4 ms·

This is a very poor metric. Companies running out of money and doing a small exit counts as "good" ("conversion") while a successful and growing company is inte

by paul 9y ago

This is a very poor metric. Companies running out of money and doing a small exit counts as "good" ("conversion") while a successful and growing company is interpreted as something negative (no exit).

seizethecheese 9y ago
Basically, you can't create an easy algorithm for something that's illegible.
marcell 9y ago
More relevant for employees who care about a liquidity event, even if it is at a lower price, vs. investors who are willing to sit for 10 years and write off a loss on 90% of their portfolio.
justonepost 9y ago
It's a terrific metric for founders who would like an exit. Statistically, a smaller exit works out much better for a founder than an IPO. Doesn't work for the VC so much. Maybe YC is anti founder?
- syedkarim 9y ago
  By small exit, I believe the parent is referring to an acquihire with a multi-year earn out for the founders. The point of such exits is to return investor capital.
  - justonepost 9y ago
    That's better than nothing. I've looked at these numbers before in other places. It's pretty obvious the average quality of either YC advice or founder is declining. I suspect SS (as a feeder) is an answer to this problem. Ok, point made below, possibility is that environment has got more startups in general and more competitive.
- nopinsight 9y ago
  Now successful companies can provide "minor" liquidity events for founders and key employees. Depending on the level of success, the "minor" amount could still be larger than some exits. If anyone could inform us more about these pre-exit liquidity events, such as conditions and amount for different roles, many people would be interested.
- SandersAK 9y ago
  Er no that's not often true. I guess it depends on what you mean by "better" and "small" exit but often an acquihire or low cash exit isn't better than if the company ipos. Consider liquidation preferences, ratchets etc.
  - justonepost 9y ago
    Google smaller startup exits versus IPOs. Anyways, it sure worked out well for viaweb and PG.
  - mhluongo 9y ago
    Clearly if you get to choose, choose to IPO :). I think the idea here is that many founders would be better taking $5-20M acquisitions along the way than shooting for the moon- shooting for the moon is better for investors, as they have a portfolio and are looking for black swans to pay for it. But founders usually only have one startup at a time.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  This seems to have changed over the last several years. YC used to be very pro-founder in this regard, from an outsider perspective. There's a pg essay that I can't find, but in essence states: Our rule is that it's up to the founder. If they want to aim small, that's fine. We ourselves aimed small with Viaweb. We didn't want to work on it the rest of our lives. It would be pretty lame to push founders into doing something that we didn't want to do. (EDIT: Found it: http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html#f1n http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html#f1n) Contrast that with the recent Paul B interview: https://blog.ycombinator.com/paul-buchheit-on-lessons-learned-from-investing-in-200-startups/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/paul-buchheit-on-lessons-learne... > Jasper: Sam Altman has said that the only criterion Y Combinator uses to evaluate applying companies is, “Can this be a $10 billion plus company?” like Airbnb and Dropbox. While this model works great for a fund, there is an Early Exits movement that suggests individual entrepreneurs have a much higher likelihood of success when they raise less capital and target exits in the $20 million range. What do you think this view? > Paul: The math does not support this strategy but if other investors want to try it that’s fine. Also, it is not just returns we are looking for but really impactful companies. When you sell too early you don’t realize the full potential. > For example, Facebook had an offer from Yahoo for a billion dollars, which everyone told Zuck to take. Fortunately, he said no. Had he said yes, it would have been another failed Yahoo acquisition and Facebook would not have nearly as much impact. The reason we have these big and influential companies is the founders believed in a long- term vision. I think all YC companies have always aimed big, but some, like Zenter, were fine with being acquired by Google for a smaller amount. And YC was fine with that outcome in the sense that there weren't any institutional forces set up to discourage founders from pursuing it. YC's signals now seem to say, "A small exit is equal to failure." And while that's true for YC as an investor, I'm not sure it was true for YC's institutional forces until the last few years. If you're in an environment where all of your peers consider you a failure if you sell for a few million, are you going to want to resist that peer pressure? Especially when they're your friends and mentors? I want to be very clear that all of this is an outsider's perspective. Hopefully someone in YC will issue a smackdown if it's mistaken. I was just giving some supporting data for why people are feeling this way.
  - troutaway123 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago
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- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Like blizkreeg said in another parent post, minor/small exit likely means acquihire. Which is technically better than nothing but sometimes the founders get nothing out of it except maybe a pay bump compared to peers if they remain at the acquiring company long enough. That's a potential negative along with the positive.
  - justonepost 9y ago
    No, this isn't true at all. Founders usually do ok, a million or so, employees not so well.
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      I'll look for references for my side. Do you have any for yours? When I see an acquihire and the price is clearly low. To the point where you know almost all that money has to go back to investors, how would the founders get a million a piece?
      - lorenzorhoades 9y ago
        I was always curious about this too. Sam Altman sold Loopt for less than all the funding he got, and yet he still says in multiple places that he was able to pocket a couple million.
        skinnymuch 9y ago
        The Loopt deal seemed sketchy from the get go. And was one of the first concrete tangible things that made me start to think YC isn't much different than the rest of Silicon Valley in not being a meritocracy, the opposite frequently. Loopt was effectively dead in the water when it got bought. It was a geo location app. But it got bought by Green Dot. A frequently despised (look at their reviews) finance/prepaid card company. Loopt and Green Dot happen to share connections like Sequoia. Once Loopt is acquired, nothing is done with it. Or its tech. I highly doubt they would want to spend $40M+ to acquihire however many people came over, and not even the founder. Unless Sam did? I hate turning this into a rant, but YC's treatment of Maciej [Cegłowski]/Pinboard and the way they took back their word..eh I could say harsher things, but I'll regret it. But their handling of the community supposedly choosing a few people for F3 last year was not cool. YC seemed just like the rest of SV. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270 is an example of the incident. That makes me think even more firmly that the Loopt deal was done by connected people exchanging hand shakes and favors.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- tptacek 9y ago
  Most small exits are in fact managed failures. Our feelings about VCs and founders don't really change this. A metric that counts failures as successes and successes as failures is a bad metric. That's all Paul was saying.
- awaaz 9y ago
  This is absolutely false. I am the founder of Zip Phone (S14), the only company from that batch to have had an exit so far according to yclist. This is my quick story - joined YC in the summer of 2014 with a product that I had been working on in my spare time. Spent my 3 months in Mountain View, but just did not have the traction to make an impact on demo day. Discussed it with my group partners (qasar, pb, dalton etc.) and they recommended that I defer my presentation to the next batch. Came back to India to continue working on the product, and meanwhile got an acquihire offer from a local company. The offer wasn't impressive by YC standards at all, and I reached out to the partners for more advice. This is what they basically said - Do whatever you want, we'll back you up. No ifs and buts. No conditions. Pretty much unconditional support. The acquisition finally did go ahead, and YC essentially just got their money back. But at no point did I feel pressured to do anything. Even when things weren't rosy, YC was always there for support, but never any undue pressure. Needless to say I suppose, but I'm a fan. I'm working on a new startup now, and hopefully will apply soon again to YC!
elmar 9y ago
Sam public view on small vs big exit. Sam Altman of Y Combinator in conversation with Peter Nixey @ Wayra UK https://youtu.be/Y0zbiyIEqX0?t=1759 https://youtu.be/Y0zbiyIEqX0?t=1759

by paul 9y ago

seizethecheese 9y ago

Basically, you can't create an easy algorithm for something that's illegible.

marcell 9y ago

More relevant for employees who care about a liquidity event, even if it is at a lower price, vs. investors who are willing to sit for 10 years and write off a loss on 90% of their portfolio.

justonepost 9y ago

It's a terrific metric for founders who would like an exit. Statistically, a smaller exit works out much better for a founder than an IPO. Doesn't work for the VC so much. Maybe YC is anti founder?

syedkarim 9y ago
By small exit, I believe the parent is referring to an acquihire with a multi-year earn out for the founders. The point of such exits is to return investor capital.
- justonepost 9y ago
  That's better than nothing. I've looked at these numbers before in other places. It's pretty obvious the average quality of either YC advice or founder is declining. I suspect SS (as a feeder) is an answer to this problem. Ok, point made below, possibility is that environment has got more startups in general and more competitive.
nopinsight 9y ago
Now successful companies can provide "minor" liquidity events for founders and key employees. Depending on the level of success, the "minor" amount could still be larger than some exits. If anyone could inform us more about these pre-exit liquidity events, such as conditions and amount for different roles, many people would be interested.
SandersAK 9y ago
Er no that's not often true. I guess it depends on what you mean by "better" and "small" exit but often an acquihire or low cash exit isn't better than if the company ipos. Consider liquidation preferences, ratchets etc.
- justonepost 9y ago
  Google smaller startup exits versus IPOs. Anyways, it sure worked out well for viaweb and PG.
- mhluongo 9y ago
  Clearly if you get to choose, choose to IPO :). I think the idea here is that many founders would be better taking $5-20M acquisitions along the way than shooting for the moon- shooting for the moon is better for investors, as they have a portfolio and are looking for black swans to pay for it. But founders usually only have one startup at a time.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
This seems to have changed over the last several years. YC used to be very pro-founder in this regard, from an outsider perspective. There's a pg essay that I can't find, but in essence states: Our rule is that it's up to the founder. If they want to aim small, that's fine. We ourselves aimed small with Viaweb. We didn't want to work on it the rest of our lives. It would be pretty lame to push founders into doing something that we didn't want to do. (EDIT: Found it: http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html#f1n http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html#f1n) Contrast that with the recent Paul B interview: https://blog.ycombinator.com/paul-buchheit-on-lessons-learned-from-investing-in-200-startups/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/paul-buchheit-on-lessons-learne... > Jasper: Sam Altman has said that the only criterion Y Combinator uses to evaluate applying companies is, “Can this be a $10 billion plus company?” like Airbnb and Dropbox. While this model works great for a fund, there is an Early Exits movement that suggests individual entrepreneurs have a much higher likelihood of success when they raise less capital and target exits in the $20 million range. What do you think this view? > Paul: The math does not support this strategy but if other investors want to try it that’s fine. Also, it is not just returns we are looking for but really impactful companies. When you sell too early you don’t realize the full potential. > For example, Facebook had an offer from Yahoo for a billion dollars, which everyone told Zuck to take. Fortunately, he said no. Had he said yes, it would have been another failed Yahoo acquisition and Facebook would not have nearly as much impact. The reason we have these big and influential companies is the founders believed in a long- term vision. I think all YC companies have always aimed big, but some, like Zenter, were fine with being acquired by Google for a smaller amount. And YC was fine with that outcome in the sense that there weren't any institutional forces set up to discourage founders from pursuing it. YC's signals now seem to say, "A small exit is equal to failure." And while that's true for YC as an investor, I'm not sure it was true for YC's institutional forces until the last few years. If you're in an environment where all of your peers consider you a failure if you sell for a few million, are you going to want to resist that peer pressure? Especially when they're your friends and mentors? I want to be very clear that all of this is an outsider's perspective. Hopefully someone in YC will issue a smackdown if it's mistaken. I was just giving some supporting data for why people are feeling this way.
- troutaway123 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
skinnymuch 9y ago
Like blizkreeg said in another parent post, minor/small exit likely means acquihire. Which is technically better than nothing but sometimes the founders get nothing out of it except maybe a pay bump compared to peers if they remain at the acquiring company long enough. That's a potential negative along with the positive.
- justonepost 9y ago
  No, this isn't true at all. Founders usually do ok, a million or so, employees not so well.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    I'll look for references for my side. Do you have any for yours? When I see an acquihire and the price is clearly low. To the point where you know almost all that money has to go back to investors, how would the founders get a million a piece?
    - lorenzorhoades 9y ago
      I was always curious about this too. Sam Altman sold Loopt for less than all the funding he got, and yet he still says in multiple places that he was able to pocket a couple million.
      - skinnymuch 9y ago
        The Loopt deal seemed sketchy from the get go. And was one of the first concrete tangible things that made me start to think YC isn't much different than the rest of Silicon Valley in not being a meritocracy, the opposite frequently. Loopt was effectively dead in the water when it got bought. It was a geo location app. But it got bought by Green Dot. A frequently despised (look at their reviews) finance/prepaid card company. Loopt and Green Dot happen to share connections like Sequoia. Once Loopt is acquired, nothing is done with it. Or its tech. I highly doubt they would want to spend $40M+ to acquihire however many people came over, and not even the founder. Unless Sam did? I hate turning this into a rant, but YC's treatment of Maciej [Cegłowski]/Pinboard and the way they took back their word..eh I could say harsher things, but I'll regret it. But their handling of the community supposedly choosing a few people for F3 last year was not cool. YC seemed just like the rest of SV. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270 is an example of the incident. That makes me think even more firmly that the Loopt deal was done by connected people exchanging hand shakes and favors.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 9y ago
Most small exits are in fact managed failures. Our feelings about VCs and founders don't really change this. A metric that counts failures as successes and successes as failures is a bad metric. That's all Paul was saying.
awaaz 9y ago
This is absolutely false. I am the founder of Zip Phone (S14), the only company from that batch to have had an exit so far according to yclist. This is my quick story - joined YC in the summer of 2014 with a product that I had been working on in my spare time. Spent my 3 months in Mountain View, but just did not have the traction to make an impact on demo day. Discussed it with my group partners (qasar, pb, dalton etc.) and they recommended that I defer my presentation to the next batch. Came back to India to continue working on the product, and meanwhile got an acquihire offer from a local company. The offer wasn't impressive by YC standards at all, and I reached out to the partners for more advice. This is what they basically said - Do whatever you want, we'll back you up. No ifs and buts. No conditions. Pretty much unconditional support. The acquisition finally did go ahead, and YC essentially just got their money back. But at no point did I feel pressured to do anything. Even when things weren't rosy, YC was always there for support, but never any undue pressure. Needless to say I suppose, but I'm a fan. I'm working on a new startup now, and hopefully will apply soon again to YC!

elmar 9y ago

Sam public view on small vs big exit. Sam Altman of Y Combinator in conversation with Peter Nixey @ Wayra UK https://youtu.be/Y0zbiyIEqX0?t=1759 https://youtu.be/Y0zbiyIEqX0?t=1759