sama

33 ms·

511.
by sama 12y ago
Agreed; I would have greatly preferred he emailed me.
512.
by sama 12y ago
I sort of love that the person willing to take the other side of this is a Boston-area VC :) I accept subject to verification that you really qualify as a VC, and I can't find a website for Immaculate Conception Ventures. What investm
513.
by sama 12y ago
As I often said--it's a good thing we don't let HN make our investment decisions.
514.
by sama 12y ago
The difference between companies and projects is huge. We look for companies.
515.
by sama 12y ago
One thing I always think about is if I would take the CEO job at the company if they offered it to me.
516.
by sama 12y ago
Somewhat frequently, but we always ask why the company doesn't have a prototype.
517.
by sama 12y ago
Slow growth is bad, yes. A lot of our questions will be about why it's slow and how you plan to make it faster. We tell startups during YC to shoot for 10% weekly growth in their key metric.
518.
by sama 12y ago
In general, no. If you want to apply to YC, just apply to YC. Going through some other program first is a negative--the advice is usually bad, there's extra dilution, etc.
519.
by sama 12y ago
That's a feature, not a bug.
520.
by sama 12y ago
We ask about when they've done the impossible. You also get a pretty good feel for this after asking someone hard questions for 10 minutes. Not pushing back at all is bad, and pushing back too hard is also bad.
521.
by sama 12y ago
We randomize everything first, and then look through each morning to see if some interviewees need domain expertise, and then swap those around as best we can.
522.
by sama 12y ago
Tough one. I'd probably suggest going to college to meet cofounders.
523.
by sama 12y ago
Yes, definitely.
524.
by sama 12y ago
It doesn't hurt or help--we fund lots of founders from foreign countries (more than 40% of the last batch was born outside the US).
525.
by sama 12y ago
No and probably not.
526.
by sama 12y ago
All the time.
527.
by sama 12y ago
Unfortunately we don't do that--it just doesn't fit our model. Plenty of companies have done YC at a later stage and still thought we increased their value far more than the 7% we take, though.
528.
by sama 12y ago
I think startups are not well-suited for open-ended R+D unfortunately (hoping to do something about this). The best time to move from research to a startup is when you've developed technology and have a plan to make it into a product
529.
by sama 12y ago
I predict that will happen in the non-distant future.
530.
by sama 12y ago
Totally depends on the startups. In general it's good to monetize early, but there are very important exceptions. This is the sort of thing we have to give individualized advice about to every YC company.
531.
by sama 12y ago
Scaling up the number of people in an organization and maintaining innovation is always, always hard.
532.
by sama 12y ago
We might do something like rolling admissions, but the advantage of the batch model are huge. It's so helpful to the startups to be around other startups at roughly the same stage.
533.
by sama 12y ago
Parker and I spoke about a cofounder then. He was very receptive to adding one, and that helped his case.
534.
by sama 12y ago
Why don't you have a prototype? That'll be an important question. That said, we make most of our money backing companies at the "initial concept" stage, so we'd love to hear from you.
535.
by sama 12y ago
At least 10x.
536.
by sama 12y ago
There are just so many good companies applying. As long as we can keep upping the quality bar, I'm happy for us to fund more companies. I think there is good chance that there are more than 1 billion-plus dollar companies in the curre
537.
by sama 12y ago
For sure it helps to get to know investors over long periods of time. However, the investors that invested in my company knew me for 45 minutes (YC), a few weeks (Sequoia), and a few months (NEA). It's important as a founder not to mak
538.
by sama 12y ago
I tell founders it's about 50% advice and 50% network value.
539.
by sama 12y ago
Talking to users, and telling us what you've learned from them.
540.
by sama 12y ago
Making a product that users love. http://blog.samaltman.com/the-only-way-to-grow-huge

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