4 ms·

I think that's exciting because raising an A is really stressful and time consuming, and often as a startup you need to pivot and do short-term non-optimal thin

by d0m 8y ago

I think that's exciting because raising an A is really stressful and time consuming, and often as a startup you need to pivot and do short-term non-optimal things to be able to raise it. If that same "non-bullshit" that YC is using for seed-stage is used for the A, I'm sure it'll improve startups in the long-term.

akharris 8y ago
Our hope is that we can limit as much of the BS as possible while helping companies and investors focus on the parts that matter. Doing that should increase the rate at which YC cos get quality As done.
k__ 8y ago
"as a startup you need to pivot and do short-term non-optimal things to be able to raise it" Could you elaborate?
- lbotos 8y ago
  I assume GP is talking about dedicating time effort and energy to round up the money vs. spending that time effort and energy building the product. At $small_startup_where_i_was_employee_3, when we were raising, it was the CEO's full time focus, and cost a fair bit of money to generate the meetings, be in the right cities, etc, etc. He was also responsible for a lot of our marketing efforts (4 person co) so that took a toll, and shuffled onto others shoulders where it wasn't our strength.
  - d0m 8y ago
    Yes, but also even the product/company vision sometimes need to slightly change in the short-term to get those critical metric numbers to line-up with VCs' expectation. I.e. getting a few important contracts to prove product-market fit even if it's very costly for a small startup whereas it would have been wiser to wait a bit, focus on the product and scale the team before tackling these contracts.
    - k__ 8y ago
      Ah okay. Yes I saw such things too. Company wanted to rise $4M and the investors wanted a "Cloud Product" with >10k customers etc. Which was ridiculous, because we needed the money for the stuff we already did and it was an on-premis solution for like 10 big corporations.

by d0m 8y ago

akharris 8y ago

Our hope is that we can limit as much of the BS as possible while helping companies and investors focus on the parts that matter. Doing that should increase the rate at which YC cos get quality As done.

k__ 8y ago

"as a startup you need to pivot and do short-term non-optimal things to be able to raise it" Could you elaborate?

lbotos 8y ago
I assume GP is talking about dedicating time effort and energy to round up the money vs. spending that time effort and energy building the product. At $small_startup_where_i_was_employee_3, when we were raising, it was the CEO's full time focus, and cost a fair bit of money to generate the meetings, be in the right cities, etc, etc. He was also responsible for a lot of our marketing efforts (4 person co) so that took a toll, and shuffled onto others shoulders where it wasn't our strength.
- d0m 8y ago
  Yes, but also even the product/company vision sometimes need to slightly change in the short-term to get those critical metric numbers to line-up with VCs' expectation. I.e. getting a few important contracts to prove product-market fit even if it's very costly for a small startup whereas it would have been wiser to wait a bit, focus on the product and scale the team before tackling these contracts.
  - k__ 8y ago
    Ah okay. Yes I saw such things too. Company wanted to rise $4M and the investors wanted a "Cloud Product" with >10k customers etc. Which was ridiculous, because we needed the money for the stuff we already did and it was an on-premis solution for like 10 big corporations.