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One reason we didn't worry about this was that Watsi showed us that there is at least a subset of nonprofits whose founders are willing to work for very little
by pg 13y ago
One reason we didn't worry about this was that Watsi showed us that there is at least a subset of nonprofits whose founders are willing to work for very little early on. Maybe this will even turn out to be a good filter. But whether it does or not, I'm pretty sure there are other Watsis out there.
- soneca 13y agoI've being working in the non-profit sector for a time and I do think salary is an issue for non-profit leaders. But I don't think this will filter out good candidates for YC. As for-profit founders want to go to YC to earn a lot of money later, non-profit founders will want to go to YC to earn a sufficient amount of money later. Both will be motivated by creating impact. But I don't think you should take for granted this and an important step in any non-profit validation is if the non-profit will have enough money to pay its leaders and employees. In regular for-profits it's just assumed that, if you raise enoughs funds or sell enough product, the founders will have their share. With non-profits that can be tricky. Finally, congratulations, I think this is a great decision. I have being noticing the similarities between startups and non-profit challenges and they are pretty much the same. I applied a lot of "customer development" concepts at my last job on a non-profit, and now I am applying a lot of non-profit concepts on my for-profit startups.