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If they copy the style but not the substance, it makes things worse for YC and for entrepreneurs. And they can coast on YC's good PR.
by byrneseyeview 17y ago
If they copy the style but not the substance, it makes things worse for YC and for entrepreneurs. And they can coast on YC's good PR.
- idlewords 17y agoHow on earth does this make sense? YC operates on a similar model to an American residential college - young people apply and attend to get access to high-quality teachers/mentors and with the expectation that participating in the program will improve their career prospects. This model is based entirely on reputation and there is no way in which opening a competing institution makes things worse for applicants. People will apply to multiple programs and select the one they consider highest value. Institutions will compete with each other to attract the best applicants.
- byrneseyeview 17y agoI'm not sure that's true. I have heard far more about the value of "college" in general than about the value of specific colleges. Companies like the University of Phoenix exist to exploit this assumption. Schools sell education plus connections plus guidance plus a diploma; the diploma is the most tangible thing they sell, so if you just sell the diploma you can cut your costs significantly. YC invests reputation and guidance and connections and money; someone who buys the same stake in exchange for nothing but money is obviously reducing the value--and valuation--of the company they buy into. It's the entrepreneur's decision, and there are some good seed funding programs out there (Techstars has some great portfolio companies). But in many cases, the other programs are using seed companies' generally good reputation (thanks to YC) to make less valuable investments in the same group of companies.