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I'm more excited about the effect this will have in general than the effect it will have on YC companies. The difference for a YC company is that they don't ha

I'm more excited about the effect this will have in general than the effect it will have on YC companies. The difference for a YC company is that they don't have to give up an extra percentage as they raise their seed round to cover the convertible note/SAFE that they got from YCVC. With no discount, if a YC company raised at a $10M valuation that 80,000 would be worth .8% of the company - not enough to really move the needle. The difference for the industry as a whole is that most accelerators are trying to mimic YC to a certain extent, and as YC now gives $120K straight-up others might follow suit. It's really easy to say, "We give you 20K for 6-7% because that's YC does." That seems to be almost industry standard, despite the fact that $20K for 3-5 months can be really hard to live on. It will be interesting to see how other accelerators react.

Edmond 13y ago
POEM alert :affect...think you want effect :)
- austenallred 13y ago
  Thanks :)
- saraid216 13y ago
  What does POEM expand into? Urban Dictionary failed me.
  - Edmond 13y ago
    Professional Organization of English Majors :)
suyash 13y ago
I'm sure you know that it's not a 1-1 relationship between YC startup and accelerator startup. There are major differences between Incubator like YC and other Accelerators: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_accelerator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_accelerator
- arfliw 13y ago
  YC is not an incubator
  - suyash 13y ago
    Ok, in that case, I'm mistaken. YC is yet another startup accelerator (YNSC)
    - slater 13y ago
      YASA?
    - namenotrequired 13y ago
      Did you read the article you linked? "The first seed accelerator was Y Combinator"
zmitri 13y ago
Second point is spot on. Before it was kind of explicit that you should take the SAFE, but if you weren't familiar with financial instruments or how exactly MFN clauses worked, you could run into issues you weren't completely aware of. The new way smooths all that out.
- DonGateley 13y ago
  If one isn't familiar with said financial instruments and all of the other terminology in these comments what is the best remedy for that? Is there any book whose content is pretty much constrained to the elements discussed here?
  - abracar 13y ago
    I keep hearing this book is a must-read: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/07/venture-deals-be-smarter-than-your-lawyer-and-venture-capitalist.html http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/07/venture-deals-be-sma... If you don't want to buy it, you should check out the Venture Hacks Bible: http://venturehacks.com/friends http://venturehacks.com/friends I'm not sure any of them mentions SAFEs because they're very recent, you can read more details in YC's announcement: http://ycombinator.com/safe/ http://ycombinator.com/safe/
  - austenallred 13y ago
    You don't really need a book. Here's how it breaks down. When an investor invests, he or she is buying a portion of a company. Say I invest $100,000 at a $1 million valuation - I'm actually buying 10% of the company (since 100k is 10% of 1M). There's technically pre-money valuation and post-money valuation, so the company was worth $900K pre and $1M post (depending on whether or not you're including the investor's money in the valuation), but we'll assume we mean post-money valuation for now. A "convertible note" is someone saying "OK, I'll give you 10k now, we'll call it 'debt' the company owes me because the law makes us call it something, but once you raise your round that 'debt' will 'convert' to equity at whatever terms you set with other investors." Really it's just a relatively fast and easy way to say "Here's 10k, I'll take whatever terms you set with the next round of investors." Almost like a bit of a fundraising hack because the legal fees and time of the negotiations just aren't worth it. Sometimes convertible notes have a cap (i.e. a maximum valuation - if you go over that valuation you grant equity as if it were really a lower valuation) or a discount (i.e. I'm investing at whatever valuation the other investors set minus 20%). It just depends on what the structure of the investment is. Long story short: a convertible note is a quick investment that isn't worth much until the company raises its next round. The SAFE is basically YC's response to a convertible note, because the convertible note carries some side effects that nobody wanted and are a bit ridiculous. There are some things that technically happen with debt, (interest, some regulations) that nobody involved actually wanted, but were a legal byproduct of calling something "debt." A SAFE is more honest, and says "Hey, we're buying a portion of the company, just not yet" - hence the name Simple Agreement for Future Equity). A SAFE is similar to a convertible note in that it has options like caps and discounts, but it's basically what a convertible note should be were we not using the whole "debt" thing as a hack. So with regard to YC and the "new deal": YC before was basically saying, "We'll give you 20k for 7% of the company, and then an extra 80k at whatever valuation you raise your next round so that you get it now instead of later." Now YC is saying, "We'll just give you 120k for 7% of the company."
ig1 13y ago
Techstars is already at 118k (18k + 100k convertible)

Edmond 13y ago

POEM alert :affect...think you want effect :)

austenallred 13y ago
Thanks :)
saraid216 13y ago
What does POEM expand into? Urban Dictionary failed me.
- Edmond 13y ago
  Professional Organization of English Majors :)

suyash 13y ago

I'm sure you know that it's not a 1-1 relationship between YC startup and accelerator startup. There are major differences between Incubator like YC and other Accelerators: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_accelerator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_accelerator

arfliw 13y ago
YC is not an incubator
- suyash 13y ago
  Ok, in that case, I'm mistaken. YC is yet another startup accelerator (YNSC)
  - slater 13y ago
    YASA?
  - namenotrequired 13y ago
    Did you read the article you linked? "The first seed accelerator was Y Combinator"

zmitri 13y ago

Second point is spot on. Before it was kind of explicit that you should take the SAFE, but if you weren't familiar with financial instruments or how exactly MFN clauses worked, you could run into issues you weren't completely aware of. The new way smooths all that out.

DonGateley 13y ago
If one isn't familiar with said financial instruments and all of the other terminology in these comments what is the best remedy for that? Is there any book whose content is pretty much constrained to the elements discussed here?
- abracar 13y ago
  I keep hearing this book is a must-read: http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/07/venture-deals-be-smarter-than-your-lawyer-and-venture-capitalist.html http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2011/07/venture-deals-be-sma... If you don't want to buy it, you should check out the Venture Hacks Bible: http://venturehacks.com/friends http://venturehacks.com/friends I'm not sure any of them mentions SAFEs because they're very recent, you can read more details in YC's announcement: http://ycombinator.com/safe/ http://ycombinator.com/safe/
- austenallred 13y ago
  You don't really need a book. Here's how it breaks down. When an investor invests, he or she is buying a portion of a company. Say I invest $100,000 at a $1 million valuation - I'm actually buying 10% of the company (since 100k is 10% of 1M). There's technically pre-money valuation and post-money valuation, so the company was worth $900K pre and $1M post (depending on whether or not you're including the investor's money in the valuation), but we'll assume we mean post-money valuation for now. A "convertible note" is someone saying "OK, I'll give you 10k now, we'll call it 'debt' the company owes me because the law makes us call it something, but once you raise your round that 'debt' will 'convert' to equity at whatever terms you set with other investors." Really it's just a relatively fast and easy way to say "Here's 10k, I'll take whatever terms you set with the next round of investors." Almost like a bit of a fundraising hack because the legal fees and time of the negotiations just aren't worth it. Sometimes convertible notes have a cap (i.e. a maximum valuation - if you go over that valuation you grant equity as if it were really a lower valuation) or a discount (i.e. I'm investing at whatever valuation the other investors set minus 20%). It just depends on what the structure of the investment is. Long story short: a convertible note is a quick investment that isn't worth much until the company raises its next round. The SAFE is basically YC's response to a convertible note, because the convertible note carries some side effects that nobody wanted and are a bit ridiculous. There are some things that technically happen with debt, (interest, some regulations) that nobody involved actually wanted, but were a legal byproduct of calling something "debt." A SAFE is more honest, and says "Hey, we're buying a portion of the company, just not yet" - hence the name Simple Agreement for Future Equity). A SAFE is similar to a convertible note in that it has options like caps and discounts, but it's basically what a convertible note should be were we not using the whole "debt" thing as a hack. So with regard to YC and the "new deal": YC before was basically saying, "We'll give you 20k for 7% of the company, and then an extra 80k at whatever valuation you raise your next round so that you get it now instead of later." Now YC is saying, "We'll just give you 120k for 7% of the company."

ig1 13y ago

Techstars is already at 118k (18k + 100k convertible)