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There's no question that having a low personal burn rate is an advantage when it comes to starting a startup. That said, there are a lot of alternatives. Ther

by sama 11y ago

There's no question that having a low personal burn rate is an advantage when it comes to starting a startup. That said, there are a lot of alternatives. There are more seed funds now than ever before. One of the reasons we did this program is that we believe there is hole in this part of the market--it feels like there are more people willing to write a $100k check than a $12k check. Practically speaking, we also felt this was where we could make the most impact with dollars we're giving away. $12MM is the price of a small series B, or 1000 YC Fellowships.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
acjohnson55 11y ago
I'm really excited about this move. When I was working on my startup, broke, fresh out of grad school, $12k could have been the lifeline we needed. Instead, we had to stop building while we tried to raise funds prematurely, and bled out before we could pick up momentum. As long as you guys are as selective as you are with the startups you fund, I think we may well see a whole bunch of startups in 5 years that we can trace back to this fellowship. I think this is a great first step to leveling the playing field for those who don't come from / don't have a whole lot of capital, and might just need a shot. Very timely, in light of the recent Quartz article [1]. [1] http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/ http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-...
- Alex3917 11y ago
  This also keeps YC relevant even though the world in which they were created largely no longer exists: - In 2005, there were essentially no sources for early stage capital. Now you can't tell someone about your startup at a meetup without five people trying to throw money in your face. - In 2005, information about starting a startup was an oral tradition, and web technology was so primitive that making a scalable website basically required a CS degree. This meant that you really had to either be a business person or a CS person, whereas now being both is table stakes. - In 2005, not only was it essentially impossible to meet VCs without some sort of special connections, it was difficult even to figure out who they were. These days they're all on LinkedIn, blogs, angellist, mattermark, etc., and as soon as you have any sort of traction they already know about you. - In 2005, people still spent time dreaming about what the world would be like when everyone was connected to the Internet. Now the sociology is well understood, the infrastructure has matured, strategies and tactics have become commoditized, etc. By giving away equity-free grants that come with access and advice, this basically positions YC as the next YC, regardless of what else is going on the world.
crdb 11y ago
Fascinating that you are even considering making 1,000 investments per year - how are you planning to handle the processing of applications? Outsourcing, growing the YC team, AI? You're opening up to the entire world with that seed amount, that volume (which lowers the effective level required) and no requirement to move, so there could be as many as (say) 100,000 applications a year...

by sama 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

acjohnson55 11y ago

I'm really excited about this move. When I was working on my startup, broke, fresh out of grad school, $12k could have been the lifeline we needed. Instead, we had to stop building while we tried to raise funds prematurely, and bled out before we could pick up momentum. As long as you guys are as selective as you are with the startups you fund, I think we may well see a whole bunch of startups in 5 years that we can trace back to this fellowship. I think this is a great first step to leveling the playing field for those who don't come from / don't have a whole lot of capital, and might just need a shot. Very timely, in light of the recent Quartz article [1]. [1] http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/ http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-...

Alex3917 11y ago
This also keeps YC relevant even though the world in which they were created largely no longer exists: - In 2005, there were essentially no sources for early stage capital. Now you can't tell someone about your startup at a meetup without five people trying to throw money in your face. - In 2005, information about starting a startup was an oral tradition, and web technology was so primitive that making a scalable website basically required a CS degree. This meant that you really had to either be a business person or a CS person, whereas now being both is table stakes. - In 2005, not only was it essentially impossible to meet VCs without some sort of special connections, it was difficult even to figure out who they were. These days they're all on LinkedIn, blogs, angellist, mattermark, etc., and as soon as you have any sort of traction they already know about you. - In 2005, people still spent time dreaming about what the world would be like when everyone was connected to the Internet. Now the sociology is well understood, the infrastructure has matured, strategies and tactics have become commoditized, etc. By giving away equity-free grants that come with access and advice, this basically positions YC as the next YC, regardless of what else is going on the world.

crdb 11y ago

Fascinating that you are even considering making 1,000 investments per year - how are you planning to handle the processing of applications? Outsourcing, growing the YC team, AI? You're opening up to the entire world with that seed amount, that volume (which lowers the effective level required) and no requirement to move, so there could be as many as (say) 100,000 applications a year...