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Quick analysis: 1297 YC companies (from here: http://www.ycombinator.com/press/ http://www.ycombinator.com/press/) 860 YC companies listed as either active or
by jedc 10y ago
Quick analysis:
1297 YC companies (from here: http://www.ycombinator.com/press/ http://www.ycombinator.com/press/)
860 YC companies listed as either active or acquired (from here: http://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ http://www.ycombinator.com/companies/)
= 33% failure rate
That's a lot higher than I would have expected, to be honest.
- amirmc 10y agoReally? I'd have thought it would be higher. Although this figure does fit with things I've heard before.
- dopamean 10y agoI would have guessed at least half failed. This number seems pretty low to me.
- jedc 10y agoGetting downvoted for citing numbers and a gut reaction? I don't get HN'ers sometimes...
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoI accidentally downvoted :( (really wish that could be fixed)
- elmar 10y agolook for the unvote link on the post
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoAre you sure about that? I can unflag something I flag but I don't see any place where I can unvote. Unless it's karma gated? Though I would have figured I would have access to all the features by now...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- greenyoda 10y agoIf you downvote a comment, the link to undo the vote is actually labeled "undown", not "unvote" (upvoted comments have the "unvote" link). At the top of the comment, you should see something like: username 1 hour ago | undown [-] ^ click here
- dsugarman 10y ago33% is way too low as a failure rate for pre-seed startups. I think that number may be around what you would expect for Series A startups. The data is skewed because class sizes have grown over time so the data is skewed towards younger companies.
- peter303 10y agoYC screens who can get into its incubator which improves the yield.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- joncalhoun 10y agoAnother factor is that it takes some time for a company to admit it failed, and everyone's opinion of "failed" is different. I suspect the actual number is higher, especially from an investors perspective.
- nl 10y agoIf you can just avoid dying, you get rich. That sounds like a joke, but it's actually a pretty good description of what happens in a typical startup. http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
- jdoliner 10y agoUnfortunately many only prolong their dying, not avoid it.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoSeems like a very low number IMO. Well over the majority of start-ups fail in the first 5 years. Perhaps when the largest batches make it to 5+ years the percentage will increase? Though at the rate they're adding new companies maybe it'll just continue to feed the monster.
- mlinsey 10y agothe delta also includes YC companies that have not launched publicly or not publicly revealed they are part of YC.
- gleb 10y agoNo, that's bad math. Math to do it right is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_analysis
- elmar 10y agosome of the 1297 are still on stealth mode.
- drewrv 10y agoNot every acquisition is a success.
- UlyssesSKrunk 10y agoDid you mean lower? Because 33% is super incredibly low.
- downandout 10y agoI was shocked that it was that low. Even considering that another 20%+ are probably on life support, in denial, and/or destined for failure, that is an amazingly high success rate in startupland.
- jedc 10y agoTechstars has shown stats for all companies for years, and has a 10% failure rate. - http://www.techstars.com/companies/ http://www.techstars.com/companies/ (78% active, 12% acquired, on a base of 800 companies) Techstars and YC appear to have pretty dramatically different philosophies on selection, which influence this.
- josh_carterPDX 10y agoAgree. I would say the selection criteria for every program varies and each have their own strengths, but having the data around how many companies have failed should influence companies thinking about which program they should pursue.
- robryan 10y agoYou often can't find so much as a blog post for early stage companies that have failed. Given you can keep a mostly dead service with few customers running as is for such a small yearly cost. The giveaway is usually a blog or social media accounts that haven't been updated in years.
- CptJamesCook 10y agoPaul Graham is on the record as stating that he expects the median value of a YC company to be zero. i.e. >50% failure rate.
- josh_carterPDX 10y agoThat's a pretty surprising number compared to other programs.