4 ms·

Incidentally YC is actually the YC for all startups everywhere. Lots of startups move to Silicon Valley for 10 weeks, raise money, and sometimes they decide the

by garry 13y ago

Incidentally YC is actually the YC for all startups everywhere. Lots of startups move to Silicon Valley for 10 weeks, raise money, and sometimes they decide the best place for them is where they came from, or another startup hub. Silicon Valley is so concentrated that it is super valuable to absorb the values of how startups build valuable things, and start your company here. It seems to be a litmus test for commitment — 10 weeks is short enough that if you're serious about your startup, it's not too much to ask. It is correlated with commitment and therefore success.

reddys 13y ago
I completely agree with garry comments ' 10 weeks is a Litmus test for commitment' . If one can't be away from home Town for 10 weeks, you are not prepared for 10x or 20x bigger tough situations Start-up is going to throw at you
- mbreese 13y ago
  It might work for 20 somethings just out of undergrad. But when you start looking at founders who are older and have families, you eliminate a lot of talent from the pool (including people with actual experience). It just isn't feasible for everyone.
  - garry 13y ago
    Actually we have quite successful founders who move with their families to Mountain View — notably the two founders of Mongo HQ and their families shared a rented house there for the duration of the batch. They happened to stay in the Bay Area, but they could have just as easily went back home after raising their seed round too.
    - mindcrime 13y ago
      mbreese didn't say that it eliminates all such founders. I think the argument here is that some number of startup founders (where the exact number would be hard to pin down) are unable to move to San Francisco for 10 weeks due to other commitments, and that this factor is probably going to be more pronounced with older founders - who are more likely to have spouses, children, mortgages, and other entanglements that work against letting them move. The other argument, that I'll make, is that as nice as the Bay Area is, you don't have to be there to be successful. Assuming that all of the smart, talented, hard-working, $INSERT_SUPERLATIVE_HERE people in the world aren't already in the Bay Area, then if you accept the above premises, it stands to reason that a YC expansion to some other parts of the world could be very effective.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  That strikes me a bullshit, completely unfounded observation. How do you justify that, exactly?
- mindcrime 13y ago
  you are not prepared for 10x or 20x bigger tough situations Start-up is going to throw at you Such as?
mindcrime 13y ago
10 weeks is short enough that if you're serious about your startup, it's not too much to ask. I'm sorry, but I have to call bullshit on that. It has nothing to do with how serious you are or not... some of us have constraints that just don't allow uprooting our lives and moving to the opposite coast for 10 weeks. We all have different situations and to suggest that someone isn't serious about their startup just because they won't come to CA for 10 weeks is, to be quite frank, rather disparaging and insulting. It's appreciated though. I use this kind of shit as fuel for the fire. Doubt us, please... the more people that doubt us, the stronger we get. Anyway, as far as commitment, let me share a little history with you... I started tinkering with the earliest ideas for what would become Fogbeam Labs way back in 2006... was only treating it as a hobby OSS project back then, had no (or very nebulous) plans to make a company. By 2010 I knew far more about what needed to be built, threw out all the old code, started over, and created an actual company. By late 2010 I had recruited a co-founder. In 2011 we recruited another co-founder. In late 2012, the second co-founder left, but we hired in intern in Summer of 2013 and he did such a bang-up job that we asked him to stay on and join the founding team. We've since recruited another intern / part-time sales guy to work with us. So over 4 years, we've gone from nothing but one guy (me) and some half-baked ideas, to a 4 person team, with 2 products that are shipping ("limited availability" but still, available for sale), another product in development, and we are having sales conversations with Fortune 500 companies. We have a marketing strategy that is starting to come together, we're developing potential partnerships, and we're learning how to do the sales thing (all of the members of the founding team are techies first and foremost). No, we haven't gotten our first sale yet, and as far as that goes, we might never. We could still fail and never make a dollar. That isn't the point. The point is that I've given ~4 years of my life, and quite a bit of my income during that period, to building this company. And during that time, I've done little but eat, sleep and breathe this company... dating? Feh, no time for that. Social life? What's that? Friends? You're kidding, right? Family? They think I'm dead or something. Adversity? Fuck, I could tell stories that would make me cry to tell them. But here we are, still pounding away. But somebody is going to say that we're not committed because we're not willing to go to CA for 10 weeks? Yeah, right. ROFLMFAO.
- garry 13y ago
  There are many paths. Best of luck to you sir.
teacup50 13y ago
> Silicon Valley is so concentrated that it is super valuable to absorb the values of how startups build valuable things, and start your company here. Assuming you think modern Silicon Valley "values" are worth emulating, and the idea of inhaling the Silicon Valley myopic mono-culture 24/7 appeals to you. On the other hand, staying grounded in the world outside Silicon Valley means being able to empathize with people who aren't 20 years old and don't know everything, and who actually have to produce real lasting value for there to continue to be a paycheck. I went through an exit in the first bubble once already; I was happy when it popped, and happy to move away from the navel-gazing Silicon Valley culture when it re-emerged, and can't possibly imagine why I would want to go back.

by garry 13y ago

reddys 13y ago

I completely agree with garry comments ' 10 weeks is a Litmus test for commitment' . If one can't be away from home Town for 10 weeks, you are not prepared for 10x or 20x bigger tough situations Start-up is going to throw at you

mbreese 13y ago
It might work for 20 somethings just out of undergrad. But when you start looking at founders who are older and have families, you eliminate a lot of talent from the pool (including people with actual experience). It just isn't feasible for everyone.
- garry 13y ago
  Actually we have quite successful founders who move with their families to Mountain View — notably the two founders of Mongo HQ and their families shared a rented house there for the duration of the batch. They happened to stay in the Bay Area, but they could have just as easily went back home after raising their seed round too.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    mbreese didn't say that it eliminates all such founders. I think the argument here is that some number of startup founders (where the exact number would be hard to pin down) are unable to move to San Francisco for 10 weeks due to other commitments, and that this factor is probably going to be more pronounced with older founders - who are more likely to have spouses, children, mortgages, and other entanglements that work against letting them move. The other argument, that I'll make, is that as nice as the Bay Area is, you don't have to be there to be successful. Assuming that all of the smart, talented, hard-working, $INSERT_SUPERLATIVE_HERE people in the world aren't already in the Bay Area, then if you accept the above premises, it stands to reason that a YC expansion to some other parts of the world could be very effective.
mindcrime 13y ago
That strikes me a bullshit, completely unfounded observation. How do you justify that, exactly?
mindcrime 13y ago
you are not prepared for 10x or 20x bigger tough situations Start-up is going to throw at you Such as?

mindcrime 13y ago

10 weeks is short enough that if you're serious about your startup, it's not too much to ask. I'm sorry, but I have to call bullshit on that. It has nothing to do with how serious you are or not... some of us have constraints that just don't allow uprooting our lives and moving to the opposite coast for 10 weeks. We all have different situations and to suggest that someone isn't serious about their startup just because they won't come to CA for 10 weeks is, to be quite frank, rather disparaging and insulting. It's appreciated though. I use this kind of shit as fuel for the fire. Doubt us, please... the more people that doubt us, the stronger we get. Anyway, as far as commitment, let me share a little history with you... I started tinkering with the earliest ideas for what would become Fogbeam Labs way back in 2006... was only treating it as a hobby OSS project back then, had no (or very nebulous) plans to make a company. By 2010 I knew far more about what needed to be built, threw out all the old code, started over, and created an actual company. By late 2010 I had recruited a co-founder. In 2011 we recruited another co-founder. In late 2012, the second co-founder left, but we hired in intern in Summer of 2013 and he did such a bang-up job that we asked him to stay on and join the founding team. We've since recruited another intern / part-time sales guy to work with us. So over 4 years, we've gone from nothing but one guy (me) and some half-baked ideas, to a 4 person team, with 2 products that are shipping ("limited availability" but still, available for sale), another product in development, and we are having sales conversations with Fortune 500 companies. We have a marketing strategy that is starting to come together, we're developing potential partnerships, and we're learning how to do the sales thing (all of the members of the founding team are techies first and foremost). No, we haven't gotten our first sale yet, and as far as that goes, we might never. We could still fail and never make a dollar. That isn't the point. The point is that I've given ~4 years of my life, and quite a bit of my income during that period, to building this company. And during that time, I've done little but eat, sleep and breathe this company... dating? Feh, no time for that. Social life? What's that? Friends? You're kidding, right? Family? They think I'm dead or something. Adversity? Fuck, I could tell stories that would make me cry to tell them. But here we are, still pounding away. But somebody is going to say that we're not committed because we're not willing to go to CA for 10 weeks? Yeah, right. ROFLMFAO.

garry 13y ago
There are many paths. Best of luck to you sir.

teacup50 13y ago

> Silicon Valley is so concentrated that it is super valuable to absorb the values of how startups build valuable things, and start your company here. Assuming you think modern Silicon Valley "values" are worth emulating, and the idea of inhaling the Silicon Valley myopic mono-culture 24/7 appeals to you. On the other hand, staying grounded in the world outside Silicon Valley means being able to empathize with people who aren't 20 years old and don't know everything, and who actually have to produce real lasting value for there to continue to be a paycheck. I went through an exit in the first bubble once already; I was happy when it popped, and happy to move away from the navel-gazing Silicon Valley culture when it re-emerged, and can't possibly imagine why I would want to go back.