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331.
by pg 13y ago
Considering the amount you talk about it, you really don't seem to understand this business. Do you think a VC is going to refuse to fund a YC company that they otherwise think is promising enough to fund, in order to teach me a lesso
332.
by pg 13y ago
Incidentally, the clevy whose responses you see on this thread is safe author Carolynn Levy.
333.
by pg 13y ago
Yes, the YCVC investments this batch are going to be on safes instead of notes.
334.
by pg 13y ago
Certainly not. Only a fraction of them will have the determination and intelligence required to turn a problem into a startup. And some of those will be unlucky. But more of the 1000 will succeed starting from that rule than any other. T
335.
by pg 13y ago
We don't though. It's rounding error compared to things like the characteristics of the founders, and what they're working on.
336.
by pg 13y ago
They tried a bunch of different ideas. I don't remember the exact order or how they ended up doing cleaning. I remember it was a close shave though, and that they almost ran out of money.
337.
by pg 13y ago
As a retailer they do, but they don't as AWS, so a moat may not be necessary. It would still be nice of course. I can think of some possible ideas, but I should save that convo to have with Adora.
338.
by pg 13y ago
http://paulgraham.com/organic.html
339.
by pg 13y ago
There is an advantage, but perhaps not the one you think. The advantage is not the brand, but that you know lots of smart people you can recruit to join you. Which Drew did, starting with Arash.
340.
by pg 13y ago
"My advice is to attempt startups in the center of a confluence of macrotrends" My advice is to solve a problem you yourself have.
341.
by pg 13y ago
Running a startup in a low margin business is one of those things that seems like a bad idea till it's not. In this case the definitive counterexample happened 19 years ago: Amazon.
342.
by pg 13y ago
The reason it was so surprising is that even 6 months ago Homejoy's numbers were already well above the threshold for raising a series A. Investors are always influenced a lot by the founders. Which they should be. The mistake they m
343.
by pg 13y ago
YC partners make notes each time we meet one of the startups, to keep the other partners up to date. Six months ago I wrote: Have raised millions from angels but having trouble raising an A round, which is very surprising. Probably
344.
Rockstar: We celebrate the value and power of innovation(ip-rockstar.com)
7 points by pg 13y ago|1 comments
345.
by pg 13y ago
Which group of people do you want to become like?
346.
by pg 13y ago
The median application is submitted about 2 days before the deadline. It seems misleading to consider multiple applications, since we're talking here about the time between applying and getting money or a no.
347.
by pg 13y ago
A startup has to be in the same place as its investors if they want to talk face to face, and empirically we've found this to be a necessity when talking about the subtle and complicated problems startups face. Email and Skype are suc
348.
by pg 13y ago
Financially YC is a force multiplier. Not just incidentally, but by design. So it's misleading to treat it in isolation. And while anyone could raise additional funding after any round, in the YC case the numbers are known. Unless
349.
by pg 13y ago
"With YC, it's a very long process as it roughly takes 4 months from applying to money in the bank." That's not true. Startups get the initial $18k + $80k on acceptance.
350.
by pg 13y ago
The most accurate version of the title would be something like "The Only Way You Can Grow Huge." There may be occasional edge cases where companies start out big. I'm hesitant even to offer an example, because there are so
351.
by pg 13y ago
Notes aren't always better. It depends on the valuation cap at which they convert. A note with a low cap is just as dilutive as an equity investment at a low valuation. The YCVC note is uncapped, however, which means it's like
352.
by pg 13y ago
Sam understands startups better than almost anyone else I know. I defer to him on many topics. E.g. if any YC startup has a difficult fundraising problem, I give them my opinion but then send them to Sam for the last word.
353.
by pg 13y ago
I was curious how this compares to doing YC. YC usually asks for 7%, in return for which groups get in the average case $18k. Every startup also gets an $80k note that converts in the next equity round. In the last batch the median startu
354.
by pg 13y ago
It doesn't convert at that valuation. It converts in a future equity round, usually the series A, valuations for which are on average over $10 million lately.
355.
by pg 13y ago
Note to Sam: It's possible to anticipate ways HN readers will misunderstand you, and tweak what you write to pre-empt them. It takes some practice, but I'd guess I'm now able to do it maybe 3/4 of the time. In this case
356.
by pg 13y ago
Most of the companies you mention are not counterexamples, because they were already big when they started acquiring and merging with other companies.
357.
by pg 13y ago
Actually in the enterprise market Sam's point is even more true. The greater power of incumbents means that you can't get customers unless your product is better by a large margin.
358.
by pg 13y ago
Alexis is not the tech industry. This is a guy doing a book tour. And as for SOPA, while some companies opposed it, the opposition to it was far more grass-roots than the support for it.
359.
by pg 13y ago
It still seems hard to beat the size of the parse tree as a test. (Characters would not be as good a test.)
360.
by pg 13y ago
I have an antique camera lucida, and it is startlingly effective.

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