistakes you have seen first ti