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What a great story. Charlie is very brave for telling this, and it's something that more people need to hear. Getting into YC is not an achievement. Even if yo

What a great story. Charlie is very brave for telling this, and it's something that more people need to hear. Getting into YC is not an achievement. Even if you get in, you're not special. You still have to bust your ass like everyone else trying to build a company. Not getting into YC isn't a big deal either, because you're still not special. Stories like Charlie's should help others highlight this fact. He said that he felt impostor syndrome. I've felt that too. I don't have a great solution for that, but what it should tell you is that even people who you feel are smarter/better than you really are not. We are all the same, and we all face the same struggles, albeit in different circumstances. PG's advice to Charlie about focusing on an idea they're passionate about, and an idea that they could see themselves working on for the next 5 years is sound. Don't chase trends. Don't chase money. Chase your passion. When you're really passionate about something, it's infectious to others around you. They want to help you. The success and money will usually follow. I'm glad that people like Charlie tell these stories, since we seem to focus on the success stories. Those are few and far between. Charlie's story is likely more prevalent than we perceive.

minimaxir 12y ago
> Getting into YC is not an achievement. Even if you get in, you're not special. You still have to bust your ass like everyone else trying to build a company. Not getting into YC isn't a big deal either, because you're still not special. Unfortunately, the marketing of YC (and many other accelerators) disagrees with this, with emphasis that joining a startup accelerator validates you and makes you part of the elite and gives you the authority to make a I'm-a-thought-leader Medium blog post. (Case in point, the "A YC alumni’s tactic to hack some early investors interest through a prolific Angel" incident: https://www.dropbox.com/s/go9lfnxwt9fnax2/My%20Investment%20hack_%20Jason%20Calacanis%E2%80%99%20voicemail%20%E2%80%94%20Medium.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/go9lfnxwt9fnax2/My%20Investment%20...) The disconnect between <X>-group-likes-my-startup and the reality of operating the startup is one of the reasons why there is a rise in stupid startups which eventually crash and burn. (This is also one of the reasons I hate sites like Product Hunt)
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  From a strict biz point of view, the flaw is in the accelerator/startup model. If you have a viable business idea, you can make money from it almost from day one. There are plenty of people who run side businesses and do a day job too. You only need a huge sum of investment cash if you need to pay yourself and/or a dev team a ton of money to build a massive working prototype and do some marketing. So what is YC actually for? How much of the chumminess and support offered by getting into YC is mission critical? If you can't answer that question, don't apply. And I'd suggest that you don't know enough to answer that question until you've built a prototype small business that runs successfully - not just a GitHub account with shiny code happening that might somehow be business related, perhaps, but a business with paying customers that makes more than it costs to run. If you need to spend five weeks writing code, you may as well expand that to half a year of less intense and more considered part-time work, bypass the drama, and see how well your business idea does on objective terms in the real world. You won't get feted as one of the elite entrepreneur class, but you'll learn a hell of lot more about business, customers, and yourself than you will by spending a fortune on moving to SF and hanging out with the cool kids. Bottom line is that if you don't have the stamina to go it alone, you probably won't do so well with funding anyway.
larrys 12y ago
"PG's advice to Charlie about focusing on an idea they're passionate about, and an idea that they could see themselves working on for the next 5 years is sound." Except for one thing. Passion about something is not something that you wake up in the morning, think about a bit, and then go pursue it. You won't find a single story in legacy business history of someone who started a wildly successful business because they woke up one morning and thought "I want to start a business". It happened the other way they were going about their business and noticed a need or had an inspiration or idea and then decided to pursue making it a business. Only exception is now in the current day and age we have so many people doing so many things with ease of entry some people are able to pull this off it seems. In the case of YC or other incubators we now have people who are attempting to just "come up with an idea and fill a need" and while some are succeeding it's not the way businesses have started ever before. Generally. And the process of finding something takes time as well and there is much serendipity involved (and that doesn't operate according to a schedule either). Now it is possible to "think up" a business but that process can take years. In the case of my first business I had the inspiration one day while in college, pursued it out of college and then thought of a better idea which is the one I actually did. The process took time and there was no particular deadline. That idea worked and I sold the company (9 years later). The 2nd business on the other hand took me 4 years or 5 years to come up with an appropriate "inspiration" as I investigated various possibilities (flying around to trade shows). There was no deadline that I was working under ("demo day"). Just whenever I found something I would do it. And I finally did and it worked out as well. My point is, I don't think you can say to someone "focus on an idea you are passionate about" and they go off and "think" and come back with "yeah we want to do X we are passionate about it".
- drumdance 12y ago
  > You won't find a single story in legacy business history of someone who started a wildly successful business because they woke up one morning and thought "I want to start a business". Eh, maybe. Motorola and HP were both started this way. The founders of both companies hated the idea of working for other people. (I know this because waaaaay back in the mid 90s I read an article about humble beginnings in Inc Magazine, and these are the examples I remember.)
- 12y ago

minimaxir 12y ago

> Getting into YC is not an achievement. Even if you get in, you're not special. You still have to bust your ass like everyone else trying to build a company. Not getting into YC isn't a big deal either, because you're still not special. Unfortunately, the marketing of YC (and many other accelerators) disagrees with this, with emphasis that joining a startup accelerator validates you and makes you part of the elite and gives you the authority to make a I'm-a-thought-leader Medium blog post. (Case in point, the "A YC alumni’s tactic to hack some early investors interest through a prolific Angel" incident: https://www.dropbox.com/s/go9lfnxwt9fnax2/My%20Investment%20hack_%20Jason%20Calacanis%E2%80%99%20voicemail%20%E2%80%94%20Medium.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/go9lfnxwt9fnax2/My%20Investment%20...) The disconnect between <X>-group-likes-my-startup and the reality of operating the startup is one of the reasons why there is a rise in stupid startups which eventually crash and burn. (This is also one of the reasons I hate sites like Product Hunt)

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
From a strict biz point of view, the flaw is in the accelerator/startup model. If you have a viable business idea, you can make money from it almost from day one. There are plenty of people who run side businesses and do a day job too. You only need a huge sum of investment cash if you need to pay yourself and/or a dev team a ton of money to build a massive working prototype and do some marketing. So what is YC actually for? How much of the chumminess and support offered by getting into YC is mission critical? If you can't answer that question, don't apply. And I'd suggest that you don't know enough to answer that question until you've built a prototype small business that runs successfully - not just a GitHub account with shiny code happening that might somehow be business related, perhaps, but a business with paying customers that makes more than it costs to run. If you need to spend five weeks writing code, you may as well expand that to half a year of less intense and more considered part-time work, bypass the drama, and see how well your business idea does on objective terms in the real world. You won't get feted as one of the elite entrepreneur class, but you'll learn a hell of lot more about business, customers, and yourself than you will by spending a fortune on moving to SF and hanging out with the cool kids. Bottom line is that if you don't have the stamina to go it alone, you probably won't do so well with funding anyway.

larrys 12y ago

"PG's advice to Charlie about focusing on an idea they're passionate about, and an idea that they could see themselves working on for the next 5 years is sound." Except for one thing. Passion about something is not something that you wake up in the morning, think about a bit, and then go pursue it. You won't find a single story in legacy business history of someone who started a wildly successful business because they woke up one morning and thought "I want to start a business". It happened the other way they were going about their business and noticed a need or had an inspiration or idea and then decided to pursue making it a business. Only exception is now in the current day and age we have so many people doing so many things with ease of entry some people are able to pull this off it seems. In the case of YC or other incubators we now have people who are attempting to just "come up with an idea and fill a need" and while some are succeeding it's not the way businesses have started ever before. Generally. And the process of finding something takes time as well and there is much serendipity involved (and that doesn't operate according to a schedule either). Now it is possible to "think up" a business but that process can take years. In the case of my first business I had the inspiration one day while in college, pursued it out of college and then thought of a better idea which is the one I actually did. The process took time and there was no particular deadline. That idea worked and I sold the company (9 years later). The 2nd business on the other hand took me 4 years or 5 years to come up with an appropriate "inspiration" as I investigated various possibilities (flying around to trade shows). There was no deadline that I was working under ("demo day"). Just whenever I found something I would do it. And I finally did and it worked out as well. My point is, I don't think you can say to someone "focus on an idea you are passionate about" and they go off and "think" and come back with "yeah we want to do X we are passionate about it".

drumdance 12y ago
> You won't find a single story in legacy business history of someone who started a wildly successful business because they woke up one morning and thought "I want to start a business". Eh, maybe. Motorola and HP were both started this way. The founders of both companies hated the idea of working for other people. (I know this because waaaaay back in the mid 90s I read an article about humble beginnings in Inc Magazine, and these are the examples I remember.)
12y ago