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YC will accept 10k new companies into its new online Startup School

334 points by runesoerensen 9y ago

ryanx435 9y ago
They don't financially back the 10k startups, it's just an online course where you get discounts on various online services. Granted the online courses are supposedly very valuable, but the lack of face to face with YC's network and lack of available funding makes it hard to see how they can get away with the claim that they are "backing" 10k startups. Edit: 200 people related to YC have volunteered to "mentor" the 10k companies. Let's assume 2 founders per company, that's 1 mentor for every 100 founders. And the course is 10 weeks long, so assuming the volunteers spend 40 hours a week for 10 weeks mentoring the founders (which they likely wont), that works out to be 4 hours per founder over the entire course. Yeah, not the same as "backing" a company.
- yoloswagins 9y ago
  In such large groups, engagement drops off really fast. If half the companies drop out each week, that's 200 mentors towards 625 companies, which isn't that great, but not too bad.
  - dngerousminds87 9y ago
    Plus, this is all happening online
- xbmcuser 9y ago
  They might not back the whole 10000 startups but would probably invest in 5-10% of the ones they feel are really good.
- lettergram 9y ago
  Being in startup school, I can say it's definitely useful, and having a mentor point out when ideas are bad or ways to improve is helpful. What's more helpful, is that you're placed in a group of say 20 other companies all trying to produce something, some are making money, some have literally nothing. You can learn from one another, share ideas, test out each others products, etc. One thing most people trying to start a company don't have is a support network of highly motivated people doing the same thing. I know I personally do, but many of my fellow startup school colleagues do not. That's what's helpful: The startup school group office hours (or therapy sessions). The second most valuable portion of startup school, is that they force you to be accountable. If I say I'm doing X, they want to see it. They expect results, and they push you to share. The finally, and perhaps most valuable portion of startup school, is the fact you can network. I'd argue this is different than group office hours. There are many companies that have synergies, for example my project: https://projectpiglet.com/ https://projectpiglet.com/ can help identify trends, or "experts", which other teams could use. There are other examples, but it's definitely been useful. That being said, it is not YC proper. You don't get funds, many of the founders don't actually have an LLC or C-Corps. Many are in school, or (like myself) have full-time jobs working 50 hours a week. Although not being able to work on the project full-time sucks, I've definitely made progress through startup school. We would have had less without it, the ideas from the team have bubbled up and the support pushes us to do better. I would recommend it, and definitely don't think it's "backing 10k startups", however it is helping in a significant way.
  - mozumder 9y ago
    Networking only works if you're with a relevant audience. It's probably not useful to participate in a fashion industry networking event if you're a startup selling EDA software. In any case, as long as it's not asking for an ownership stake, I don't see the problem with it.
exratione 9y ago
This would be somewhere in the Vingean Scholastics portion of the Venn diagram I proposed a few years ago: https://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the-venture-capital-industry/ https://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the-venture-... The future is wandering towards Fast Times at Fairmont High, it seems.
chaostheory 9y ago
> They chose inexperienced college students over startup veterans. Is this still true of YC today?
- ksikka 9y ago
  As of June 2016 the average age was around 29. https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/ https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/
  - bpicolo 9y ago
    I would imagine the startup life skews young in general because older age tends to mean more responsibilities, and at some point if you haven't been successful with a startup you'll tend towards a more traditional position for those reasons? "Startup Veteran" is kind of an amusing phrase.
    - apapli 9y ago
      I disagree. I'd say older people have more networks, more experience and more resources, hence will find less comparative benefit in giving away precious equity to YC (etc) than young people who need all the above. It could be said that YC and other startup incubators have done a stellar marketing job in taking ~6% equity off organisations by turning the tables on funding and making companies "apply" to give their equity away. From YC's perspective they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from this arrangement, versus the founders who are in pretty much the opposite position.
      - bpicolo 9y ago
        That's probably true. I was sort of envisioning bootstrapped, self-funded businesses as a different category than the YC-startup style business.
        mattmanser 9y ago
        Youre confusing concepts. You can skip an incubator like YC while still intending to not bootstrap. There is also no such thing as a 'YC-style' startup, YC was set up to target startups, so can't have invented them. YC used to only give a tiny amount of equity that any vaguely successful person could match ($16k?). It filled the gap between starting and series A. Bootstrapping means avoiding getting a series A. Basically, YC didn't invent startups, it invented a new, more accessible route to starting one.
bactrian 9y ago
Funding startups others wouldn't is perhaps the most essential part of YC. VCs didn't want Dropbox or Airbnb or Stripe without YCs stamp of approval. YC could very plausible fund as many startups as there are ambitious and determined founders. Let anyone participate in the programs and then let the startups filter themselves out by failing to keep up the progressively more challenging levels of effort.
- Brajeshwar 9y ago
  Not as 'successful' as YC and other incubators/accelerators, but the idea of taking in as many and filtering out is what Founder Institute does. It is the "survivor" of Startups.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- orthoganol 9y ago
  IMO YC depends on its branding as the exclusive, "Harvard of incubators," and if they keep funding so many startups they are going to lose that edge and create the space for a new YC. Each class is like 130 startups now, right? I keep seeing startups that duplicate other existing YC startups. I just imagine as an investor you have to be thinking "Ok, now there are 2 or 3 or 4 times as many startups as 3 years ago being pitched to me that are going to fail."
  - nandorsky 9y ago
    Or the opposite - look at all this deal flow. As these startups move through the program I am sure YC is collecting tons of data in regards to how their trending. Imagine an online portal an investor could log into and within seconds have access to thousands of startups but more importantly, visibility into their metrics and traction.
    - adyus 9y ago
      You mean Mattermark?
rdlecler1 9y ago
This should be good for a large number of startups who are not in the valley. Structure with an incentive program is a great way to get teams in markets lacking a SV-style approach to entrepreneurship. I think English speaking countries have had a big advantage here because there's so much content and expertise out there. One thing they should do is simulcast the lectures with professional translators in another langauage or at least crowdsourcing subtitles. This would be really helpful for entrepreneurs in places like Japan.
lawl 9y ago
Bullshit, I've attended a startup school event in london and they were very clear that they want people to relocate to SV. Is YC backing 10k international startups with funding, or is this just a MOOC?
- _sentient 9y ago
  I think you're confusing the Startup School conference with YC's new Startup School MOOC. The MOOC is completely remote with no expectation that companies will move to SV.
  - cm2012 9y ago
    The headline before indicated YC was changing its rules.
dyarosla 9y ago
Click-bait warning! TL;DR: YC won't be 'backing' 10k startups in the financial backing/investing sense at all, but accepting 10k startups into their Startup School MOOC.
- dang 9y ago
  Agreed. We replaced the title above with a representative phrase from the article.
salesguy222 9y ago
If I'm making a tech product (not SaaS) as a solo founder, no employees, no funding, not in the Bay Area, but making a product that people love, would I be considered a success? I personally love the Startup School lectures and they have been a great help to me.
- michaelbuckbee 9y ago
  What matters is if it's a success to you. Which I'm worried sounds like it might be flip or dismissive, but I think is the core truth of it.
  - salesguy222 9y ago
    No, thank you so much for this advice! It was helpful and much needed. I may not be building a million or billion dollar market, but I figure that if money is the same, I'm glad to be working by my own rules rather than someone else's!
- coupdejarnac 9y ago
  If you're growing and profitable, you might consider ignoring all the startup culture nonsense.
  - bisRepetita 9y ago
    Why would "growing" be a prerequisite to success? Isn't profitable enough, especially if already decently profitable?
    - coupdejarnac 9y ago
      I assume you are asking a serious question, but yes, you need to at least grow to match the rate of inflation/cost of living. Aside from that, it's up to you to decide how much you want to grow.
    - nashadelic 9y ago
      Really depends upon the goal. If you're a venture funded startup then the find is aiming for a 10x truth from you over 7-10 years. This will translate to 2-3x Y/Y growth for the first years of the startup. Ofcourse, if you're self funded, these rules don't apply.
jensvdh 9y ago
With immigration to the US being as hard as it is (Nigh on impossible for say, Europeans, to work in the US), and , on top of that, the US government going full protectionist, this is amazing.
sjg007 9y ago
Frightenly ambitious.
sergiotapia 9y ago
Where can I apply? The site says it's already started: https://www.startupschool.org/ https://www.startupschool.org/ > The course will begin on April 5th, 2017 But the title implies they're going to add 10,000 new applicants.
- ukyrgf 9y ago
  The article answers your question: > Now, Startup School will accept about 10,000 companies in early 2018, says Altman, and potentially more after that.
Mz 9y ago
So, I am looking at a bit of the transcript from the first course and it is talking about scaling companies from millions to billions and things like that. YC started with this idea that you take a couple of college student hackers, give them like $20k and let them build something "ramen profitable." The basic idea was that tech had lowered the barriers to entry for business. An awful lot of these big companies (Uber, Home Hero -- which is shutting down -- etc) seem to hire 1099 contractors instead of employees and they often don't pay all that well. The goal for YC seems to have become grow the next unicorn. So, I find myself wondering (having already forwarded this stuff to various people): Is there anything of use in these lectures if you aren't looking to become a billionaire and have no desire to grow some gargantuan company that probably is making the founders rich on the backs of the 99 percent who are so often underpaid? Is there any basic business wisdom here for people not looking for some J curve growth and then cashing out? (Serious question and I know it sounds like snark. I just don't know how to say this more diplomatically because this is not how YC started and I have trouble with the direction it seems to have taken.)
- goobynight 9y ago
  Just want to chime in that your comment makes total sense and hope to see it answered!
- prawn 9y ago
  I think this bit is going to antagonise the people you're questioning: "...probably is making the founders rich on the backs of the 99 percent who are so often underpaid". Unless I've missed something, neither Uber or Home Hero are YC companies, and countless YC companies aren't leveraging 1099 contractors in place of employees. Your question might be better rephrased to something like: Is there value in Startup School for those aiming for modest growth or to create a lifestyle business?
  - hoodoof 9y ago
    Is there nothing in between? lifestyle business modest growth business <-- one or two more company sizes in here? multi billion dollar company You don't want to say the word "lifestyle business" in any sentence or the VC's will ignore everything else you asked and focus on that. When they hear that word it triggers some sort of "fight or flight" response in the primitive amygdala of the VC, leading them to run away. Pretend you've never even heard of the concept of "lifestyle business", it keeps them happy.
gregpilling 9y ago
I think this is the money line right here: The heart of YC’s philosophy is that world has too few people solving fixable problems, a “bottleneck in society,” says Garg. “If you fundamentally believe that, then [Startup School] is exactly the right thing to do. You are empowering a bunch of people to just try and it’ll turn out it’s going to be way easier than they thought it was going to be. And there’ll be more progress.”
dgudkov 9y ago
I've been saying for long time that YC is just a new kind of university and now it starts appearing more and more like that. The goal of a traditional university is to enable financial security for students through high-quality employment enabled by a skill set provided by the university. YC effectively does the same -- it provides students with a necessary skill set to enable financial security through self-employment. The main difference is that education in YC is paid with shares, not cash.
- adventured 9y ago
  > high-quality employment enabled by a skill set provided by the university Neither YC nor a university are in the business of particularly providing such a thing. They provide a stamp of approval, aka vetting, which is what gets you the job. That you survive it, learn very minimalist skills, graduate and get that piece of paper in theory increases the odds that you possess such and such personal qualities. From there, the overwhelming majority of what you will need for your career, will be learned post-university. The university isn't doing much more than vouching that you represent at least a baseline, ideally according to / in-line with the university reputation. In the case of YC, their stamp of approval is what gets you the big money. They vet you. They do not make you a great hacker or leader, or give you those skills, you have to do almost all of that yourself. The best they can do is sometimes point you in the right direction and offer occasional help.
- snikeris 9y ago
  > The goal of a traditional university is to enable financial security for students through high-quality employment enabled by a skill set provided by the university. I believe universities traditionally aspired to loftier goals. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education
tomhallett 9y ago
Complete aside: am I the only one who imagined Naval flipping through a physics book to double check his assertion?
hoodoof 9y ago
I'm trying to work out what bothers me about this. I wonder if it's actually bad advice for all those thousands of entrepreneurs to be advising them to go for being mega gigantic. It's bad advice because those thousands of new entrepreneurs have a much greater chance of long term success by NOT following the "go super big" path. Indeed it appears that taking a "quite successful" company down the "go super big" path might lead to a variety of adverse outcomes (as I have gleaned from reading the stories of many failed venture backed companies). I suspect that what is niggling me is that perhaps YC and all the other venture capitalists maybe are really now acting and advising what is in their interests, which is really not in the interests of all these bright eyed new entrepreneurs. I suppose YC's history and origin make it feel like they are on the side of the entrepreneur, but is that still true?
- dnautics 9y ago
  I dunno. I got accepted into office hours, and yc didn't provide me with Amazon credits that they said were part of the program, and I didn't feel like the advice the person gave me was anything I didn't already know, besides "do what you're doing, but harder". Perhaps it's jumped the shark. I distinctly got the feeling that yc is now peddling a narrative of the hacker that is either untrue or no longer true, and is dispensing platitudes instead of actually getting people help with "the hard parts", as in connecting people with a real process that helps them get money (or conversely, critical responses to "stop wasting your time", if that's what's deserved)
  - hoodoof 9y ago
    Perhaps they have refined their business down to the essential core which is to back large numbers of entrepreneurs in the hope they don't miss one that gets big. Like 500 startups. Hard to believe that backing large numbers of companies can be much more than betting on lots of horses.
    - ericb 9y ago
      They aren't backing any of these companies financially. It is hard to tell what is in it for them yet. The only way this makes sense is if it is a pre-filter for their application funnel to increase the quality of their selections. Contrary to this, they originally claimed that startup school would not give you any leg up in the application process.
Animats 9y ago
So, YC branches out into the MOOC business.
faramarz 9y ago
I just LOVE the photo used in the article. Is that the very first cohort? so many familiar faces.. Sam standing next to Paul.. even Aaron! great piece of yc history! What a great photo.
dzink 9y ago
Replying while somewhat under-slept here, but I've been taking the course and from everything seen so far Startup School is an excellent step in the right direction. The world today needs more people solving the problems they see in the world, instead of waiting to make enough money in a job that may be automated soon enough, or relying on benefits and insurance that can be ripped apart by a politician's pen. Building something from scratch is hard, and veering off-road is obviously easy (going to press to early, raising huge amounts, or not raising when you have a viral product, being scared away by a patent troll, hiring people for the sake of headcount, you name it). Compound the problems you have with additional regulatory burdens in other countries, and it can be downright impossible to make something new (vs starting another store, or restaurant). YC tries to make it as simple as possible to make the life of ENTREPRENEURS survivable(Not just VC-fundable businesses). If that wasn't the case, Startup School would include an investment that gets you into the feedback loop of having to produce returns for someone. Not asking for equity is a great feature, because it encourages experimentation and provides railings to keep as many of these experiments on the lane that gives them room to validate and less risk of predictable failures. School may even be the wrong term here, I would call it an Apprenticeship, because you are practicing and mastering your craft with mentors and peers in practice. This Apprenticeship for Entrepreneurs, crafted by YC, needs to spread with as much quality mentors and talent, as is available, and it needs to have proper funnels doubling down on people who strike gold by meeting a high-demand unmet need. Startups at advanced stages should more qualified support and more funding for equity. (Right now that step is YC Core) Do that across any country and market segment and you won't need to worry about Jobs automation. Humanity will have an efficient method to create as many entrepreneurs out of Job bleeds as it needs and to lead them into fixing problems that actually need fixing.
- wuschel 9y ago
  At its core, YC is a VC entity, and as such is competing for promising investment possibilities. IMHO YC's move to "accept 10K new companies" is a smart attempt in attempting to extend their reach to get the first pick at the commodity. We will see if it will work out. Either way, it is great to see YC to lead the way - they have done a lot for the community already. Disclaimer: Been once in that orange place in Palo Alto, and I am not a fan-boy. However, I do remember the dark ages around 2005, when there was nothing in Europe that was even worth to compare to this accelerator program. YC has greatly helped to change the landscape.
deleted 9y ago
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jaclaz 9y ago
As a side note, the data in the graph "Number of applicants and startups accepted into Y Combinator", evidences two things: 1) the number of applicants is increasing (which is what the graph was evidently made for) 2) the percentage of successful applicants is declining steadily actually halving from (roughly) around 3-4% until 2012 to (still roughly) 1,50-2,00 later This may be IMHO due to two factors (or a combination of both): 1) Too many startups lately apply without having a sound enough project or not original enough ideas 2) Y Combinator has become more picky when choosing who to accept Surely it is not as easy to be accepted (in the actual YC financing program) as it may sound, I thought that the success rate was higher than that.
jansho 9y ago
I am super excited about this. The thought of applying for YC was never on the table because I'm reluctant to move to the US. Startup School is great, but sometimes I feel that it's a little too condensed and, well, at the end of the day it's still passive consumption. Mentoring personalises things a little, so this news is welcoming. My question is, can this mentoring be as effective as having a 'real' mentor? I have no doubt that YC mentors are highly qualified individuals, but with 10k startups, I can't help but feel that these sessions would be as rapid-fire as one of the live office hour videos in Startup School. Nothing wrong with that, but for me, I look for relationships the most from mentors. This also makes me think that this may just be a Round One to perhaps a lengthier process to sift for startups with the best potential..
throwaway2016a 9y ago
I was excited until: > Now, Startup School will accept about 10,000 companies in early 2018, says Altman, and potentially more after that. 2018 seems like an eternity away. I hope my new company is profitable by then.
- a1exyz 9y ago
  whats your new company?
  - throwaway2016a 9y ago
    Hi a1exyz, Sorry for the delayed reply. I wasn't checking in on this thread. Unfortunately since this is an anonymous account I can't say :)
jaoued 9y ago
My co-founders and I really enjoyed the 10 week startup school. We're full time founders and have been working for the last three years on building MyAppConverter. The course gave us time to really get some actionable advice on how to grow our business. The greatest thing is that our time committment for the OH call and weekly reporting on our business metrics made us really focus on what matters i.e. making and selling as part of daily work. Wether or not one applies to YC programme, I would highly recommend any founders to join the MOOC course.

334 points by runesoerensen 9y ago

They don't financially back the 10k startups, it's just an online course where you get discounts on various online services. Granted the online courses are supposedly very valuable, but the lack of face to face with YC's network and lack of available funding makes it hard to see how they can get away with the claim that they are "backing" 10k startups. Edit: 200 people related to YC have volunteered to "mentor" the 10k companies. Let's assume 2 founders per company, that's 1 mentor for every 100 founders. And the course is 10 weeks long, so assuming the volunteers spend 40 hours a week for 10 weeks mentoring the founders (which they likely wont), that works out to be 4 hours per founder over the entire course. Yeah, not the same as "backing" a company.

yoloswagins 9y ago
In such large groups, engagement drops off really fast. If half the companies drop out each week, that's 200 mentors towards 625 companies, which isn't that great, but not too bad.
- dngerousminds87 9y ago
  Plus, this is all happening online
xbmcuser 9y ago
They might not back the whole 10000 startups but would probably invest in 5-10% of the ones they feel are really good.
lettergram 9y ago
Being in startup school, I can say it's definitely useful, and having a mentor point out when ideas are bad or ways to improve is helpful. What's more helpful, is that you're placed in a group of say 20 other companies all trying to produce something, some are making money, some have literally nothing. You can learn from one another, share ideas, test out each others products, etc. One thing most people trying to start a company don't have is a support network of highly motivated people doing the same thing. I know I personally do, but many of my fellow startup school colleagues do not. That's what's helpful: The startup school group office hours (or therapy sessions). The second most valuable portion of startup school, is that they force you to be accountable. If I say I'm doing X, they want to see it. They expect results, and they push you to share. The finally, and perhaps most valuable portion of startup school, is the fact you can network. I'd argue this is different than group office hours. There are many companies that have synergies, for example my project: https://projectpiglet.com/ https://projectpiglet.com/ can help identify trends, or "experts", which other teams could use. There are other examples, but it's definitely been useful. That being said, it is not YC proper. You don't get funds, many of the founders don't actually have an LLC or C-Corps. Many are in school, or (like myself) have full-time jobs working 50 hours a week. Although not being able to work on the project full-time sucks, I've definitely made progress through startup school. We would have had less without it, the ideas from the team have bubbled up and the support pushes us to do better. I would recommend it, and definitely don't think it's "backing 10k startups", however it is helping in a significant way.
- mozumder 9y ago
  Networking only works if you're with a relevant audience. It's probably not useful to participate in a fashion industry networking event if you're a startup selling EDA software. In any case, as long as it's not asking for an ownership stake, I don't see the problem with it.

exratione 9y ago

This would be somewhere in the Vingean Scholastics portion of the Venn diagram I proposed a few years ago: https://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the-venture-capital-industry/ https://www.exratione.com/2012/01/the-future-of-the-venture-... The future is wandering towards Fast Times at Fairmont High, it seems.

chaostheory 9y ago

> They chose inexperienced college students over startup veterans. Is this still true of YC today?

ksikka 9y ago
As of June 2016 the average age was around 29. https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/ https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/
- bpicolo 9y ago
  I would imagine the startup life skews young in general because older age tends to mean more responsibilities, and at some point if you haven't been successful with a startup you'll tend towards a more traditional position for those reasons? "Startup Veteran" is kind of an amusing phrase.
  - apapli 9y ago
    I disagree. I'd say older people have more networks, more experience and more resources, hence will find less comparative benefit in giving away precious equity to YC (etc) than young people who need all the above. It could be said that YC and other startup incubators have done a stellar marketing job in taking ~6% equity off organisations by turning the tables on funding and making companies "apply" to give their equity away. From YC's perspective they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from this arrangement, versus the founders who are in pretty much the opposite position.
    - bpicolo 9y ago
      That's probably true. I was sort of envisioning bootstrapped, self-funded businesses as a different category than the YC-startup style business.
      - mattmanser 9y ago
        Youre confusing concepts. You can skip an incubator like YC while still intending to not bootstrap. There is also no such thing as a 'YC-style' startup, YC was set up to target startups, so can't have invented them. YC used to only give a tiny amount of equity that any vaguely successful person could match ($16k?). It filled the gap between starting and series A. Bootstrapping means avoiding getting a series A. Basically, YC didn't invent startups, it invented a new, more accessible route to starting one.

bactrian 9y ago

Funding startups others wouldn't is perhaps the most essential part of YC. VCs didn't want Dropbox or Airbnb or Stripe without YCs stamp of approval. YC could very plausible fund as many startups as there are ambitious and determined founders. Let anyone participate in the programs and then let the startups filter themselves out by failing to keep up the progressively more challenging levels of effort.

Brajeshwar 9y ago
Not as 'successful' as YC and other incubators/accelerators, but the idea of taking in as many and filtering out is what Founder Institute does. It is the "survivor" of Startups.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
orthoganol 9y ago
IMO YC depends on its branding as the exclusive, "Harvard of incubators," and if they keep funding so many startups they are going to lose that edge and create the space for a new YC. Each class is like 130 startups now, right? I keep seeing startups that duplicate other existing YC startups. I just imagine as an investor you have to be thinking "Ok, now there are 2 or 3 or 4 times as many startups as 3 years ago being pitched to me that are going to fail."
- nandorsky 9y ago
  Or the opposite - look at all this deal flow. As these startups move through the program I am sure YC is collecting tons of data in regards to how their trending. Imagine an online portal an investor could log into and within seconds have access to thousands of startups but more importantly, visibility into their metrics and traction.
  - adyus 9y ago
    You mean Mattermark?

rdlecler1 9y ago

This should be good for a large number of startups who are not in the valley. Structure with an incentive program is a great way to get teams in markets lacking a SV-style approach to entrepreneurship. I think English speaking countries have had a big advantage here because there's so much content and expertise out there. One thing they should do is simulcast the lectures with professional translators in another langauage or at least crowdsourcing subtitles. This would be really helpful for entrepreneurs in places like Japan.

lawl 9y ago

Bullshit, I've attended a startup school event in london and they were very clear that they want people to relocate to SV. Is YC backing 10k international startups with funding, or is this just a MOOC?

_sentient 9y ago
I think you're confusing the Startup School conference with YC's new Startup School MOOC. The MOOC is completely remote with no expectation that companies will move to SV.
- cm2012 9y ago
  The headline before indicated YC was changing its rules.

dyarosla 9y ago

Click-bait warning! TL;DR: YC won't be 'backing' 10k startups in the financial backing/investing sense at all, but accepting 10k startups into their Startup School MOOC.

dang 9y ago
Agreed. We replaced the title above with a representative phrase from the article.

salesguy222 9y ago

If I'm making a tech product (not SaaS) as a solo founder, no employees, no funding, not in the Bay Area, but making a product that people love, would I be considered a success? I personally love the Startup School lectures and they have been a great help to me.

michaelbuckbee 9y ago
What matters is if it's a success to you. Which I'm worried sounds like it might be flip or dismissive, but I think is the core truth of it.
- salesguy222 9y ago
  No, thank you so much for this advice! It was helpful and much needed. I may not be building a million or billion dollar market, but I figure that if money is the same, I'm glad to be working by my own rules rather than someone else's!
coupdejarnac 9y ago
If you're growing and profitable, you might consider ignoring all the startup culture nonsense.
- bisRepetita 9y ago
  Why would "growing" be a prerequisite to success? Isn't profitable enough, especially if already decently profitable?
  - coupdejarnac 9y ago
    I assume you are asking a serious question, but yes, you need to at least grow to match the rate of inflation/cost of living. Aside from that, it's up to you to decide how much you want to grow.
  - nashadelic 9y ago
    Really depends upon the goal. If you're a venture funded startup then the find is aiming for a 10x truth from you over 7-10 years. This will translate to 2-3x Y/Y growth for the first years of the startup. Ofcourse, if you're self funded, these rules don't apply.

jensvdh 9y ago

With immigration to the US being as hard as it is (Nigh on impossible for say, Europeans, to work in the US), and , on top of that, the US government going full protectionist, this is amazing.

sjg007 9y ago

Frightenly ambitious.

sergiotapia 9y ago

Where can I apply? The site says it's already started: https://www.startupschool.org/ https://www.startupschool.org/ > The course will begin on April 5th, 2017 But the title implies they're going to add 10,000 new applicants.

ukyrgf 9y ago
The article answers your question: > Now, Startup School will accept about 10,000 companies in early 2018, says Altman, and potentially more after that.

Mz 9y ago

So, I am looking at a bit of the transcript from the first course and it is talking about scaling companies from millions to billions and things like that. YC started with this idea that you take a couple of college student hackers, give them like $20k and let them build something "ramen profitable." The basic idea was that tech had lowered the barriers to entry for business. An awful lot of these big companies (Uber, Home Hero -- which is shutting down -- etc) seem to hire 1099 contractors instead of employees and they often don't pay all that well. The goal for YC seems to have become grow the next unicorn. So, I find myself wondering (having already forwarded this stuff to various people): Is there anything of use in these lectures if you aren't looking to become a billionaire and have no desire to grow some gargantuan company that probably is making the founders rich on the backs of the 99 percent who are so often underpaid? Is there any basic business wisdom here for people not looking for some J curve growth and then cashing out? (Serious question and I know it sounds like snark. I just don't know how to say this more diplomatically because this is not how YC started and I have trouble with the direction it seems to have taken.)

goobynight 9y ago
Just want to chime in that your comment makes total sense and hope to see it answered!
prawn 9y ago
I think this bit is going to antagonise the people you're questioning: "...probably is making the founders rich on the backs of the 99 percent who are so often underpaid". Unless I've missed something, neither Uber or Home Hero are YC companies, and countless YC companies aren't leveraging 1099 contractors in place of employees. Your question might be better rephrased to something like: Is there value in Startup School for those aiming for modest growth or to create a lifestyle business?
- hoodoof 9y ago
  Is there nothing in between? lifestyle business modest growth business <-- one or two more company sizes in here? multi billion dollar company You don't want to say the word "lifestyle business" in any sentence or the VC's will ignore everything else you asked and focus on that. When they hear that word it triggers some sort of "fight or flight" response in the primitive amygdala of the VC, leading them to run away. Pretend you've never even heard of the concept of "lifestyle business", it keeps them happy.

gregpilling 9y ago

I think this is the money line right here: The heart of YC’s philosophy is that world has too few people solving fixable problems, a “bottleneck in society,” says Garg. “If you fundamentally believe that, then [Startup School] is exactly the right thing to do. You are empowering a bunch of people to just try and it’ll turn out it’s going to be way easier than they thought it was going to be. And there’ll be more progress.”

dgudkov 9y ago

I've been saying for long time that YC is just a new kind of university and now it starts appearing more and more like that. The goal of a traditional university is to enable financial security for students through high-quality employment enabled by a skill set provided by the university. YC effectively does the same -- it provides students with a necessary skill set to enable financial security through self-employment. The main difference is that education in YC is paid with shares, not cash.

adventured 9y ago
> high-quality employment enabled by a skill set provided by the university Neither YC nor a university are in the business of particularly providing such a thing. They provide a stamp of approval, aka vetting, which is what gets you the job. That you survive it, learn very minimalist skills, graduate and get that piece of paper in theory increases the odds that you possess such and such personal qualities. From there, the overwhelming majority of what you will need for your career, will be learned post-university. The university isn't doing much more than vouching that you represent at least a baseline, ideally according to / in-line with the university reputation. In the case of YC, their stamp of approval is what gets you the big money. They vet you. They do not make you a great hacker or leader, or give you those skills, you have to do almost all of that yourself. The best they can do is sometimes point you in the right direction and offer occasional help.
snikeris 9y ago
> The goal of a traditional university is to enable financial security for students through high-quality employment enabled by a skill set provided by the university. I believe universities traditionally aspired to loftier goals. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education

tomhallett 9y ago

Complete aside: am I the only one who imagined Naval flipping through a physics book to double check his assertion?

hoodoof 9y ago

I'm trying to work out what bothers me about this. I wonder if it's actually bad advice for all those thousands of entrepreneurs to be advising them to go for being mega gigantic. It's bad advice because those thousands of new entrepreneurs have a much greater chance of long term success by NOT following the "go super big" path. Indeed it appears that taking a "quite successful" company down the "go super big" path might lead to a variety of adverse outcomes (as I have gleaned from reading the stories of many failed venture backed companies). I suspect that what is niggling me is that perhaps YC and all the other venture capitalists maybe are really now acting and advising what is in their interests, which is really not in the interests of all these bright eyed new entrepreneurs. I suppose YC's history and origin make it feel like they are on the side of the entrepreneur, but is that still true?

dnautics 9y ago
I dunno. I got accepted into office hours, and yc didn't provide me with Amazon credits that they said were part of the program, and I didn't feel like the advice the person gave me was anything I didn't already know, besides "do what you're doing, but harder". Perhaps it's jumped the shark. I distinctly got the feeling that yc is now peddling a narrative of the hacker that is either untrue or no longer true, and is dispensing platitudes instead of actually getting people help with "the hard parts", as in connecting people with a real process that helps them get money (or conversely, critical responses to "stop wasting your time", if that's what's deserved)
- hoodoof 9y ago
  Perhaps they have refined their business down to the essential core which is to back large numbers of entrepreneurs in the hope they don't miss one that gets big. Like 500 startups. Hard to believe that backing large numbers of companies can be much more than betting on lots of horses.
  - ericb 9y ago
    They aren't backing any of these companies financially. It is hard to tell what is in it for them yet. The only way this makes sense is if it is a pre-filter for their application funnel to increase the quality of their selections. Contrary to this, they originally claimed that startup school would not give you any leg up in the application process.

Animats 9y ago

So, YC branches out into the MOOC business.

faramarz 9y ago

I just LOVE the photo used in the article. Is that the very first cohort? so many familiar faces.. Sam standing next to Paul.. even Aaron! great piece of yc history! What a great photo.

dzink 9y ago

Replying while somewhat under-slept here, but I've been taking the course and from everything seen so far Startup School is an excellent step in the right direction. The world today needs more people solving the problems they see in the world, instead of waiting to make enough money in a job that may be automated soon enough, or relying on benefits and insurance that can be ripped apart by a politician's pen. Building something from scratch is hard, and veering off-road is obviously easy (going to press to early, raising huge amounts, or not raising when you have a viral product, being scared away by a patent troll, hiring people for the sake of headcount, you name it). Compound the problems you have with additional regulatory burdens in other countries, and it can be downright impossible to make something new (vs starting another store, or restaurant). YC tries to make it as simple as possible to make the life of ENTREPRENEURS survivable(Not just VC-fundable businesses). If that wasn't the case, Startup School would include an investment that gets you into the feedback loop of having to produce returns for someone. Not asking for equity is a great feature, because it encourages experimentation and provides railings to keep as many of these experiments on the lane that gives them room to validate and less risk of predictable failures. School may even be the wrong term here, I would call it an Apprenticeship, because you are practicing and mastering your craft with mentors and peers in practice. This Apprenticeship for Entrepreneurs, crafted by YC, needs to spread with as much quality mentors and talent, as is available, and it needs to have proper funnels doubling down on people who strike gold by meeting a high-demand unmet need. Startups at advanced stages should more qualified support and more funding for equity. (Right now that step is YC Core) Do that across any country and market segment and you won't need to worry about Jobs automation. Humanity will have an efficient method to create as many entrepreneurs out of Job bleeds as it needs and to lead them into fixing problems that actually need fixing.

wuschel 9y ago
At its core, YC is a VC entity, and as such is competing for promising investment possibilities. IMHO YC's move to "accept 10K new companies" is a smart attempt in attempting to extend their reach to get the first pick at the commodity. We will see if it will work out. Either way, it is great to see YC to lead the way - they have done a lot for the community already. Disclaimer: Been once in that orange place in Palo Alto, and I am not a fan-boy. However, I do remember the dark ages around 2005, when there was nothing in Europe that was even worth to compare to this accelerator program. YC has greatly helped to change the landscape.

deleted 9y ago

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jaclaz 9y ago

As a side note, the data in the graph "Number of applicants and startups accepted into Y Combinator", evidences two things: 1) the number of applicants is increasing (which is what the graph was evidently made for) 2) the percentage of successful applicants is declining steadily actually halving from (roughly) around 3-4% until 2012 to (still roughly) 1,50-2,00 later This may be IMHO due to two factors (or a combination of both): 1) Too many startups lately apply without having a sound enough project or not original enough ideas 2) Y Combinator has become more picky when choosing who to accept Surely it is not as easy to be accepted (in the actual YC financing program) as it may sound, I thought that the success rate was higher than that.

jansho 9y ago

I am super excited about this. The thought of applying for YC was never on the table because I'm reluctant to move to the US. Startup School is great, but sometimes I feel that it's a little too condensed and, well, at the end of the day it's still passive consumption. Mentoring personalises things a little, so this news is welcoming. My question is, can this mentoring be as effective as having a 'real' mentor? I have no doubt that YC mentors are highly qualified individuals, but with 10k startups, I can't help but feel that these sessions would be as rapid-fire as one of the live office hour videos in Startup School. Nothing wrong with that, but for me, I look for relationships the most from mentors. This also makes me think that this may just be a Round One to perhaps a lengthier process to sift for startups with the best potential..

throwaway2016a 9y ago

I was excited until: > Now, Startup School will accept about 10,000 companies in early 2018, says Altman, and potentially more after that. 2018 seems like an eternity away. I hope my new company is profitable by then.

a1exyz 9y ago
whats your new company?
- throwaway2016a 9y ago
  Hi a1exyz, Sorry for the delayed reply. I wasn't checking in on this thread. Unfortunately since this is an anonymous account I can't say :)

jaoued 9y ago

My co-founders and I really enjoyed the 10 week startup school. We're full time founders and have been working for the last three years on building MyAppConverter. The course gave us time to really get some actionable advice on how to grow our business. The greatest thing is that our time committment for the OH call and weekly reporting on our business metrics made us really focus on what matters i.e. making and selling as part of daily work. Wether or not one applies to YC programme, I would highly recommend any founders to join the MOOC course.