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> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's al

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take on an old idea has a much higher chance of success than something totally new that ends up being too early.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> More often than not most of what startups do is not unique The message is also that if your start-up is based on deep tech moats choose another seed. (Think of YC's home runs. None had an industry secret/IP secret sauce.)
- light_triad 2y ago
  YC's roots are definitely the software hacker/painter/kill FAANG from a coffee shop type founders, although they've shown that deep tech teams can make interesting progress without years of R&D. Finding investors that get your idea and can help with their network is paramount. YC might not be the best fit in all cases.
- j45 2y ago
  YC is more focused on B2B now, so this will change.
- jedberg 2y ago
  YC has only been investing in deep tech for about a decade, I'm not sure that's long enough for them to have had a home run yet. For example, Boom Supersonic was founded 10 years ago, and just this summer completed their second test flight. They are scheduled to launch commercial operations in 2029. Lucid bots was founded in 2018, and just did their Series A to fund their growth of their autonomous drone fleet. I wouldn't count YC out of the deep tech game just yet.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    What is "deep tech"?
    - jasfi 2y ago
      Things that are difficult to do in tech, e.g. AI/ML that's in-house (not using an API).
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
The article lists a few, none of which were unique - coinbase? Cryptocurrency exchanges already existed. AirBnB? Booking.com and other hotel or bed-and-breakfast booking websites already existed. Stripe? Yet another payment provider. Reddit? A Digg clone. Dropbox? rsync. etc.
- keiferski 2y ago
  Airbnb was basically a monetized form of Couchsurfing, not a hotel alternative. It only later turned into a direct hotel competitor. To my knowledge there was no similar service at the time.
  - light_triad 2y ago
    Folks had been using alternatives to rent space like HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, BedandBreakfast.com and Craigslist for years. Airbnb won because: - Better design, easy to use, nice pictures they took themselves at first (per PG's advice) - Integrated payments and reviews in a seamless experience - Popularized the idea of sharing a space when the host is there - Offered unique accommodations in urban places - Lots of buzz about treehouses, castles, teepees, shipping containers, etc. - Their timing benefited from the Great Recession - Very good at promoting their rag to riches story with YC's help - Also you didn't need to constantly repost like Craigslist, just post once
    - keiferski 2y ago
      I agree with the reasons for their success, but I don't believe that any of those alternatives allowed you to book a room/couch in someone's apartment. They were merely ways to either use properties for vacations (VRBO), semi-hotels like beds and breakfasts, or just regular renting space (Craigslist) for short/long term. Not the same thing as AirBnb at all.
    - dowager_dan99 2y ago
      >> - Popularized the idea of sharing a space when the host is there this was not a popular option, and I don't believe was ever intended to be. It also opened the door for VRBO to gain traction explicitly marketing NOT sharing accommodation. The "rent out your spare bedroom" has never been a major component; it was a fake-out to counter the regulatory & licensing complaints they were facing.
ActionHank 2y ago
Steve Jobs or maybe just Apple used to pit teams against each other to develop a solution to a problem and then pick the strongest of the two. It also offers a convenient way to pull investment out early if the doppelganger startup isn't meeting targets. Just get the original startup to buy them out. It's not something that is a negative for YC, but it could be for the startups they back.
- drewda 2y ago
  Even today there are decent odds that within Apple the macOS and iOS groups are locked in a multi-decade long fight in which one may prevail...
- throwaway894345 2y ago
  Reminds me of how pelicans will raise two chicks and then kick the weakest of the two out of the nest and devote all future resources to foster the stronger of the two. YCombinator as convergent evolution, I guess.
  - dxbydt 2y ago
    > how pelicans will raise two chicks and then kick the weakest there is a youtube video ( pls don’t watch ) that gave me nightmares for days on end. i had completely forgotten about those pelicans and now you had to bring it up again in the comments. the little pelican had a broken leg. It was limping, so mom and brother together pushed it out of the nest. Very cruel.
    - alganet 2y ago
      Pelicans are brutal mindless beasts. They are known to fly to neighbour nests and eat other birds, sometimes other pelicans. So similar to companies.
      - K0balt 2y ago
        Or, maybe they know exactly what they are doing. Nature has a tendency to ignore human ideas of justice and ethics. The will of the stronger is the primary “law” of nature.
mrcwinn 2y ago
They say that, but what if the opposite was the actual truth? Look every VC is "founder friendly" because without founders there's no deal flow. At the end of the day though every VC is optimizing for exit value. So it makes sense to bet on the same idea twice. If Founder A screws the pooch, you've still got Founder B.
- ericjmorey 2y ago
  This matches typical VC investment patterns.
AlwaysRock 2y ago
The CEO of YC gave a talk about how you should first assemble a founding team and THEN come up with an idea. The idea seems way less important than identifying founders they want to back.
- itsoktocry 2y ago
  >The idea seems way less important than identifying founders they want to back. Especially when you can take an idea you like from a team you don't, and give it to a team you do!
itsoktocry 2y ago
>It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages But identifying the "right" people is easy?
- throwaway314155 2y ago
  Spoiler alert: it's "easy" when you narrow down to applications who come from wealth and/or went to a prestigious university.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    What is wrong with selecting founders who attended a prestigious university? It seems like an excellent signal. Also: "Come from wealth" might be useful if their idea will take a bit longer to germinate. They can survive longer in "ramen profitable" mode.
    - throwaway314155 2y ago
      One could imagine a more equitable society where startups weren't solely (hyperbole) reserved for those who come from wealth and privilege. Nothing wrong with prestigious schools until that's the only metric you're looking at when you could also evaluate on sound fundamentals, ability and technical competence. Of course modern investors (or a least the ones at VC) probably aren't qualified to judge applicants on merit.
      - thrw42A8N 2y ago
        Where do you see that it's reserved? I get that it's a hyperbole, but startups are the best, most used and most successful tool for upwards social mobility. Nothing has changed the life of so many people, no amount of taxes or regulations was able to improve lives of so many, so much.
- thatguy0900 2y ago
  It's not, but that's ycs entire business model
soheil 2y ago
"Don't have to be unique" is very different than "actively trying to copy".
vonneumannstan 2y ago
They have shifting and conflicting and nonsensical reasons for what they do. Just like PG lambasting someone as being too stupid to see when they asked why so many YC companies are things that should just be features on other software.
- tptacek 2y ago
  You mean they're just a bunch of people working on a complicated problem? Why, I never.
meta_x_ai 2y ago
HN has turned into an anti-billionaire, anti-VC, anti-success cesspool. It's a very dangerous echo chamber that'll destroy within
- ribadeo 2y ago
  I can see that it has already eaten both your participles and your punctuation. Your user name couldn't be more apropo. However your sycophantic ramblings will not likely enhance your own bank account.
cyanydeez 2y ago
Sounds like you're describing complicated nepotism.
garrickvanburen 2y ago
Theoretically, if I as an investor, believe strongly in a given thesis, it would be prudent to place bets that address it from multiple angles.
boh 2y ago
The idea of a VC firm investing in something because the founders are just swell fellas isn't easily acceptable as a premise. If you're prompting a move fast and break things culture, you can't then excuse your mediocrity with a "new take on old things" excuse. Pick a lane.
OmnipotentVoid 2y ago
Yeah, YC definitely has a soft spot for familiar ideas, but they’ve also backed some pretty unique companies that came out of left-field. Our startup, The Ac28R, is a good example of this. It’s a whole new approach to specifying and developing software - way more accurately than LLMs like ChatGPT, thanks to it being a new kind of AI. So even if it doesn’t really fit into any typical category, we still believe that any idea will find its audience, if it is strong enough.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> More often than not most of what startups do is not unique The message is also that if your start-up is based on deep tech moats choose another seed. (Think of YC's home runs. None had an industry secret/IP secret sauce.)

light_triad 2y ago
YC's roots are definitely the software hacker/painter/kill FAANG from a coffee shop type founders, although they've shown that deep tech teams can make interesting progress without years of R&D. Finding investors that get your idea and can help with their network is paramount. YC might not be the best fit in all cases.
j45 2y ago
YC is more focused on B2B now, so this will change.
jedberg 2y ago
YC has only been investing in deep tech for about a decade, I'm not sure that's long enough for them to have had a home run yet. For example, Boom Supersonic was founded 10 years ago, and just this summer completed their second test flight. They are scheduled to launch commercial operations in 2029. Lucid bots was founded in 2018, and just did their Series A to fund their growth of their autonomous drone fleet. I wouldn't count YC out of the deep tech game just yet.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  What is "deep tech"?
  - jasfi 2y ago
    Things that are difficult to do in tech, e.g. AI/ML that's in-house (not using an API).

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

The article lists a few, none of which were unique - coinbase? Cryptocurrency exchanges already existed. AirBnB? Booking.com and other hotel or bed-and-breakfast booking websites already existed. Stripe? Yet another payment provider. Reddit? A Digg clone. Dropbox? rsync. etc.

keiferski 2y ago
Airbnb was basically a monetized form of Couchsurfing, not a hotel alternative. It only later turned into a direct hotel competitor. To my knowledge there was no similar service at the time.
- light_triad 2y ago
  Folks had been using alternatives to rent space like HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, BedandBreakfast.com and Craigslist for years. Airbnb won because: - Better design, easy to use, nice pictures they took themselves at first (per PG's advice) - Integrated payments and reviews in a seamless experience - Popularized the idea of sharing a space when the host is there - Offered unique accommodations in urban places - Lots of buzz about treehouses, castles, teepees, shipping containers, etc. - Their timing benefited from the Great Recession - Very good at promoting their rag to riches story with YC's help - Also you didn't need to constantly repost like Craigslist, just post once
  - keiferski 2y ago
    I agree with the reasons for their success, but I don't believe that any of those alternatives allowed you to book a room/couch in someone's apartment. They were merely ways to either use properties for vacations (VRBO), semi-hotels like beds and breakfasts, or just regular renting space (Craigslist) for short/long term. Not the same thing as AirBnb at all.
  - dowager_dan99 2y ago
    >> - Popularized the idea of sharing a space when the host is there this was not a popular option, and I don't believe was ever intended to be. It also opened the door for VRBO to gain traction explicitly marketing NOT sharing accommodation. The "rent out your spare bedroom" has never been a major component; it was a fake-out to counter the regulatory & licensing complaints they were facing.

ActionHank 2y ago

Steve Jobs or maybe just Apple used to pit teams against each other to develop a solution to a problem and then pick the strongest of the two. It also offers a convenient way to pull investment out early if the doppelganger startup isn't meeting targets. Just get the original startup to buy them out. It's not something that is a negative for YC, but it could be for the startups they back.

drewda 2y ago
Even today there are decent odds that within Apple the macOS and iOS groups are locked in a multi-decade long fight in which one may prevail...
throwaway894345 2y ago
Reminds me of how pelicans will raise two chicks and then kick the weakest of the two out of the nest and devote all future resources to foster the stronger of the two. YCombinator as convergent evolution, I guess.
- dxbydt 2y ago
  > how pelicans will raise two chicks and then kick the weakest there is a youtube video ( pls don’t watch ) that gave me nightmares for days on end. i had completely forgotten about those pelicans and now you had to bring it up again in the comments. the little pelican had a broken leg. It was limping, so mom and brother together pushed it out of the nest. Very cruel.
  - alganet 2y ago
    Pelicans are brutal mindless beasts. They are known to fly to neighbour nests and eat other birds, sometimes other pelicans. So similar to companies.
    - K0balt 2y ago
      Or, maybe they know exactly what they are doing. Nature has a tendency to ignore human ideas of justice and ethics. The will of the stronger is the primary “law” of nature.

mrcwinn 2y ago

They say that, but what if the opposite was the actual truth? Look every VC is "founder friendly" because without founders there's no deal flow. At the end of the day though every VC is optimizing for exit value. So it makes sense to bet on the same idea twice. If Founder A screws the pooch, you've still got Founder B.

ericjmorey 2y ago
This matches typical VC investment patterns.

AlwaysRock 2y ago

The CEO of YC gave a talk about how you should first assemble a founding team and THEN come up with an idea. The idea seems way less important than identifying founders they want to back.

itsoktocry 2y ago
>The idea seems way less important than identifying founders they want to back. Especially when you can take an idea you like from a team you don't, and give it to a team you do!

itsoktocry 2y ago

>It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages But identifying the "right" people is easy?

throwaway314155 2y ago
Spoiler alert: it's "easy" when you narrow down to applications who come from wealth and/or went to a prestigious university.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  What is wrong with selecting founders who attended a prestigious university? It seems like an excellent signal. Also: "Come from wealth" might be useful if their idea will take a bit longer to germinate. They can survive longer in "ramen profitable" mode.
  - throwaway314155 2y ago
    One could imagine a more equitable society where startups weren't solely (hyperbole) reserved for those who come from wealth and privilege. Nothing wrong with prestigious schools until that's the only metric you're looking at when you could also evaluate on sound fundamentals, ability and technical competence. Of course modern investors (or a least the ones at VC) probably aren't qualified to judge applicants on merit.
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      Where do you see that it's reserved? I get that it's a hyperbole, but startups are the best, most used and most successful tool for upwards social mobility. Nothing has changed the life of so many people, no amount of taxes or regulations was able to improve lives of so many, so much.
thatguy0900 2y ago
It's not, but that's ycs entire business model

soheil 2y ago

"Don't have to be unique" is very different than "actively trying to copy".

vonneumannstan 2y ago

They have shifting and conflicting and nonsensical reasons for what they do. Just like PG lambasting someone as being too stupid to see when they asked why so many YC companies are things that should just be features on other software.

tptacek 2y ago
You mean they're just a bunch of people working on a complicated problem? Why, I never.

meta_x_ai 2y ago

HN has turned into an anti-billionaire, anti-VC, anti-success cesspool. It's a very dangerous echo chamber that'll destroy within

ribadeo 2y ago
I can see that it has already eaten both your participles and your punctuation. Your user name couldn't be more apropo. However your sycophantic ramblings will not likely enhance your own bank account.

cyanydeez 2y ago

Sounds like you're describing complicated nepotism.

garrickvanburen 2y ago

Theoretically, if I as an investor, believe strongly in a given thesis, it would be prudent to place bets that address it from multiple angles.

boh 2y ago

The idea of a VC firm investing in something because the founders are just swell fellas isn't easily acceptable as a premise. If you're prompting a move fast and break things culture, you can't then excuse your mediocrity with a "new take on old things" excuse. Pick a lane.

OmnipotentVoid 2y ago

Yeah, YC definitely has a soft spot for familiar ideas, but they’ve also backed some pretty unique companies that came out of left-field. Our startup, The Ac28R, is a good example of this. It’s a whole new approach to specifying and developing software - way more accurately than LLMs like ChatGPT, thanks to it being a new kind of AI. So even if it doesn’t really fit into any typical category, we still believe that any idea will find its audience, if it is strong enough.