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Introducing a16z START
- eganp 5y ago$1M in seed funding, but at what valuation? I hope the terms are near market.
- gojomo 5y agoIf they were "below market", wouldn't founders... go get the market rate from someone else?
- threeseed 5y agoAnd who would be that someone else ? There is really only YC, 500 Startups etc. which are highly competitive and accept you only at certain times of the year. Plus fundraising is extremely time consuming and not every startups wants to throw away 3-6 months.
- gojomo 5y agoBut then that's "the market", isn't it? I also think the point of these sorts of seed programs is to offer early money that doesn't take 3-6 months of distraction-from-building to fundraise.
- threeseed 5y agoThe problem is that they only accept startups at specific times of the year. So often you've just missed that window and have to wait 3-6 months.
- gojomo 5y agoWhat you’re saying is explicitly false about the a16z START program, which says its applications are always open on a rolling basis. Also, as much help as a program like YC can be, if you ‘wait’ between sessions, rather than keep making as much progress as you can, you may not be what they’re looking for. (Longtime YC observers will also know that for good applicants, they sometimes act outside the normal deadlines/cycles.) Are you using your creativity, & skill in arguing, to convince yourself things are harder than they are?
- threeseed 5y agoNot sure what you're even talking about. No one is saying do nothing between applications. Just pointing out that it takes time to apply, opportunities coming around a few times a year and for many startups lack of funding can hurt/kill them.
- gojomo 5y agoThe time it takes to apply for these seed programs is days not months. Many (including a16z START & 500startups) don't limit applications to "a few times a year" nor "accept you only at certain times of the year". And the 'etc' of your claim "[t]here is really only YC, 500 Startups etc" hides a ton of options, including this a16z START program, programs from other VCs, TechStars, & a world of other seed-level options from other individual, syndicate (AngelList), or regionally-motivated investors. And, plenty have always-open rolling, or diverse staggered, investment windows. So you never have to "throw away 3-6 months" or "wait 3-6 months" if you're making demonstrable progress on a good concept. (Sure, once you've got a big burn rate, fundraising is likely to be a year-round time-suck with many-month closing cycles. But that's not the "even if you don’t yet have a fully formed idea and haven’t yet quit your day job" point this early-seed "market" targets.)
- dustingetz 5y agothere are thousands of pre-seed investors at this point The advice I got, which helped me: Series A intros come from Seed investors. Seed intros come from domain specialist angels. So start with angels who know your niche. If you don't know how to do that, join a pre-seed coaching program like https://www.lindsayt.com/ https://www.lindsayt.com/ this costs $1000 for 6 months of weekly calls and comes with tons of training that you don't realize you need, and will put you into contact with dozens of other founders. Another one - https://www.primary.vc/firstedition/posts/cohort-four-primary-nyc-founders-fellowship-open-source https://www.primary.vc/firstedition/posts/cohort-four-primar... this is free, there is an application but you can still have a job
- andrewstuart 5y ago>> I hope the terms are near market. What is "market" - anyone able to put tangible numbers to this?
- dustingetz 5y agopre-seed market is $0 until founder is powerful enough to drive it higher. Markets measure power
- arrakis2021 5y agoProbably $1M on a capped SAFE. They’re unlikely to price rounds that early
- nrmitchi 5y agoI've seen this shared all over today, but no where have I seen any terms/valuation shared. Does anyone have more information?
- EGreg 5y agoHow is this different than their other funds meant for startups?
- carmen_sandiego 5y agoIt's AH so... more hype when they want to advertise it?
- staunch 5y agoAccepting applications from absolutely anyone "over the transom" is the biggest innovation behind YC's success. It's not a small thing, and something major VCs have historically refused to take seriously.
- Optimal_Persona 5y agoI9g a16z S3T ...f2y
- staunch 5y agoOut of dozens of fairly lame attempts by others, this may very well end up becoming the most serious competitor to YC so far. It'll all come down to who they get to run it, how well they run it, and if they can consistently get the attention of founders. A16Z certainly has the brand and money to make a real go of it. I wonder if they know what makes YC special and if they can offer the first head-to-head alternative. Edit: After another quick look, seems like they may just be targeting executives at existing successful companies, in which case they're not likely to create a legit alternative to YC at all. Oh well.
- gordon_freeman 5y agotheir application seems pretty simple to fill out (in some cases requiring less than 100 words of description) unlike YC app so I assume they want to funnel interest from as many founders as possible before deciding which apps to pick to fund.
- staunch 5y agoWhich could be their first mistake. YC gets a lot of signal by requiring people to clearly answer so many questions. YC's questions are really good and it wouldn't have been a bad idea to wholesale copy them like some other's have. Not least of all because then founders could apply quickly using copy-paste. I suspect someone could out-compete YC just by obtaining the YC application data and funding on that basis alone, eschewing the interview process entirely as it very possibly introduces more noise than signal. It'd take some guts though, kinda like starting YC in the first place took guts.
- sokoloff 5y agoI don’t think the length or complexity of the YC app is a barrier for anyone with a shot to build a successful startup, with the possible exception of an English language barrier.
- matus_congrady 5y ago> After another quick look, seems like they may just be targeting executives at existing successful companies May I ask how you came to this conclusion?
- t_mann 5y agoKinda funny to see this promoted on a site hosted by Y Combinator.
- seizethecheese 5y agoWell, it’s certainly of interest for those here.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Xeoncross 5y ago> our team has received over 1,000 applications and welcomed 11 START entrepreneurs into the a16z family 1% chance eh? Welp, I'll never be exclusive enough to make it through
- devoutsalsa 5y agoKeep in mind that most applications are not impressive & are dismissed without much thought. Only a few are even interesting enough for a second meeting. If you're interesting & you know it, your odds are better than you think.
- throwaway_1928 5y ago"If you were the president of Harvard or Stanford and you wanted to get a lynch mob of students, alumni, and faculty to come after you, what you should say is something like this: We live in this much larger, more global world. We offer this great education to everybody. So we're going to double or triple our enrollment over the next 15 to 20 years. And people would all be furious, because the value of the degree comes from massive exclusion. And what you're really running is something like a Studio 54 night club that's got an incredibly long line outside and a very small number of people let inside. It's branded as positive sum, everybody can learn, but the reality is that it is deeply zero sum." [1] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/peter-thiel-elite-education-night-club/397544/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/peter-t...
- krsrhe 5y ago
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
- nostrebored 5y agoWhile the school I went to had larger admissions when controlled by degree, quality was maintained by failing out a huge chunk of the student body. Getting a rejection letter is much more humane. Beyond that, exclusive clubs often come with good perks: in this case, the assumption that the outcome of conversation and networking will be relatively high.
- current_thing 5y agoOne of the four investment themes: "American Dynamism: Investing in founders and companies that support the national interest". Haha. No thanks. Are there any seed funds that invest in "supporting human progress"?
- seizethecheese 5y agoA patriotic American might say that supporting the national interest actually does support human progress. There’s plenty of evidence against that, but some evidence for it might be the immense number of people pulled from poverty under to the American rules-based international order.
- current_thing 5y agoA pacifist European might balk at the a16z brand and support companies funded by a less nationalistic VC, exit their liquidity pools in crypto etc. Sequoias seed program is SV + London. Very nice.
- alex_sf 5y agoPacifist Europeans might do well to realize the long peace was and is enforced by US nuclear weapons. At a certain point you become a protectorate; and some gratitude is reasonable. A weak America is a dead Europe.
- flyinglizard 5y agoNot just nuclear weapons. NATO, huge military installations all across Europe and carrier groups patrolling all around. That coming after WWII lend-lease, direct military intervention and the Marshall plan. The pacifist European needs to learn about geopolitics.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- c0mptonFP 5y ago
- andrewstuart 5y agoAnyone got a guess what the terms might be - how much quity they want, if the terms are likely to be onerous?
- binarynate 5y agoIt's interesting to see a16z launch an early-stage accelerator only a couple of weeks after Sequoia announced a similar program: https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/20/sequoia-arc-outliers https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/20/sequoia-arc-outliers
- ignoramous 5y agoSequoia has been running a similar funding program in ASEAN and South Asia for 4 years now, https://www.surgeahead.com/introducing-surge/ https://www.surgeahead.com/introducing-surge/
- albertshin 5y agofrom what I read on some of the administrators on Twitter the program has been (semi privately) running since last fall and there are already 10+ participants now the decision to take it public may have been motivated by sequoia's launch
- akshayshah 5y agoSame is true of Sequoia's program - it's been running in the US for years already, but was only recently made public. Seems to me that this is yet another way that YC has pressured traditional VCs into being more founder-friendly.
- binarynate 5y agoBased on the info available, here are some of the differences between the new a16z START program and YC: - No standard deal (looks like a16z will negotiate equity separately with each startup) - Potentially double the check size (up to $1M compared to the standard YC $500k deal) - Much smaller batch sizes (currently 11 in START, compared to 319 in YC W21) - The obvious: different network connections, mentors, and track records
- bspear 5y agoA16Z's superpower is branding and getting their name out there. Their fund returns are well below Sequoia & co
- gojomo 5y agoNot sure this "well below" knock is true in recent years – what's the best source of data? But even if it was: is a VC's multi-decade record more valuable to a founder than other in-the-now considerations? And, while ideally VCs & founders in the same firm rise with the same tide, cooperatively, synergistically, there can be a margin at which a VC's lower returns could mean higher returns for other owners, like the founders & team.
- vmception 5y agoare fund returns tracked properly... anywhere? My experience with being a limited partner (LP) in ... places... is that each LP experiences wildly different returns based on what deals they are part of. Its not like you invest in these kinds of funds at a certain watermark and hope your investment is at the time where things go up. you have no exposure to prior investments no matter how awesome or poor they were. For funds that collect all the capital up front and close off, maybe thats fine. For hedge funds (with a neat sidepocket) or other more open-ended funds it seems like you need multiple graphs based on when invested.
- smabie 5y agoExactly this: speaking from experience fund returns are highly bespoke and depend on the individual LP. People should be very weary of publicly stated returns, especially for VC funds.
- current_thing 5y agoThe number of "a16z partner" announcements on twitter lately make me think a16z is becoming something of a joke.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nbardy 5y agogrowing a company is a joke?
- current_thing 5y agohave you seen the profiles of these new "partners"?
- kolencherry 5y agoPartner at other VC firms = General Partner at a16z. Pretty much everyone, including associates and principals, have the title of "Partner" at a16z.
- pedalpete 5y agoIf anyone from a16z is monitoring this thread, there is a 404 from the apply page, the link to "find out more here". I'm keen to find out more before I fill out the application.
- applgo443 5y agoWhat does this mean? "If founding a technology company is a dream of yours—even if you don’t yet have a fully formed idea and haven’t yet quit your day job—we want to hear from you!"
- pedalpete 5y agoIt means in theory they are letting people apply without an idea/company. YC tried this years ago, I believe they found it wasn't effective. It's basically the "fund the team not the idea".
- umeshunni 5y ago> YC tried this years ago, I believe they found it wasn't effective Do you have any details of this?
- whb07 5y agoThey funded people who could build but had no ideas themselves. The entire batch was a dud. Not people who had basic ideas and wanted funding.
- marapu 5y agowww.joinef.com [entrepreneur first] has been wildly successful with this model since 2012. They pool together founders pre-idea a couple times a year and have them start companies together in batches. If you get investment I believe the deal is 80,000 GBP for 10% - aggressive deal but worth it considering their network.
- pedalpete 5y agohttps://antler.co https://antler.co has a similar model
- nharada 5y agoCan anyone who has applied or completed YC in the last couple of years speak to the class sizes? The idea of a much smaller cohort is attractive, but not sure if YC has felt large? Ideally would also like to hear from people who didn't get in or decided not to go through the program, since I recognize that asking for YC founder's opinions on a forum paid for by YC is not a neutral location :)
- localcrisis 5y agoI was in YC >5 years ago when batches were in person and in the large-two-digit range. The experience of YC is completely different. The class sizes are in the hundreds and many times I've spoken to founders who didn't know another company in their batch existed. It's a highly optimized assembly line for getting a company to give a 1 minute pitch. They said they'd never do remote, for good reason, then (understandably) flipped when the pandemic happened. But the downsides of remote didn't disappear when covid appeared... This doesn't mean that founders don't love YC or that it's not worth it. It doesn't mean that parts of YC haven't gotten better over time. Again, highly optimized. It doesn't mean YC isn't a huge boon to your company's reputation. But if you're looking for small, focused mentorship then YC is no longer the same place.
- batman-farts 5y agoI had no idea there were venture-scale returns in arms reduction
- thomasqbrady 5y agoI can't be the only person thinking, "sure… share my novel business ideas with Amazon… the company known for pushing vendors out of their store with 'own-brand' look-alikes—among many other undesirable behaviors in a business partner."
- vlovich123 5y agoAm I missing something? Isn’t a16z Andreesen Horowitz? How is Amazon involved?
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y agoNot op so not sure. But i think the logic here is sharing your idea with a powerhouse vc may get that idea leaked to their network and particularly, someone that can execute on it.
- vlovich123 5y agoI think every investor ever will tell you ideas are worth 0 without execution. No entrepreneur I am aware of will keep their ideas secret. You will have to sign an NDA if you're trying to dig deeply into their solution which is the more valuable piece.
- thomasqbrady 5y agoI won’t lie. I saw a16z and somehow just translated that as “Amazon,” despite knowing exactly who they are (and having pitched to them–not personally–at a previous startup).
- nstart 5y agoCouple of questions I can’t find answers to: 1) What companies are the first batch of 11? Or put another way, will we learn who is in each batch at some “graduation” point? Whether the founders grow or not, I would love to see the program practicing transparency from the start. 2) After so much interest in crypto, I can’t really seem to see visible crypto investments in their fintech area. Is crypto supported at all by this program?
- jasfi 5y agoGood question for point 2. I'm working on TradeCast (https://tradecast.one https://tradecast.one) which is NoCode for auto crypto trading. At some point I may seek investment, but outside of the crypto community itself, I'm not sure that there's any interest.
- stereoradonc 5y agoIf you can own the complete life-cycle of a "start-up", why not? From start to finish (hopefully an IPO), they will own you.
- unicornmama 5y agoWill this program also teach startup founders how to sell unregulated securities as a business model?
- milansuk 5y agoIs there any chance for another a16z Crypto Startup school? Their videos[0] from the last one(mid-2020) are still one of the best crypto/web3 resources. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wxtiNgXBaU&list=PLM4u6XbiXf5oDP6DFeEoNP5K_Epy1RAx4&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wxtiNgXBaU&list=PLM4u6XbiXf...
- yodon 5y agoAm I missing something? It looks like the application page [0] only has room for a single founder. I would think a16z would want to know about the co-founders as a group. [0]https://info.a16z.com/apply-a16z-START.html https://info.a16z.com/apply-a16z-START.html