[markszcz]

First off I feel as though I dont know much about how a startup works yet. Im trying to learn so I could eventually launch something in the future.

Watching the first video "Holy shit , my idea sucks" around the 15:30 mark or if you look at the slides, its slide 11, the guy says that an idea "Must be NEW or BETTER".

How true is that? Why MUST it be (only) one of those two?

I was reading one of 37 signals books' "Rework" and they said their model was not to make something new or better, but to simplify. They admit there are better applications out there, jam packed with more features but they found that to be to cumbersom.

If someone from YCombinator watched these videos first before starting up their idea(s), would they be where they are right now? How informative would someone suggest these videos are that has some experience in the Startup field?

[gaganbiyani]

We were a Founder Institute company and I thought the Founder Institute sessions were extremely valuable. Those videos are very informative - the people teaching them have all had a major success in their startup careers. Aaron did Mint.com, Adeo has started 8 companies, Phil is CEO of Evernote.

Gagan

[themonk]

Go through phil's talk he covered how you can work on 'simplification' of existing ideas, example he has given is video camera.

[ebaysucks]

Simple would be "better" I guess.

[markszcz]

In that case the word better is relative in both the presenters point of view and 37signals.