6 ms·

At the risk of making judgment out of context, I think it's pretty obvious which of the two wants to Invest in the founders as much as the idea.

jacoblyles 17y ago
There's room for more than one investment strategy; there's not a "correct" one. YCombinator invests in the top 1% of developers regardless of ideas. I can see how it might be smart to invest instead in the top 10% of developers with the biggest ideas. Unfortunately the data on this kind of thing is rather small. The only way to be sure which is better is to run two funds side by side with different strategies. edit: It should be remembered that Viaweb had not only great developers (the functional stuff in Viaweb is cool!) but also a pretty big idea. Viaweb is really a bad example for "ideas don't matter".
- ryanhuff 17y ago
  "YCombinator invests in the top 1% of developers regardless of ideas" Interesting stat, which is obviously an opinion. Here's a strongly held opinion of mine: top 1% developers != top 1% of business people.
- necrecious 17y ago
  I think it is great that there are funds pursuing different strategies. What's even better is that they are fairly transparent about their data so we can use the data to find better strategies.
- zck 17y ago
  >It should be remembered that Viaweb had not only great developers (the functional stuff in Viaweb is cool!) but also a pretty big idea. Viaweb is really a bad example for "ideas don't matter". Except the initial idea was "put art galleries on the web", called Artix. It morphed into Viaweb later. It's actually a very good example for "ideas don't matter".
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Classic pivot. I wonder how many startups actually stick to their first idea, and never deviate from that.
chrischen 17y ago
I think the techstars app has fewer questions concerning the founders And it seemed to lean more towards the idea.
oldgregg 17y ago
Maybe. But TechStars has been defined by their focus on community building which would suggest otherwise. Smart founders usually have smart ideas so it's easy to overplay the distinction. It might be more insightful if you could look at how many companies radically changed their idea during the program.

jacoblyles 17y ago

There's room for more than one investment strategy; there's not a "correct" one. YCombinator invests in the top 1% of developers regardless of ideas. I can see how it might be smart to invest instead in the top 10% of developers with the biggest ideas. Unfortunately the data on this kind of thing is rather small. The only way to be sure which is better is to run two funds side by side with different strategies. edit: It should be remembered that Viaweb had not only great developers (the functional stuff in Viaweb is cool!) but also a pretty big idea. Viaweb is really a bad example for "ideas don't matter".

ryanhuff 17y ago
"YCombinator invests in the top 1% of developers regardless of ideas" Interesting stat, which is obviously an opinion. Here's a strongly held opinion of mine: top 1% developers != top 1% of business people.
necrecious 17y ago
I think it is great that there are funds pursuing different strategies. What's even better is that they are fairly transparent about their data so we can use the data to find better strategies.
zck 17y ago
>It should be remembered that Viaweb had not only great developers (the functional stuff in Viaweb is cool!) but also a pretty big idea. Viaweb is really a bad example for "ideas don't matter". Except the initial idea was "put art galleries on the web", called Artix. It morphed into Viaweb later. It's actually a very good example for "ideas don't matter".
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Classic pivot. I wonder how many startups actually stick to their first idea, and never deviate from that.

chrischen 17y ago

I think the techstars app has fewer questions concerning the founders And it seemed to lean more towards the idea.

oldgregg 17y ago

Maybe. But TechStars has been defined by their focus on community building which would suggest otherwise. Smart founders usually have smart ideas so it's easy to overplay the distinction. It might be more insightful if you could look at how many companies radically changed their idea during the program.