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> 1. Product advice: Paul Graham is one of the most astute product advisers i know. I am sure this is true, but how many product advisers do you know? When I

by freax 19y ago

> 1. Product advice: Paul Graham is one of the most astute product advisers i know. I am sure this is true, but how many product advisers do you know? When I look at that last batch of acceptees... I am very surprised at some who made the cut. I'm not sold on YC's judgement. I think they may hit a few home runs just due to taking a lot of swings rather than due to an ability to identify the good pitches, and get lucky that a couple hundred fair pitches are proffered every time. Which leads into the next point... > Pg and co get so many applications and have so little time to read them that you should expect that the YC partners don’t have any idea what you do ...Which means you're giving ownership to people who don't care enough about what you do in particular to spend time on it; this is a big mismatch if you've spent a lot of time on your project, so their approach is more aligned with people who come in with ideas sans code. They have dozens of other start-ups to deal with, not to mention all the time some of them spend on this site. So the main value in YC seems to be demo day -- getting a stage to present to a large number of moneyed interests at once, plus the news coverage, so you either get the real investment dollars you need or get acquired. All the information you get is pretty much replaceable -- you can find it other places -- but YC takes the write-protect tab off the floppy so instead of just you being stuck in read-only mode you can write out information that is seen by people you want to see it. At least that's what it appears their primary value is to me.

garbowza 19y ago
I'm amazed at the people who continually doubt the value of YC. Why not just ask those founders who have been part of YC - nearly all of them will tell you being in YC was invaluable. Isn't that all the proof that is needed?
- ericb 19y ago
  Asking participants is not a great way to judge an activity's value, due to our natural biases. The study mentioned below comes to mind. That said, I suspect the value is high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Empirical_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Empirical_...
- daniel-cussen 19y ago
  Well, there's this bias people have to say whatever choice they made was the best one, so the founder's opinions is not necessarily enough.
sharpshoot 19y ago
To point 1: YC backs teams not ideas. Smart early stage investors back teams. To point 2: AT Interview stage, from one application form how familiar do you expect someone to be once you've read 500 forms. This is a pretty selfish viewpoint. Once you get into YC and get to know everyone YC (in particular Jessica) works extremely hard for you and care about what you do. Some companies like rescuetime and heroku were well past the idea stage when they did YC. So your comments are a bit of an overgeneralisation.
- freax 19y ago
  > YC backs teams not ideas. Every team works on an idea. A lot of the last batch are underwhelming: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/y-combinator-demo-day-roundup-for-spring-2008/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/y-combinator-demo-day-r... > AT Interview stage, from one application form how familiar do you expect someone to be once you've read 500 forms If they're flying you in for an interview you're no longer in the pool of 500 forms. If they are asking questions that make it clear they aren't paying attention to the information you've already given them it just goes to show that your grandiose plans are fairly inconsequential to them and they're only tossing their spare change at you. > Some companies like rescuetime and heroku were well past the idea stage Companies that have a lot done already are the ones that are going to run into the mismatch I talked about. Here's this great thing you made; now you're giving ownership to people who don't feel about it the same way. There's not a lot of investment of money, time, or emotion on the part of YC. So it seems to me that the exchange is equity for exposure -- basically you've started off your marketing budget at the 6% that YC takes.
  - comatose_kid 19y ago
    I don't think it's fair to assume that YC considers the plans of the teams it accepts to be inconsequential. And to the statement 'now you're giving ownership to people who don't feel about it the same way.' - differing viewpoints about your idea is not a bad thing. Finally, to reduce YC's value-add to 'marketing budget' is incorrect. Do you think that VC's attend demo day because of YC's marketing?
  - pg 19y ago
tptacek 19y ago
They "care" when they accept you. Before that, not so much. These are problems people have with all VC, not just YC. I agree. If you're serious, bootstrap.
- gscott 19y ago
  Anyone can bootstrap but once you are done do you have an audience with people who if they invest in your product? If not then you have to make a web app that is going to generate an income for you and your co-founders.
  - tptacek 19y ago
    Anyone can bootstrap. Funny. Listen to what Graham himself says: if you have customers, nobody cares what your pedigree is. Most successful companies don't come through YC. Most funding sources --- top tier VC included --- don't come with real PR benefits. YC does. But it's not proven that you need it.
    - gscott 19y ago
      > Anyone can bootstrap. Funny. I am not sure how that is funny. After web applications started dropping like flys about 2000 I decided that I could build my own that would be just as good but without millions in venture capital.
      - tptacek 19y ago
        What are you talking about, applications or companies? If by "bootstrap" you mean "build an app in your spare time while holding down a full-time job in IT at Wells Fargo", you win the argument. If by "bootstrap" you mean "build a company without funding", implying making payroll, I think you're nuts. It's at the very least incredibly scary to bootstrap a company.
        deleted 19y ago
        [deleted]
RyanGWU82 19y ago
> I am sure this is true, but how many product advisers do you know? I know a ton. Many aren't that good, but everyone thinks they must be a great product advisor. Isn't "idea guy" just news.yc slang for the same thing?
- freax 19y ago
  > but everyone thinks they must be a great product advisor Saying PG is better than the average random person with an opinion isn't giving a lot of credit.
  - RyanGWU82 19y ago
    Heh, good point. :)
pg 19y ago
you're giving ownership to people who don't care enough about what you do in particular to spend time on it At the interview stage all we've seen is an application form with 120-word answers, and maybe a demo. And we're interviewing 50-60 groups over 3 days. It's not that surprising that we don't know in great detail what each plans to do. But once we accept a group, we spend a lot of time talking about the product with them-- literally down to the shapes of buttons. And this is true with groups that have already launched just as much as those that haven't. In any startup, most development happens after launch. Every (good) startup is sans ideas 6 months in, compared to what they'll eventually do.
- freax 18y ago
  > all we've seen is an application form with 120-word answers, and maybe a demo. The reject group also includes applicants that have stuff to show that you didn't even look at.

by freax 19y ago

garbowza 19y ago

I'm amazed at the people who continually doubt the value of YC. Why not just ask those founders who have been part of YC - nearly all of them will tell you being in YC was invaluable. Isn't that all the proof that is needed?

ericb 19y ago
Asking participants is not a great way to judge an activity's value, due to our natural biases. The study mentioned below comes to mind. That said, I suspect the value is high. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Empirical_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance#Empirical_...
daniel-cussen 19y ago
Well, there's this bias people have to say whatever choice they made was the best one, so the founder's opinions is not necessarily enough.

sharpshoot 19y ago

To point 1: YC backs teams not ideas. Smart early stage investors back teams. To point 2: AT Interview stage, from one application form how familiar do you expect someone to be once you've read 500 forms. This is a pretty selfish viewpoint. Once you get into YC and get to know everyone YC (in particular Jessica) works extremely hard for you and care about what you do. Some companies like rescuetime and heroku were well past the idea stage when they did YC. So your comments are a bit of an overgeneralisation.

freax 19y ago
> YC backs teams not ideas. Every team works on an idea. A lot of the last batch are underwhelming: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/y-combinator-demo-day-roundup-for-spring-2008/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/y-combinator-demo-day-r... > AT Interview stage, from one application form how familiar do you expect someone to be once you've read 500 forms If they're flying you in for an interview you're no longer in the pool of 500 forms. If they are asking questions that make it clear they aren't paying attention to the information you've already given them it just goes to show that your grandiose plans are fairly inconsequential to them and they're only tossing their spare change at you. > Some companies like rescuetime and heroku were well past the idea stage Companies that have a lot done already are the ones that are going to run into the mismatch I talked about. Here's this great thing you made; now you're giving ownership to people who don't feel about it the same way. There's not a lot of investment of money, time, or emotion on the part of YC. So it seems to me that the exchange is equity for exposure -- basically you've started off your marketing budget at the 6% that YC takes.
- comatose_kid 19y ago
  I don't think it's fair to assume that YC considers the plans of the teams it accepts to be inconsequential. And to the statement 'now you're giving ownership to people who don't feel about it the same way.' - differing viewpoints about your idea is not a bad thing. Finally, to reduce YC's value-add to 'marketing budget' is incorrect. Do you think that VC's attend demo day because of YC's marketing?
- pg 19y ago

tptacek 19y ago

They "care" when they accept you. Before that, not so much. These are problems people have with all VC, not just YC. I agree. If you're serious, bootstrap.

gscott 19y ago
Anyone can bootstrap but once you are done do you have an audience with people who if they invest in your product? If not then you have to make a web app that is going to generate an income for you and your co-founders.
- tptacek 19y ago
  Anyone can bootstrap. Funny. Listen to what Graham himself says: if you have customers, nobody cares what your pedigree is. Most successful companies don't come through YC. Most funding sources --- top tier VC included --- don't come with real PR benefits. YC does. But it's not proven that you need it.
  - gscott 19y ago
    > Anyone can bootstrap. Funny. I am not sure how that is funny. After web applications started dropping like flys about 2000 I decided that I could build my own that would be just as good but without millions in venture capital.
    - tptacek 19y ago
      What are you talking about, applications or companies? If by "bootstrap" you mean "build an app in your spare time while holding down a full-time job in IT at Wells Fargo", you win the argument. If by "bootstrap" you mean "build a company without funding", implying making payroll, I think you're nuts. It's at the very least incredibly scary to bootstrap a company.
      - deleted 19y ago
        [deleted]

RyanGWU82 19y ago

> I am sure this is true, but how many product advisers do you know? I know a ton. Many aren't that good, but everyone thinks they must be a great product advisor. Isn't "idea guy" just news.yc slang for the same thing?

freax 19y ago
> but everyone thinks they must be a great product advisor Saying PG is better than the average random person with an opinion isn't giving a lot of credit.
- RyanGWU82 19y ago
  Heh, good point. :)

pg 19y ago

you're giving ownership to people who don't care enough about what you do in particular to spend time on it At the interview stage all we've seen is an application form with 120-word answers, and maybe a demo. And we're interviewing 50-60 groups over 3 days. It's not that surprising that we don't know in great detail what each plans to do. But once we accept a group, we spend a lot of time talking about the product with them-- literally down to the shapes of buttons. And this is true with groups that have already launched just as much as those that haven't. In any startup, most development happens after launch. Every (good) startup is sans ideas 6 months in, compared to what they'll eventually do.

freax 18y ago
> all we've seen is an application form with 120-word answers, and maybe a demo. The reject group also includes applicants that have stuff to show that you didn't even look at.