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I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

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Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#81

Post by sama »

KeatonDunsford wrote: post #72

Hey Sam. I'm considering applying with my nonprofit edtech startup (a new crowdsourced education system that's peer-to-peer and mobile -- built around software, like Watsi). I'm a solo-founder still currently building the MVP. Quick question 1: Is there a "Delaware C Corp" equivalent for the incorporation process/legal structures of nonprofits by state, or does it not matter? Real question: Is there something to be s…

QQ1: It does not matter.

RQ: In general I think waiting is a mistake, except that you should wait long enough to have a good idea about what you're going to do.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#84

Post by sama »

annerajb wrote: post #73

Sam, are the odds stacked against us if we have 5 founders? (EE, ME, EE, SW, Sales/Business) Also does a startup that can help reduce carbon emissions/move from something that generates lots of emission classify under the energy section of request for startup?

Slightly against--we're not sure why it is, but 5 or 6 founder companies have (with some notable exceptions) significantly underperformed our average.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#85

Post by annerajb »

sama wrote: post #84
annerajb wrote: post #73

Sam, are the odds stacked against us if we have 5 founders? (EE, ME, EE, SW, Sales/Business) Also does a startup that can help reduce carbon emissions/move from something that generates lots of emission classify under the energy section of request for startup?

Slightly against--we're not sure why it is, but 5 or 6 founder companies have (with some notable exceptions) significantly underperformed our average.

Thanks!

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#86

Post by sama »

nabiha_zahra wrote: post #10

How do you identify small but fast-growing markets? Is it a good/bad idea to found a startup in a market that is no longer saturated but also has big players (such as social media?

Predicting the future is hard. I don't have a great general answer for this, other than to look for highly engaged users. IE, when the iPhone came out, users loved it and used it all the time. Even though the market was small in absolute size, you could be confident it was going to grow quickly.

It could be good or bad depending on details, but it's certainly not always bad.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#87

Post by pan_w »

I'm working on a startup that provides live remote video assistant as a service and we piggy backs off of existing technology platforms (FaceTime, Hangouts, Skype) rather than building the tech ourselves for the meantime.

Do you prefer that companies have their own technology or is it okay that a company utilizes existing platforms in the beginning?

My team consist of CS and ME/EE.

It's PokeBin.com if you wanted more information.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#89

Post by jseliger »

kinkora wrote: post #8

You (and by extension YC) always seem to mostly focus on the success stories of the alumni/group. Have you or will you consider talking about the failures? If you can't do it, is there a reason why?

I'm obviously not sama but it does seem like the ones who are not successful often do not want to talk about what happened, and HN also does not seem to upvote stories about them. For example, I was intensely curious about a YC smartbike company called Vanhawks and have submitted a couple variants on this story: https://techvibes.com/2016/06/05/vanhawks-2016-06-03, and none got many upvotes.

(That being said I do agree with the implication of the question, that learning from failure is important and may need greater discussion.)

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#90

Post by chadnickbok »

sama wrote: post #46
arodceo wrote: post #33

What do you look for in a single founder (non-tech) when they apply with their company being very early stage. What helps you determine they'll be a good company even if they are early?

Honestly, that's a tough combination. We'd look for evidence that he or she could execute and make stuff happen.

To clarify - are single founder, early stage applications unlikely to be invited to interview at YC?

At what point does 'early stage' no longer matter?

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