answerly

15 ms·

121.
by answerly 16y ago
Unfortunately, your belief in this regard is the exact opposite of what investors tend to suggest when asked how they can be reached. Investors want a genuine introduction from a single trusted source like a portfolio CEO or another invest
122.
by answerly 16y ago
For example... I just looked up your LinkedIn profile and you have a contact that is connected to 5 entrepreneurs that I happen to also know who have raised seed funding. Have you tried reaching out to that person to get intros to those en
123.
by answerly 16y ago
Just to contribute a data point: We were lucky enough to be accepted to YC a couple batches ago. It took us about 2 months of constant pitching and investor wrangling to close our seed round after demo day. It is great that the original po
124.
by answerly 16y ago
I try to share with anyone that will listen. My ideas tend to improve when I am forced to verbalize them. Also, getting external feedback at the earliest stages is really valuable to me.
125.
by answerly 16y ago
^ is often used by accounts that have multiple users. For example check out the way bank of america support reps "sign" each tweet with ^ and then initials: http://twitter.com/bofa_help
126.
by answerly 16y ago
I've never heard of a negative YC experience either. I'd guess I've met at least one founder from roughly 40% of all YC startups. This includes some companies that have failed or been absorbed into other YC startups. YC was/is certainly a
127.
by answerly 16y ago
We submitted our application within about an hour of the deadline last year. I was so convinced that we wouldn't be accepted for an interview that I didn't explicitly tell Jason (my co-founder) we were applying. We were both very happy wi
128.
by answerly 16y ago
I think they have been reporting aggregate numbers like this for a while. IIRC TAC as a % of revenue has been consistently decreasing over the last several years.
129.
by answerly 16y ago
From the linked earnings summary: "The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.52 billion in the third quarter of 2010. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distributio
130.
by answerly 16y ago
>but it's still a large gamble. I know it seems like a big gamble room your current vantage point, but it really isn't. You are an entrepreneurial developer in a tech economy where that skill set is at a premium (at least in startup hu
131.
by answerly 16y ago
I think YC is the best place to get a YC-sized investment. Have you considered applying? Lots of (most?) YC companies relocate from somewhere else for the batch. Some stay in the bay area and some move back home afterwards. There is a YC
132.
by answerly 16y ago
All things being equal between this theoretical opportunity and another with a more attractive compensation structure, no. If I believed that there was a longer term value to the equity that could make up for the shortfall in cash compensat
133.
by answerly 16y ago
>First, the likelihood of anyone besides me being here for four years is pretty small... That is the point. If your employee leaves before they have vested their shares they don't get to keep them. >but it's still very likely a com
134.
by answerly 16y ago
> I think the way it works in most startups is that you agree to an equity split, and if one founder leaves, the company dies or you buy him out and that's that. It is increasingly common for founders to have vesting schedules to preven
135.
by answerly 16y ago
I have evidence as this is essentially what happened to us. We purchased .ly variant of our domain name through an authorized Libyan registrar about 10 months ago. It was seized back without explanation a few days later. When I contacted
136.
by answerly 16y ago
As others have mentioned below, there are probably at least one or two intermediate steps between where you appear to be now (earliest stages of business planning)and being in a position to raise a significant financing round. You'll need
137.
by answerly 16y ago
Banking: - We use silicon valley bank. They have a pretty horrendous online banking system (essentially a bunch of third party services cobbled together- we have like 4 different sets of login credentials). But, their bill pay system is g
138.
by answerly 16y ago
Frogmetrics (YC S08) received investment from Founders Fund. Not sure if there are other examples.
139.
How the B-School Dropouts at Bump Are Filling a Big Gap in Mobile Communications(xconomy.com)
1 points by answerly 16y ago|0 comments
140.
by answerly 16y ago
The ongoing camaraderie and commiseration with batchmates is definitely one of the most underrated benefits of YC. Nice post, Daniel.
141.
Keith Rabois is the new king of Y Combinator(gigaom.com)
24 points by answerly 16y ago|11 comments
142.
by answerly 16y ago
The answer probably depends on how much money you are trying to raise and from what type of investors. If you need thousands to tens of thousands of dollars and have a rich uncle then the answer is probably yes. If you need hundreds of thou
143.
by answerly 16y ago
Communication around a location/event is an existing behavior. People do this all the time at conferences, meetups, sporting events etc by using a Twitter hashtag, for example. This seems like the natural evolution of that behavior.
144.
by answerly 16y ago
There are companies that are off the record every in pretty much every YC batch. Attendees are asked to keep those companies "off the record". YC doesn't require any NDA that I am aware of. I'd expect that the risk of being excluded from
145.
by answerly 16y ago
I think the two are pretty complimentary. I am aware of several YC companies that have used Angel List to help fill out the round that they raise following YC. We were in the winter 2010 batch and I can't say enough good things about the p
146.
by answerly 16y ago
>But... this is really getting old. It seems like EVERY SINGLE YC startup is being featured on Techcrunch. Being a YC funded company is notable in the same way that being funded by any top tier angel or VC would be. It is the same reas
147.
by answerly 16y ago
>Why would someone pay for salaries and servers and then go to a VC later? We did this exactly. The investment gave us capital to out-pace our organic growth once we had shown that the business had potential at a small scale. There wer
148.
by answerly 16y ago
A pre-money valuation of 1m or 2m would imply that you are selling 33% or 20% of your company respectively in an equity financing. At the level of investment you are talking about you may want to consider convertible debt rather than equity
149.
by answerly 17y ago
Nielsen publishes a fair amount of ecommerce conversion data. For example: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/nov-e-commerce-... I'd suggest digging around in the archives there to see if you can find some newer stats. Your v
150.
by answerly 17y ago
It seems like a valuable service and has a built in revenue model in that users could pay a fee based on the actual savings that they realize. There are two questions/issues that come to mind: 1) How wold the negotiations be facilitated?

More ›