5 ms·

If you don't want to raise venture funding, you shouldn't join YC. Venture funding is rocket fuel, and if you're not building a rocket you really don't want roc

If you don't want to raise venture funding, you shouldn't join YC. Venture funding is rocket fuel, and if you're not building a rocket you really don't want rocket fuel.

candiddevmike 3y ago
I keep seeing this "cute" line repeated, how do you find out if you're building a rocket or not...?
- wcarss 3y ago
  It's just what you want. Continuing to misuse the metaphor: Do you want to try to go to space/the moon or whatever, for reasons like the personal glory and (mild) fame, the satisfaction of building the thing, the importance of being the person at the center of it all, the joy of changing an industry, etc? That's the rocket: big big plans and you're kinda in it for the work. Or, do you want a plane to a nice beach where you can relax? Because the fastest route to get enough money to relax is probably not via building a rocket these days. Some caveats here: the successful (read: very lucky and very good) rocket builders do get the opportunity to relax, and often on a different level than the people who saved up and bought airplane tickets. But the 'great rocket builders' famously rarely "want to relax". And the vast vast majority of rocket builders don't actually directly succeed, but many do parlay it into savings for that plane ticket. But overall it's much easier for a random person to save up for a plane ticket than build a rocket.
- fourseventy 3y ago
  Are you taking a huge swing at a huge market looking to IPO? If so it's a rocket. If you are building a niche product looking to scale to a few hundred thousand or single digit millions in revenue, its not.
brigadier132 3y ago
The point of the article is that it's not rational for individual startup founders to take rocket fuel at company conception which is what YC provides.
- paulsutter 3y ago
  Startup means rocket. Very few businesses are startups, and very few business founders have use for YC Definition from Paul Graham essay Startup = Growth: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html
mhitza 3y ago
Many of the YC projects I've seen posted on HN don't look like rockets. Or maybe I'm of the false impression that developer tooling, or products that bring iterative improvements cannot be rockets.
- malfist 3y ago
  Are you confusing Show HN projects with companies accepted into the Y Combinator startup incubator? They're two very separate classifications
  - diggan 3y ago
    Maybe parent is referring to "Launch HN" posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches), which features YC startups.
  - camdenreslink 3y ago
    Any posts with “Launch HN” are promoted posts from YC startups.
- jnovek 3y ago
  YC focuses on product-market fit so it's not uncommon to see a YC company start as something that just looks like a single feature. The product objective of doing this is to gather some early user feedback so you can grow and refine that feature into an entire business. Until that happens you are flying blind.
- wslh 3y ago
  I think we often miss the marketing part and take a lot of focus in the technology stack. A good part of the need for funding is linked to the marketing part. You can make hundreds of technology copycats of existing unicorns but surely cannot market themselves as the did.
  - fakedang 3y ago
    Well honestly, if your product requires a significant amount of marketing dollars to reach "product market fit", is it really PMF? Going by the definitions stated by Marc Andreessen and some of the YC Partners, product market fit is when you don't really need to spend marketing dollars because your product is growing so organically (with minimal marketing spend) that your team is barely able to keep up with the growth. Chatbase is a very good example for a PMF product, one that comes off my head, and that didn't require any VC funding. On the other hand, I remember a YC startup launching similar in the summer, but I don't remember its name now.
thatwasunusual 3y ago
> Venture funding is rocket fuel, and if you're not building a rocket you really don't want rocket fuel. Fantastic. :D
0_____0 3y ago
Rocket fuel is very often highly refined kerosene. You could use it to run a jet engine or a diesel truck with small modifications. * I will be entering this reply into "most HN comment" contest running at the end of this year
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  This is ignoring the whole tanker full of liquid oxygen part of the equation.
  - 0_____0 3y ago
    I mean you can plumb that into your diesel truck if you really wanted to. Ever see a RAM Fifteenhunnerd run in vacuum?
- kortex 3y ago
  Maybe a better analogy is nitromethane. If you put it in your honda civic, you will blow up your engine. You put it in a top-fuel dragster which cranks out thousands of hp and needs an engine rebuild after each race.
  - 0_____0 3y ago
    Better, but with EFI I bet you could get it working with what otherwise looks like an extremely lean tune
- gcanyon 3y ago
  Depending on who you ask, RP-1 costs between 20 and 80 times what diesel goes for. Others have tortured this analogy enough, but you certainly don't want to fuel your non-rocket startup with funding that costs far too much, which is conceptually adjacent to the point of the original article.
dgudkov 3y ago
This is not a very good analogy because it assumes there is only one option if you build a rocket. A founder should get funding through selling equity (to VCs) if the risks are high. If the risks are low, the founder get funding through debt, even if you're "building a rocket". Or bootstrap, if possible. What every VC dreams is to get equity in a low-risk venture. Because the return is high, but the risk is low. That's why there is so much marketing that convinces founders to pay with equity.

If you don't want to raise venture funding, you shouldn't join YC. Venture funding is rocket fuel, and if you're not building a rocket you really don't want rocket fuel.

candiddevmike 3y ago

I keep seeing this "cute" line repeated, how do you find out if you're building a rocket or not...?

wcarss 3y ago
It's just what you want. Continuing to misuse the metaphor: Do you want to try to go to space/the moon or whatever, for reasons like the personal glory and (mild) fame, the satisfaction of building the thing, the importance of being the person at the center of it all, the joy of changing an industry, etc? That's the rocket: big big plans and you're kinda in it for the work. Or, do you want a plane to a nice beach where you can relax? Because the fastest route to get enough money to relax is probably not via building a rocket these days. Some caveats here: the successful (read: very lucky and very good) rocket builders do get the opportunity to relax, and often on a different level than the people who saved up and bought airplane tickets. But the 'great rocket builders' famously rarely "want to relax". And the vast vast majority of rocket builders don't actually directly succeed, but many do parlay it into savings for that plane ticket. But overall it's much easier for a random person to save up for a plane ticket than build a rocket.
fourseventy 3y ago
Are you taking a huge swing at a huge market looking to IPO? If so it's a rocket. If you are building a niche product looking to scale to a few hundred thousand or single digit millions in revenue, its not.

brigadier132 3y ago

The point of the article is that it's not rational for individual startup founders to take rocket fuel at company conception which is what YC provides.

paulsutter 3y ago
Startup means rocket. Very few businesses are startups, and very few business founders have use for YC Definition from Paul Graham essay Startup = Growth: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

mhitza 3y ago

Many of the YC projects I've seen posted on HN don't look like rockets. Or maybe I'm of the false impression that developer tooling, or products that bring iterative improvements cannot be rockets.

malfist 3y ago
Are you confusing Show HN projects with companies accepted into the Y Combinator startup incubator? They're two very separate classifications
- diggan 3y ago
  Maybe parent is referring to "Launch HN" posts (https://news.ycombinator.com/launches https://news.ycombinator.com/launches), which features YC startups.
- camdenreslink 3y ago
  Any posts with “Launch HN” are promoted posts from YC startups.
jnovek 3y ago
YC focuses on product-market fit so it's not uncommon to see a YC company start as something that just looks like a single feature. The product objective of doing this is to gather some early user feedback so you can grow and refine that feature into an entire business. Until that happens you are flying blind.
wslh 3y ago
I think we often miss the marketing part and take a lot of focus in the technology stack. A good part of the need for funding is linked to the marketing part. You can make hundreds of technology copycats of existing unicorns but surely cannot market themselves as the did.
- fakedang 3y ago
  Well honestly, if your product requires a significant amount of marketing dollars to reach "product market fit", is it really PMF? Going by the definitions stated by Marc Andreessen and some of the YC Partners, product market fit is when you don't really need to spend marketing dollars because your product is growing so organically (with minimal marketing spend) that your team is barely able to keep up with the growth. Chatbase is a very good example for a PMF product, one that comes off my head, and that didn't require any VC funding. On the other hand, I remember a YC startup launching similar in the summer, but I don't remember its name now.

thatwasunusual 3y ago

> Venture funding is rocket fuel, and if you're not building a rocket you really don't want rocket fuel. Fantastic. :D

0_____0 3y ago

Rocket fuel is very often highly refined kerosene. You could use it to run a jet engine or a diesel truck with small modifications. * I will be entering this reply into "most HN comment" contest running at the end of this year

marginalia_nu 3y ago
This is ignoring the whole tanker full of liquid oxygen part of the equation.
- 0_____0 3y ago
  I mean you can plumb that into your diesel truck if you really wanted to. Ever see a RAM Fifteenhunnerd run in vacuum?
kortex 3y ago
Maybe a better analogy is nitromethane. If you put it in your honda civic, you will blow up your engine. You put it in a top-fuel dragster which cranks out thousands of hp and needs an engine rebuild after each race.
- 0_____0 3y ago
  Better, but with EFI I bet you could get it working with what otherwise looks like an extremely lean tune
gcanyon 3y ago
Depending on who you ask, RP-1 costs between 20 and 80 times what diesel goes for. Others have tortured this analogy enough, but you certainly don't want to fuel your non-rocket startup with funding that costs far too much, which is conceptually adjacent to the point of the original article.

dgudkov 3y ago

This is not a very good analogy because it assumes there is only one option if you build a rocket. A founder should get funding through selling equity (to VCs) if the risks are high. If the risks are low, the founder get funding through debt, even if you're "building a rocket". Or bootstrap, if possible. What every VC dreams is to get equity in a low-risk venture. Because the return is high, but the risk is low. That's why there is so much marketing that convinces founders to pay with equity.