4 ms·
YC Clone In Seattle
- bfioca 19y agoI don't think it's correct to call this a YC clone, but it's cool to see more startup-investment-related activity coming out of Seattle - there's a lot of great talent and ideas there.
- ALee 19y agoThey share office space, own stakes in the other's companies. It sounds like an incubator, no? These solutions are appearing all over the place. Are incubators now a good idea? (YC is NOT included in that category)
- rms 19y agoThe major difference this time around is that the incubators are going for much smaller dollar amounts: they're doing YC magnitude investments. I'm not sure if it'll end up being a profitable experiment or not, but I understand why people are trying.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- tim2 19y ago> Five percent of the equity in each company will be distributed in a pool to be shared by other Founders Co-op firms. Smart way to encourage people to help each other.
- bfioca 19y agoI dunno how I feel about that - it depends on the size of the pool (# of companies). Could get distracting in the long run.
- tim2 19y agoThere's an economic principal on how specialization can increase output for the same amount of work. Otherwise, clearly some failed startups can tell that they're doomed before they finally give up and this might give them something more valuable to do? Will be interesting to see this strategy tested.
- utnick 19y agoi like this idea, sounds like a great way to build a community
- webwright 19y agoYaw, attacking the same market/problem, but decidedly NOT a clone. I _really_ like the co-op twist. I think shared office space, however, is a LOUSY idea. Adding to my list of things to blog about!
- run4yourlives 19y agoIt depends on what they mean by "shared office". If they share a secretary and some meeting rooms it can work well. If 20 companies are in the same cubicle farm, not so much.
- tim2 19y ago"optional office space"
- jakewolf 19y agoDon't YC companies also work together or at least use each other's products? Co-oping sounds great, but only when it actually benefits users.
- henning 19y agoWhy is everyone who invests small amounts of seed funding a "YC clone"? The implication is that the people they fund are "YC rejects" (YC people have explicitly claimed that on this site). It seems tantamount to wishing to constrain the number of seed-funded startups to the ones 4 people (PG & co.) can advise at once. Are more startups a good thing, or not? If it is, don't deride newcomers by referring to them as a clone of what already exists.
- nikiscevak 19y agoI completely agree. Seed financing is inherently unscalable. Investment partners need to spend a lot of time per investment and that severely limits their output. Just like Sequoia are not a 'clone' of Kleiner Perkins, the same is to be said for competition: because both are unscalable businesses they can successfully co-exist and it certainly isn't a winner take all market. Indeed, the market is crying out for more firms, but the contraint is skilled early stage investors. Also, Andy and Chris (who this article is about) both rock.
- rms 19y ago>Why is everyone who invests small amounts of seed funding a "YC clone"? Because the first one to launch was a YC clone... Techstars even copied the application verbatim. I think a better term for the YC clones is micro-incubators -- most of them offer office space.
- webframp 19y agocalling it a clone is misleading. exciting since personally i'd like to see some more VC action in the Pacific NW