91–100 of 458 posts
Sam, thank you for working on a new online course. I think it will have a huge impact. For how many companies per batch, YC is a second accelerator? How many companies have raised Seed round?
I'd guess less than 10% are pre-accelerated.
A much larger percentage have raised some (usually a small amount, but not always) capital.
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…
What visa do international founders apply for when they are selected to join YC? And those who decide to stay in the US and establish their startup here after the 3-month time period, what immigration options do they have?
We try to help as much as we can.
I want to be a farmer. Is there a place for me in YCombinator? (p.s. I have several other follow up questions I'd love to ask if you entertain me with a response)
If you want to be a farmer, why do you want to be in YC? We are the best in the world at helping people be some things, but probably not that :(
If you were genuinely interested -- there's quite a few reasons why YC is appealing but ultimately one thing sticks out.
Farming has a lot of potential for control and subsequently, abuse. You said in a recent blog post -- if I can grow the product either better or cheaper (talking about food/produce), I'll win. With current technologies and my background and experience it seems very likely I will be successful.
YC is one of very few organizations that I trust to assist and embrace the humanitarian responsibility of being a potential global leader.
In a nutshell.
When to put this on the Internet to show you guys and how much should I have.
Working on this in my spare time is very difficult to get to a point I'm happy with. Maybe I should quit my job?
Be good to be super clear on this...
I would wager that if you take a look at an accurate distribution of markets according to potential you would find a magnitude more small/average markets (that are untapped) than billion dollars ones. And similarly, I suspect that the success rate for those "boring" ventures is much higher than the exciting shiny rising stars.
Question: Why not optimize for companies that are certainly not going to become Airbnbs but will capture the full value of an averagely sized market (say between 50 and 300 millions)? And if my guess is correct and they end-up eating a lot less resources than the soon-to-be-unicorns, you could even optimise for volume.
Is the pay-off (wrt. to the energy spent and success rate) for unicorns really worth it?
Does the YC Group provide any psychological counseling/guidance/referals for attendees? Does it feel any responsibility to?
just like the rest of yc, taking care of yourself and your cofounder relationship is DIY but we offers resources to help. i'm an executive coach (with a specialty in startup founders) and our founders book office hours with me when they need support around managing stress/anxiety, troubleshooting conflict in difficult relationships (with cofounders, investors, loved ones, etc), communicating effectively, and generally thriving on the roller coaster of startup founderdom.
i also provide referrals to therapists and coaches when necessary. it depends on what the founder's looking for and what they need.
i'm happy to answer any other questions you have about this.