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Why YC
- dvt 11y agoGood luck to all applicants! :)
- debacle 11y agoI'd be interested in a list of bad reasons to apply to YC.
- mathattack 11y agoHere are a few: - Because the cool kids are doing it. - Because the brand will look good on a business school application. - Because $120K can pay for a fancy apartment and a lot of parties. - Because Mom and Dad will leave you alone for 3 months.
- wiwillia 11y agoThat's a pretty uninformed opinion. YC is a collection of smart people trying to build things... That "fancy apartment" is the cheapest place you can find in Mountain View with 4 people stuffed in, half sleeping on the floor. How many YC founders go on to business school? I've heard of none, but I'm sure there are a few... But do you have anything backing up that people go to YC for that reason? I think I went to one party during the course of YC. In fact, all I really did was build product and talk to users. It's one of the mantras of YC and anyone not following that advice certainly isn't seen as a "cool kid". Probably not worth trying to change your opinion, but you're 100% wrong on every point (except the first if you define "cool kids" as people working hard trying to build things).
- hayksaakian 11y agoI think his comment went over your head. He was providing bad reasons that someone could use to justify applying to YC
- mathattack 11y agoWhat Kayksaakian said. It was bad reasons (as opposed to good reasons) for applying. :-) I have tons of respect for the people who make it through the process, and drop everything to try and start something great.
- wiwillia 11y agoMy fault. I totally misunderstood. Sorry.
- mathattack 11y agoNo worries! Humor sometimes doesn't travel well on discussion boards. :-)
- wiwillia 11y agoYep you're totally right, sorry.
- rudolf0 11y agoOr how about reasons why not to apply, if there are any? I imagine it's stressful and time-consuming for many people, for example. (Though of course that comes with starting any company.)
- arasmussen 11y ago7%
- rudolf0 11y agoBetter than what Shark Tank asks for, at least. :)
- lberger 11y agoAre we really going to compare YC with Shark Tank? Moreover, Shark Tank isn't an incubator.
- tptacek 11y ago7% might not be worth it if you've sold a couple companies and are a mortal lock for funding for your next company, but otherwise, this is the weakest objection to YC. The value you get just from having the YC label more than offsets the 7%. (I'm sensitive to this because it used to be my big objection to YC, because 7% is a large amount of equity to give up for the money they're giving you, maybe even today.)
- arasmussen 11y ago> 7% is a large amount of equity to give up for the money they're giving you The value you get out of YC isn't really the money. 7% is a lot.
- wantreprenr007 11y agoIt's at least 3.5x as good as the best advisor. Better to have 93% of something worth 10MM+ than 100% of 100k.
- leelin 11y agoI believe you mean a list of reasons why participating in YC is not good for your startup prospects? When we applied, most of our business was in NYC (and it still is today), but we had to move Mountain View for the 3 months of the program. As it turns out, moving was hugely beneficial because it also forced us to free ourselves from many random obligations from our daily lives. I would fly back to NYC regularly, but for specific and determined purposes, which minimized time for distraction. Some say the equity deal is bad, and in summer 2009 it was an order of magnitude worse (6% for $15K). However, 94% of a success is much better than 100% of a failure, and I am absolutely sure YC saved us from failing multiple times. If there is ANY true negative consequence of participating in YC, I would say you are placed into a peer group of overachievers that values fundraising for high growth. While there is a LOT of upside to close interaction with dozens of other founders, the negative is that we naturally tend to compare ourselves to our cohort. I never felt any outright competitive pressures from my batch, but at the end of the day, the universal yardstick seemed to be how much funding you could raise from the most prestigious investors. To be fair, the YC partners stressed that fundraising is a silly measure of success and that getting ramen profitable and default-alive is more important, but it's still demoralizing when (seemingly) all your friends raise money and you are grinding along at a bootstrap pace. For RentHop it was absolutely the right play - our revenue hockeystick didn't begin until 3 years later.
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- pcmaffey 11y agoThe worst reason to apply is if your acceptance will make/break your project. If you're optimizing what you're doing around getting into YC, DON"T APPLY. Applying to YC (or any accelerator) should be an afterthought. Something you spend half a day on for shits and giggles, and an opportunity to reflect on the meta state of your project. Hit send and forget about it. Anything more is a waste of time.
- cookiecaper 11y agoHere're a couple. - Major life disruption for at least 3 months, as you must live in Mountain View whilst in the YC program. This makes it untenable for founders who have any other time obligations, like a family. - Startup living stipend sufficient to split an apartment in MV in lieu of real salary. This makes it untenable for founders who have any other monetary obligations, like a family. Granted, this is a sector limitation, but it's not something that YC had to follow. Most tech investment seems to be about getting as many naive college kids as possible to offer practically free labor to investors.
- pbreit 11y agoThe only downside I can think of is if you're not equipped to deal with elevated expectations.
- AlwaysBCoding 11y agoBecause you want to start a business that supports itself with profits instead of outside monetary investment. Because you want to build a great version of some X but don't necessarily want to disrupt or reinvent an industry. Because you want to be financially secure and not risk your financial future on an idea that isn't guaranteed to work. Because you like traveling or taking time off or playing around with a lot of different ideas and aren't at the place where you want to commit to working full-time on a company for five years. etc... This isn't a knock against YC at all, there are just other ways to grow and scale a business than hyper-growth + raising outside capital, and sometimes even if you have a great idea, bootstrapping can be a better approach for you depending on what kind of person you are and what point of your life you're at.
- muzani 11y agoThe odds of getting in are not high. For most people who aren't ivy league grads, haven't worked at Google or Uber, or don't have 6 digits of revenue, it might not be worth the time. And if you still haven't figured your business plan, you might want to do it before applying. Pivoting within an accelerator is not a comfortable experience, and would be a waste of time for Demo Day. Also I'm not sure how well YC works for married entrepreneurs with kids. There doesn't seem to be a lot of married YC founders, but do correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of the advice they give is already out in the open. So unless you need the cash or connection, you might not want to.
- kriro 11y agoIt's well worth the time to apply no matter the outcome (imo). Worst case you have bought a lottery ticket AND thought about your idea in an organized way. There's value in that.
- nzonbi 11y agoI am curious about how many applicants are they getting in this round, S16. Also what kinds of companies are YC most interested in nowadays, given their accumulated experience, and the current market conditions.
- katm 11y agoIt's too early to tell how many will come in for S16, but what we're looking for hasn't changed. We like smart, tight-knit teams who are effective and resourceful and have a track record of getting things done. In this batch (W16), there are companies in almost every category -- from enterprise software to biotech to aerospace.
- mathattack 11y agoI like the last one the most. I think it captures the spirit of Silicon Valley very well. When one company in YC does well, the whole community benefits. Because YC has such a strong track record, early adopters, investors and press are often more willing to take a look at YC founders, even if they’re first time founders. To maintain the strength of the community as it grows, we developed a set of principles that YC founders are asked to live by.
- flubert 11y agoIt does seem like that wording could potentially cut two ways though. "We're the good-old-boys network, and if we like you, we will show you the secret handshake to get into the club, and our club has made-men in the investor and media communities." Undoubtedly I am way off base here, but I wonder if others got a similar vibe from that statement, and if there would be a good way to reword that.
- rfrank 11y agoIt's how vague the word "community" is in context. What community? Y-Combinator founders/alumni? The startup community? The tech community at large? The Bay Area? America? The global community?
- mathattack 11y agoI view it as, "You're getting the benefit of the YC brand, so there are some principles you should follow to make it better for the next batch."
- api 11y agoOver the long run, this eats itself. It would result in a lot of low-quality but highly connected 'juiced' companies getting too much of a boost from brand but then flopping by failing to actually deliver on their hype. In the end this dilutes the brand, and is self-correcting. YC would end up with a reputation as an over-hyped old boy network past its prime, etc. Sure you can ride into town on a big white horse but if you can't handle your gun... :) It can take a while to manifest. Like a bank account, large pools of goodwill and brand equity take a long time to drain. But eventually the draining happens. The tech industry is so fast that 'a while' might be 'a few years.'
- SandersAK 11y agoAlso, the best damn lemonade ever at dinner!
- Kinnard 11y agoYC's copy(inlcuding PG's writing) is always so succinct and practical. I think my company has benefited just from reading it.
- blammail 11y agoThe 7% really is not relevant. Getting useful people (for many contextual definitions of 'useful') to care about your success could be a direct reason for your success. That's really the model of YC overall - the money is just "don't die before you start because of something so simple as money"
- amatic 11y ago> Getting useful people (for many contextual definitions of 'useful') to care about your success could be a direct reason for your success. That is what it seems like. In the early phases of a company, founders meet a lot of challenges they never could have prepared themselves for. Having a community of people who've gone trough the hurdles give you advice and guide you is what makes startups succeed. The money certainly helps, but it is the condensed knowledge and tried methods of problem solving that really drives YC companies.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- aioprisan 11y agoIs that a founder's most important duty? To make sure the company has enough cash to not die but live and fight another day?
- DanFeldman 11y agoA founder's most important duty is to survive and then thrive, in that order, no? Following that, I would argue that YC helps out immensely in other ways more important than financial survival, though the cash helps with the first duty quite well.
- ybx 11y agoThe title of this post is the same as the Calgary Airport's IATA.
- pbreit 11y agoI can't help but think as quantity has gone up, quality has flattened. I was just browsing a list of the last few classes and don't see a (m)any obvious winners. I know it takes awhile but you'd think a few would stick out.
- jpeg_hero 11y agoHey, what about Dropbox and Airbnb!?! :)
- justin 11y agoIt takes a long time to tell what companies break out, but we are pretty confident that quality has remained fixed or improved (on a % basis).
- BrooklynRage 11y agoJust out of curiosity, how does YC internally determine startup quality (before the rest of the world recognizes it)?
- dsugarman 11y agoI would undoubtedly do YC again if I start another company in my lifetime even though many of the listed benefits last for life after you are in once. The value wasn't as crystal clear to me when applying as it was after going through. I can't speak for others, but I would imagine a very high % of founders who have gone through YC would agree.
- swampthing 11y agoDitto - in fact, one of the main reasons we did YC was because we talked with a lot of alumni who said they would do YC for their next startup without hesitation.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dutchbrit 11y agoWhat does YC get for 120k? And is this a fixed % for all applicants? How does this amount get determined?
- suhail 11y agoThere's one missing point on this post that I believe is important. I don't blame them for not putting on there either though since it's a bit intangible: YC really encourages commitment. Commitment to your idea and co-founders. That commitment inspires a lot of motivation to do a lot with little in a very small amount of time. You go from a rag tag group working on weekends and evenings due to school or your day job to a competitive, hungry machine ready to usurp your market leader. The effect of the peer pressure amongst your batch mates continuously making progress each week is substantial. YMMV - it worked for us at Mixpanel.
- tchock23 11y agoCommitment to co-founders is great, but commitment to your idea is a double-edged sword. It can lead to teams less willing to pivot because they're so committed to the concept they applied with. (Source: Been on the teaching team of a few accelerator programs and seen founders make poor choices due to commitment to their ideas, despite advice otherwise from mentors and their market).
- dmix 11y agoThis is indeed double sided as most ideas will take years to fully flesh out. Not everything works out immediately. So while not pivoting is a risk, I believe it's equally risky to give up to early before fully testing your product in the marketplace. I find most startups are willing to abandon products before they launched to a real audience and/or due to negative feedback from industry insiders (people in the tech bubble). Steve Blank always spoke about testing technology in markets and using that as the feedback loop. But I've worked with and also heard of stories of founders pivoting before they get to that point or after only testing a small subset of the market.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- _pius 11y agoOnce a startup has made enough progress to be competitive for YC proper, that startup could just raise a round from reputable angels. Why bother with YC at that point? As a founder of an early stage startup, YC just seems much less compelling than it did, say, 5+ years ago. If you aren't far along yet, makes sense to submit an application for the same reasons you might buy a lottery ticket, but if you're further along, what it takes to be truly competitive seems identical to what it takes to just raise an early round. I think YC is a huge positive macro force in the ecosystem, but on a micro level it doesn't seem clear why applying makes sense anymore.
- jacquesm 11y agoAlumni network and a lot of PR (not free PR since you give up equity for it, but rather more than if you went it alone). Whether or not that's enough of a reason is for you to decide.
- redlollipop 11y agoYou really don't get much PR just by YC-association; you still have to pay for the PR you do get.
- Mahn 11y agoThat's exactly the point this article is trying to make, that you get more than just seed money being part of YC.
- _pius 11y agoyou get more than just seed money being part of YC It's not clear to me how much value that adds over, say, raising from a few reputable angels in the Valley. As a non-alum, it looks like the YC applicant pool has become so competitive — on maturity, not ambition or potential — that by the time they want you, you don't need them. Not that you ever need anyone. One exception I can see is that if your startup will mostly have other startups as customers, YC could effectively gift you your first customers.
- VeilEm 11y agoAs a 3 time early employee of a YC funded startup I'm going to go ahead and say that the first customers benefit is as much a problem as a benefit because it presents the illusion of having a viable business. A lot of early customers only joined because of my startup's ties to YC and it always hid a problem with acquiring new customers. In 2 out of 3 experiences it took years of our lives wasted to figure out that the company couldn't be a success all the while trying to replicate whatever growth we had initially when that really was just from that first YC based TC article. Basically you need to know if you can be viable without YC before you want get those early YC customers because eventually you're going to need customers that come to you who don't know what YC is.
- Geekette 11y agoI pondered the same point. If YC community isn't your target market, then this benefit is also of limited use or worse, damaging via creating illusion of demand which evaporates when you hit your target market.
- the_watcher 11y agoYou need to think of it as product development. It's hard to get users to use a product that no one has heard of. The YC network will actually try it out. This is important because even if they aren't your target market, it's still use of the product - which will always teach you something.
- Geekette 11y agoIf the things you learn from YC community usage is inapplicable to your target market, then that is not useful learning. It is useful for business if their use context overlaps with that of your target base.
- pj_mukh 11y agoSimilar experience, different conclusion. We were not prepared to handle customers when getting into YC. However, the process told us in 3-4 months, what would have otherwise taken us at least a year. Our customers were nowhere close to the "YC Crowd" either.
- pm 11y agoBookface seems interesting. Any more info on that?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- blazespin 11y agoI got to ask, exactly how is this good for our economy to have an elite group which when you get membership into you get preferential treatment? Why not just let people compete on their own merits rather than the merits of the group they belong to? "Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals who form an elite—a select group of people with a certain ancestry, intrinsic quality or worth, high intellect , wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes—are those whose influence or authority is greater than that of others; ."
- davemel37 11y agoI think you might be mistaking reality with fantasy. Call me a pessimist, but in my reality people look at all sorts of social cues and shortcuts to make decisions. You can either acknowledge reality and let it work for you, or ignore it and let it run you over.
- ryporter 11y agoYC companies are in fact selected on their merit. What are you proposing instead of the current system, socialized startup advice and funding?
- pkd 11y agoYou're kind of arguing against meritocracy here. The elite groups exist everywhere. Aren't Ivies elite by your definition? Why should they exist and provide better career opportunities to their students? YCombinator doesn't exist to favour one group of people arbitrarily. It exists so that it can identify the most promising startups and help them a little through their journey. IMHO.
- alexis 11y agoReddit would absolutely not exist if not for Y Combinator. Sure, we'd all be a bit more productive at work, but I don't think it'd be worth it.
- exdeath 11y agoLet me explain why YC is coming out with this now. In the wake of the Zenefits scandal (which is only just beginning) there's going to be a lot of scrutiny on Y Combinator and the entitlement culture (and, hence, the cheating culture) that tends to emerge from an old-boy-network. They're trying to put a good foot forward and distance themselves from the culture that created Zenefits and (more importantly, in the long term) from the appearance that YC is just a bunch of companies buying each others services at high prices, like artists who'd buy each others paintings at high levels (to bolster each others' reputations) while secretly settling the bill. I don't fault YC for doing so, and I doubt that they had any official, direct responsibility for the Zenefits fiasco (although I certainly don't buy that Mr. Conrad acted alone.) It's just useful to be able to read between the lines and see what's going on. Y Combinator's PR wing is definitely going to be active as long as Zenefits is in the news.
- asdfologist 11y agoMeh, that's a stretch. Much of the material on that page dates to 2014. I think a more plausible reason is to attract more talent for the Summer 2016 batch - the application deadline is next month.
- timrpeterson 11y agoYeah, so it is PR to re-surface that content exactly when the wheels are falling off.
- timrpeterson 11y agoSad irony that this highly relevant comment got buried in downvotes.
- pritishc 11y agoWell, this is YC's own forum, after all.
- timrpeterson 11y ago
- rdl 11y agoThe biggest recommendation for YC is: if you founded a company in YC, would you do so again (or recommend that other founders do so?) I would, although I have some very specific things I'd be sure of before doing YC; doing YC "correctly" is worth some effort. (not too early; with specific goals achieved during YC, and with focus on the right things)