5 ms·
Ask PG: Can Y Combinator do 1000 startups a year?
So, the State of the Union speech just passed and I'm wondering if innovation and entrepreneurship is the way for the U.S. to grow it's way out of this slow economy. So, Paul here's a question:
If the U.S. government was willing to give an innovation/entrepreneurship grant to Y Combinator (of course this is all hypothetical) of a significant amount, then how many startups could Y Combinator theoretically fund per year? And could it make a significant impact on the U.S. economy?
- pg 16y agoWe're not limited by money. The limit is the number of good applicants. We've always funded between 2.5 and 3.5% of groups that apply-- not as a conscious plan, but it has always worked out that way. So we've grown as the applicant pool has. I don't know how we'd have to change to fund 1000 startups a year. We don't think that far ahead. It would be premature design. But we could grow another 2 or 3x without dramatic changes.
- seasoup 16y agoWhat are the primary reasons the other 96.5 - 97.5% of applicants are rejected?
- pg 16y agoMost rejections happen in the application phase, and in most cases when we don't invite people to interviews it's because there's nothing that stands out about their application. I.e. it's not so much that there's something wrong as that there's not enough that's right.
- seasoup 16y agoThanks for answering, follow up question: What makes an application stand out, or conversely, what does an average application look like?
- pg 16y agoWhat makes an application stand out is founders who have a history of achieving things, and who seem to have thought deeply about the idea they're proposing. (We don't care that much about the nature of the achievements. They could be anything from having a high GPA at a difficult school to having built a cool piece of open source software.) The median application is from a couple guys who are programmers, but not particularly enthusiastic ones (e.g. haven't built anything interesting outside of school or work) and who have what we call a "made up" idea, meaning one that sounds plausible but which no specific person they know truly needs.
- il 16y agoI think past a certain point, each additional startup funded would decrease the value of YC to founders as more and more startups have to compete for a finite amount of pg's time and investor dollars. I suppose the solution is bringing on more partners and building the YC brand to attract more angels. But I can't imagine that scaling to 1000 startups.
- pg 16y agoThe question is, where is that point? We're already past where I would have put it if I had to guess when we started, and the startups are doing better than ever.
- veb 16y agoI wish I could apply for Y Combinator, but I'm basically on the other side of the planet.
- brudgers 16y agoApply anyway. Worrying about what to do if you're accepted might be considered "premature design."
- dave1619 16y agoThat's interesting that there's always 2.5 to 3.5% of applicants that rise to the top and are worth Y Combinator's time and funding. I'm guessing if the applicant pool grows significantly, then that's one way to scale. But that might mean a different approach then having teams come to Silicon Valley, but that's probably one of the great benefits of Y Combinator (to be close to the funders, lawyers, resources, connections, etc). Maybe if that could be done virtually with a cool online Y Combinator social network.
- dave1619 16y agoI just wrote a letter to the President asking him to meet PG. Seriously. You can do so also at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/