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> We learned that the hard way, in the notorious "batch that broke YC" in the summer of 2012. Up till that point we treated the partners as a pool. When a start
by vecter 4y ago
> We learned that the hard way, in the notorious "batch that broke YC" in the summer of 2012. Up till that point we treated the partners as a pool. When a startup requested office hours, they got the next available slot posted by any partner. That meant every partner had to know every startup. This worked fine up to 60 startups, but when the batch grew to 80, everything broke. The founders probably didn't realize anything was wrong, but the partners were confused and unhappy because halfway through the batch they still didn't know all the companies yet.
I was part of the S12 batch. I certainly knew it was broken a few weeks in. Every week when we had office hours, it was always with a new partner and we spent the entire time getting them up-to-speed on just our background and context.
Still loved the experience and would do YC again.
- ahmadss 4y agoI was curious to see what companies were part of the S12 batch, and who were the most notable. Among the 80 or so in that group, big winners were Coinbase, Instacart, and Zapier. https://techcrunch.com/2012/08/21/yc-demo-day-s12/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/08/21/yc-demo-day-s12/
- TigeriusKirk 4y agoWith Coinbase ipo'ed and Instacart about to ipo, that's not a bad batch from a purely investment perspective.
- killerdhmo 4y agoCoinbase? they're down 80% since their IPO (I am a shareholder); I suppose if the checkbox is "they IPOd" then sure.
- platelminto 4y agoI mean, that’s a pretty big checkbox regardless.
- kojeovo 4y agoShareholder since IPO vs when YC invests
- mcguire 4y agoIs YC still an investor?
- lejohnq 4y agoDown 80% from IPO but with a market cap above 10 billion. Compared to when YC invested I think that’s still pretty good
- PeterisP 4y agoInvestors generally cash out at IPO, so if IPO price was 5x the real/current value, then that was a very, very profitable deal for the early investors.