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What do you think of teams that are working part-time (e.g. while in full time education/employment) on an idea with decent traction, but who are waiting for ex

What do you think of teams that are working part-time (e.g. while in full time education/employment) on an idea with decent traction, but who are waiting for external validation (such as YC or other investment) before going full-time on it? Do you take it as a sign of low commitment?

fnbr 10y ago
Expanding, what do you think about team that are working part-time while working to develop MRR that would make them ramen profitable? How negative of a signal is that?
- mwseibel 10y ago
  I think that if you are bootstrapping cause you need to in order to pay the bills then that is totally fine. If you can work full-time on your startup and your are aren't - you should ask yourself why.
  - skanga 10y ago
    What are examples of some good answers to the why question? And some bad answers?
    - wayn3 10y ago
      hes implying that you arent convinced of your startup. there are no "good" answers at that point.
    - brudgers 10y ago
      I think a good answer might be because the person was working on something else. Historically, there has been a line on the application about other ideas that the applicant thought about applying with. But that's just a guess.
  - fnbr 10y ago
    Thanks- that's what I thought, but I wasn't sure.
mwseibel 10y ago
I would say figure out what milestone in your business would convince you to go all in and strive for it. Your goal shouldn't be external validation. I know of no investor who is smart enough to tell with 100% accuracy whether you are working on a great idea or not.
OmarIsmail 10y ago
To get a better understanding of YC's approach consider the following: there are a limited number of slots, they get substantially more good applicants than there are slots. What this means is that the question shouldn't be "am I good enough for YC?" the question is "am I better than 95% of other companies applying this batch?". Now if you're YC and you see 2 identical companies and one set of founders is full-time and the other set of founders are part-time, it's safe to say that the full time founders will be given preference because they are more committed, etc. On the flip side if you had phenomenal founders/company (at an extreme think if Mark Zuckerberg started a new company and applied to YC) being part time is not a big deal. Unfortunately for you you don't have visibility into your competition for this batch, but you can use previous batch companies as a rough guide.
tyre 10y ago
You're basically asking YC to bet on you before you bet on yourself. If you aren't willing to go all in, what does that say? Startups are really fucking hard. You have to have a serious belief and commitment to build a billion dollar business (which is what YC is investing in.) If you're unsure, that's totally fine, but you need to be the first to believe in your company and get used to being the only ones who believe in your company, in order to make it through the hard times.
- SmellTheGlove 10y ago
  Sure, but consider what you're selecting out with that approach. Recent grads who just need to scrape enough money for a room and some ramen can go all in on their idea. Mid 30's with a family can't. 20's person might find the billion dollar disruptive idea, coming fresh out of a less bounded college experience or youth in general. 30's person might find the billion dollar enterprise solution, having spent 10-15 years in fortune 500 companies. I have bias to disclose - I'm in the 2nd category, and my ideas and projects are probably very different, with a very different target market, than me 15 years ago (or someone else 15 years younger than me right now). I'm also not seriously pursuing anything at the moment, so this is hypothetical: Not only do I have a roof to keep over my family's head, I also (no offense intended here) probably have a higher opportunity cost as a barrier as well. All in on an idea for me has hard and soft costs that are very different from someone just starting out. It's not to say someone similar to me should expect to throw a few hours every two weeks at a project and merit serious consideration, but putting 25% of time and energy for some is a BFD that I think passes the commitment threshold in certain instances. Whether it's YC, a startup, or your role in a mature business of any size, you must approach ideas through various lenses beyond your own. Please take this all constructively, I'm not trying to say I'm better because I'm older or anything like that - my point is that there are broader considerations that make varying degrees of commitment to an idea more similar than you'd think.
- logicallee 10y ago
  a lot of people start by borrowing $50k from a parent (this is a fact). If the universe doesn't believe in you enough to give you parents you can borrow $50k from, why should YC? Surely they don't know better than God himself, and it would be insanely presumptuous of YC to think they do. There is clearly a reason that God passed on you and they are not in a position to second-guess this. (/s in case you need it. If you still don't get it I am making fun of your position because it's naive and in my experience wrong. Sorry. Privilege comes in many forms and people don't tend to talk about them.)

fnbr 10y ago

Expanding, what do you think about team that are working part-time while working to develop MRR that would make them ramen profitable? How negative of a signal is that?

mwseibel 10y ago
I think that if you are bootstrapping cause you need to in order to pay the bills then that is totally fine. If you can work full-time on your startup and your are aren't - you should ask yourself why.
- skanga 10y ago
  What are examples of some good answers to the why question? And some bad answers?
  - wayn3 10y ago
    hes implying that you arent convinced of your startup. there are no "good" answers at that point.
  - brudgers 10y ago
    I think a good answer might be because the person was working on something else. Historically, there has been a line on the application about other ideas that the applicant thought about applying with. But that's just a guess.
- fnbr 10y ago
  Thanks- that's what I thought, but I wasn't sure.

mwseibel 10y ago

I would say figure out what milestone in your business would convince you to go all in and strive for it. Your goal shouldn't be external validation. I know of no investor who is smart enough to tell with 100% accuracy whether you are working on a great idea or not.

OmarIsmail 10y ago

To get a better understanding of YC's approach consider the following: there are a limited number of slots, they get substantially more good applicants than there are slots. What this means is that the question shouldn't be "am I good enough for YC?" the question is "am I better than 95% of other companies applying this batch?". Now if you're YC and you see 2 identical companies and one set of founders is full-time and the other set of founders are part-time, it's safe to say that the full time founders will be given preference because they are more committed, etc. On the flip side if you had phenomenal founders/company (at an extreme think if Mark Zuckerberg started a new company and applied to YC) being part time is not a big deal. Unfortunately for you you don't have visibility into your competition for this batch, but you can use previous batch companies as a rough guide.

tyre 10y ago

You're basically asking YC to bet on you before you bet on yourself. If you aren't willing to go all in, what does that say? Startups are really fucking hard. You have to have a serious belief and commitment to build a billion dollar business (which is what YC is investing in.) If you're unsure, that's totally fine, but you need to be the first to believe in your company and get used to being the only ones who believe in your company, in order to make it through the hard times.

SmellTheGlove 10y ago
Sure, but consider what you're selecting out with that approach. Recent grads who just need to scrape enough money for a room and some ramen can go all in on their idea. Mid 30's with a family can't. 20's person might find the billion dollar disruptive idea, coming fresh out of a less bounded college experience or youth in general. 30's person might find the billion dollar enterprise solution, having spent 10-15 years in fortune 500 companies. I have bias to disclose - I'm in the 2nd category, and my ideas and projects are probably very different, with a very different target market, than me 15 years ago (or someone else 15 years younger than me right now). I'm also not seriously pursuing anything at the moment, so this is hypothetical: Not only do I have a roof to keep over my family's head, I also (no offense intended here) probably have a higher opportunity cost as a barrier as well. All in on an idea for me has hard and soft costs that are very different from someone just starting out. It's not to say someone similar to me should expect to throw a few hours every two weeks at a project and merit serious consideration, but putting 25% of time and energy for some is a BFD that I think passes the commitment threshold in certain instances. Whether it's YC, a startup, or your role in a mature business of any size, you must approach ideas through various lenses beyond your own. Please take this all constructively, I'm not trying to say I'm better because I'm older or anything like that - my point is that there are broader considerations that make varying degrees of commitment to an idea more similar than you'd think.
logicallee 10y ago
a lot of people start by borrowing $50k from a parent (this is a fact). If the universe doesn't believe in you enough to give you parents you can borrow $50k from, why should YC? Surely they don't know better than God himself, and it would be insanely presumptuous of YC to think they do. There is clearly a reason that God passed on you and they are not in a position to second-guess this. (/s in case you need it. If you still don't get it I am making fun of your position because it's naive and in my experience wrong. Sorry. Privilege comes in many forms and people don't tend to talk about them.)