The best YouTube channels for entrepreneurs in 2026

The best YouTube channels for entrepreneurs at a glance

Each row names the host, what the channel is known for, and who gets the most out of it. The link goes straight to the video I'd watch first.

What makes a YouTube channel worth an entrepreneur's week?

You know the Sunday night I mean. You open YouTube to watch one video about outbound, and 40 minutes later the algorithm has you watching somebody rank sports cars. That happens because most of the best business YouTube channels mix the useful how-to with everything else in one feed, so you honestly can't tell from the thumbnail which kind of video you're about to get.

So I picked these 9 on two tests. The first is a named host who has built something, funds people who have, or asks the follow-up question that gets the operating detail out of a guest. The second is one specific video I could point you to, with a fact in it you can check, because no channel gets in here on reputation alone.

Video has one real advantage over audio for this, which is the chapter list. When a description shows a timestamp for "Why your first sales reps should have no quota", you can jump straight to the 4 minutes that matter to you this week. I've built 4 companies and sold 2 of them, and the problem in front of me changed at every stage, so treat this list like a menu rather than a subscription plan.

The 9 best YouTube channels for entrepreneurs in 2026

There's no ranking inside the list. Each channel does a different job, and the section after it says which one to open first for the problem you have.

Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, Diana Hu and Jared Friedman (Y Combinator)

Y Combinator's channel is where the partners who work with thousands of founders a year talk to camera, and the Lightcone is their round table. In The State of Startups in 2026, published September 17th, Garry, Jared, Diana and Harj say nearly 1 in 5 YC companies now has a solo founder, and that companies are reaching meaningful revenue faster than ever. For the go-to-market side, watch YC Visiting Partner Christina Gilbert's video on cold emails that get zero replies, where she tells founders to send at least their first 100 outreaches by hand before they automate anything.

Lenny Rachitsky (Lenny's Podcast)

Lenny's channel is mostly product leaders, which is exactly why the sales episodes stand out when they land. In 84 minutes of enterprise sales alpha, Jen Abel's third visit to the show, she walks through the full enterprise sales cycle step by step and shows it's closer to 15 steps than the 5 most people picture. Watch it before your first enterprise pilot, because she covers how to structure a 2 to 3 day pilot and when to charge for a longer one.

Harry Stebbings (20VC)

20VC is Harry Stebbings interviewing investors and operators, and its sales episodes are the part a founder building a team should watch first. In How to Build a Sales Machine, published October 10th, he talks to Max Freeman, who joined Ramp as its first sales hire and was leading more than 300 salespeople by 2025. The chapter list works as a checklist on its own, from why your first reps should carry no quota to why you should never hire just one seller.

Jason Lemkin (SaaStr)

Lemkin founded SaaStr, and on its channel he runs his own company's sales as a live experiment. In We Doubled Revenue with Agents, published September 18th, he and Amelia walk through SaaStr's revenue stack on screen, including an inbound agent that turned 3 million site sessions into 17,000 conversations and 600 booked meetings. He tells the backstory on Lenny's channel: after his last salesperson quit, 20 AI agents managed by 1.2 humans took over the work a team of 10 SDRs and AEs used to do.

Sam Parr and Shaan Puri (My First Million)

My First Million is 2 founders who sold their companies talking about business, and the founder interviews are where the growth detail lives. In episode 863, published September 21st, they talk to Whatnot founder Grant LaFontaine, and the chapter list reads like a growth curve: 30 sales to $2.3M in year 1, then $163M in year 2 and $1B in year 3. Start at the chapter on the first 1,000 users, because that's the part nobody can copy from a pitch deck.

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal (Acquired)

Acquired tells the whole story of one company per episode, and the episodes go up on its YouTube channel as well as in podcast apps. The Formula 1 episode from March covers a racing series controlled for 45 years by Bernie Ecclestone, bought by Liberty Media in 2017, and now followed by more than 827 million fans. The episode description even says most Americans had barely heard of it until a viral Netflix series, which is a distribution story hiding inside a sports one.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy (Invest Like the Best)

Invest Like the Best is Patrick O'Shaughnessy's long-form interview show, and the format suits a company with a long story. On October 13th he published his conversation with David Vélez, the founder and CEO of Nubank, on how he built a bank that serves 140 million customers. Watch the chapters on building moats in the AI era and on Nubank's global expansion if you're past product-market fit and deciding where to grow next.

Alex Hormozi

Hormozi's channel is the one here for anyone who sells a service, and he says the 10 companies in his Acquisition.com portfolio bring in more than $250M a year. In How I Would Build a $10M Service Business, published August 28th, he takes one roofing company apart on camera, from raising the average ticket to a menu close, and then checks back 90 days later. Software founders can skip the roofing detail and keep the habit, which is fixing the offer before you go and buy more leads.

Greg Isenberg

Greg Isenberg's channel is startup ideas and AI build tutorials from the CEO of Late Checkout. In 13 Businesses for the Age of AI, a solo episode from October 6th, he says he starts with organic audiences, because ad clicks went from about 5 cents in 2009 to $1 to $5 today. I grew a media company to an 800K audience on organic alone, so that's the line I'd underline, and it's the reason his channel sits on a page about growth.

Which channel to start with, by problem

Your watching hours are a budget, so spend them on the problem you actually have this quarter. If you haven't found your first customers yet, start with the YC videos and pair them with the pre-seed guide to first customers. If you're choosing between channels to grow on, Greg Isenberg's case for organic audiences goes well with inbound channels for early-stage startups.

If sales is the bottleneck, watch Jen Abel and Max Freeman back to back, because one covers the deal and the other covers the team that closes it. If you're past product-market fit and want the long view, Acquired and Invest Like the Best are the startup YouTube channels with the most patience for one company's whole arc.

Want people rather than channels? The growth marketing experts page and the business influencers list name who to follow, and the best startup books list covers the reading behind half of these videos. For the marketing side in audio, there's the B2B marketing podcasts roundup.

Hear how VCs got their companies through each stage

Founder channels tell you how one company did it. Investors watch the same stage play out across a whole portfolio, and that's the angle I'm building Sell That S*it! around. Every season-one guest is a VC, and each episode breaks down how one of their companies got from one stage to the next.

Season one is filming now and no episodes are out yet. If you want the first one when it lands, the newsletter box below is the simplest way, and it beats waiting for the algorithm to bring it up on a Sunday night between two sports car rankings.

FAQs about the best YouTube channels for entrepreneurs

What are the best YouTube channels for learning startup growth? Start with Y Combinator for the partners' view of how startups are changing, Lenny's Podcast for long interviews with growth and sales leaders, and SaaStr for Jason Lemkin's B2B numbers. Add My First Million when you want a founder telling you how their company went from the first 1,000 users to real revenue.

What are the best video podcasts for startup founders on YouTube? Lenny's Podcast, 20VC, My First Million, Acquired and Invest Like the Best all post full video episodes on YouTube. Y Combinator's Lightcone is the one hosted by YC partners, with Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, Diana Hu and Jared Friedman around one table.

Which podcasts have investors breaking down how one startup grew? Harry Stebbings does it on 20VC, as with Max Freeman on building Ramp's sales team, and Patrick O'Shaughnessy does it on Invest Like the Best, as with David Vélez on Nubank. Jason Lemkin, who has deployed over $200 million into B2B startups, breaks down his own company on SaaStr. The investor-hosted audio shows are on the best venture capital podcasts list.

Is Alex Hormozi's channel useful for software founders? Yes, for the parts about offers and closing, because those apply to anything you sell. His examples are mostly service and local businesses, so take the habit of fixing the offer first and skip the tactics that only work door to door.

About the author

Part of the stage playbooks: what to do for growth at pre-seed, seed, Series A, Series B and Series C. The glossary →