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I've also been rejected by YC several times! I think not doing YC is a really smart choice for some companies. That said, I think the value of yc is twofold. (

by mrkurt 6y ago

I've also been rejected by YC several times! I think not doing YC is a really smart choice for some companies. That said, I think the value of yc is twofold. (1) it's the best possible way to get to a first round of funding and (2) the partners give exceptionally good advice, even for experienced founders. (1) is useful even if you don't think you'll raise round after round after round of funding. Some of my favorite YC companies took no extra funding. They did yc, raised a normal sized seed round, and are off building fun things and living delightful lives. Seed rounds buy a lot of time and flexibility. In my case, a seed round has let me make big decisions to move our company closer to what I want, even when it meant turning down revenue or firing a bunch of customers. There's nothing more freeing than the ability to escape boat anchor customers. Even still, yc will help most any company grow faster. That's pretty much what it's designed for. Not all companies should grow faster.

dumbfoundded 6y ago
I got rejected from YC b/c they hated my product despite it doing >$100K/month at the time. It honestly felt like a big waste of time flying out and then getting told they didn't like my flavor of cannabis company. The value I see in YC is the network, not the money nor the advice. The money is poorly priced for the equity and the advice is all online. Knowing people who can help you do things you need to do is basically all business is. Knowing higher quality people helps you get done things faster without it feeling like as much of a grind. Back to the question of scaling YC. IMO, scaling YC isn't really about the quality of companies but the quality of people. I'm honestly not sure. Maybe, but it's a risk. Staying the same size and focusing on refinement is less of a risk. Why YC as an organization needs to take a risk as opposed to staying the same is probably more a reflection of the ambitions of the partners and investors more than anything.

by mrkurt 6y ago

dumbfoundded 6y ago

I got rejected from YC b/c they hated my product despite it doing >$100K/month at the time. It honestly felt like a big waste of time flying out and then getting told they didn't like my flavor of cannabis company. The value I see in YC is the network, not the money nor the advice. The money is poorly priced for the equity and the advice is all online. Knowing people who can help you do things you need to do is basically all business is. Knowing higher quality people helps you get done things faster without it feeling like as much of a grind. Back to the question of scaling YC. IMO, scaling YC isn't really about the quality of companies but the quality of people. I'm honestly not sure. Maybe, but it's a risk. Staying the same size and focusing on refinement is less of a risk. Why YC as an organization needs to take a risk as opposed to staying the same is probably more a reflection of the ambitions of the partners and investors more than anything.