401–410 of 458 posts
Can you be too far along? We already raised from billionaires Tim Draper and Marc Benioff of Salesforce. Is this still okay to apply? And how much does being a solo founder reduce chances of getting in?
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I have applied again and again and have been rejected each time. I honestly don't mean to be vague but have found that it is very difficult to convey in words. It's a graphical technology that takes just a very brief chat for people to understand. It's a large horizontal departure with wide possibilities. That makes it difficult to explain as a single targeted product
We have a demo video field. You should make a demo video and include the link in that field in the application.
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There are precedents for quickly building trust among people who don't know each other. For example a mountaineering class at the National Outdoor Leadership School puts students who don't know each other, and might not know anything about climbing, into serious high-mountain situations for a month. At the end of the class, groups of students head off on "small group expeditions" for a few days without instructors. N…
Building trust is one component, but it's equally important to explore whether you're compatible with your cofounder (or SO) across a wide range of emotions and circumstances. There are people I personally know pretty well who I trust but don't think I'm very compatible with. They might be great advisors or board members, but I wouldn't want them as a cofounder. Like you said, in a constrained environment like the mi…
Could you outline the exact reasoning why YC still believes SV is the place to be for a startup. I've never heard any explanation that went deeper than "well investors are there and network duh" It seems very broken that IT specifically should be bound to a physical place. Are there any plans to innovate in this regard or any research YC is doing?
http://www.paulgraham.com/hubs.html
"""being in a place where startups are the cool thing to do, and chance meetings with people who can help you"""
I think "the cool thing to do" isn't as relevant as it was 5 years ago due to some well publicized success stories and things like the shark tank etc. Startups are generally considered a more viable career option these days so that need (and thus the competitive advantage of SV) is quite a bit less than 5 years ago (imo)
Chance meetings...yeah I get it. It's also lessened to some degree due to social media and random chance on the internet (someone reading a tweet of yours and knowing how to help, help on HN/reddit etc.) but that's still a great point in favor of SV. It's also self-reenforcing.
So for arguments sake I'll offer the counter position to "move to a startup hub" namely "move to a place where you expect the highest density of your customers" (which should help with chance meetings as well)
The second alternative I'll suggest is...stay at a place you feel comfortable at especially if it has low living cost until you are ramen profitable given SV cost structures...then move.
[there's a lot of it depends here but those are just suggestions to kickstart a hopefully interesting discussion]
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Is it possible to invest in YC itself?
Not yet but that would be interesting to offer some day.
It seems half these questions are from Single Founders. Considering YC's interest in experimenting with who and what they fund... Has YC ever considered a class of only single founders and trying to solve the problems YC anticipates with single founder startups (i.e. emotional support, etc...) It seems to me that the demand is there, and the potential for single founders to succeed is certainly possible... why not ex…
What we've thought about the most is creating a better way for potential cofounders to meet each other.
Hi Sam, in interview with Elon Musk, you asked him 'Do you think people that want to be useful today should get PhDs?' Elon: Mostly not. Here are my questions: 1. Do you think people need to get a PhD degree to become useful research scientist in AI industry? 2. Do you think people need to get a PhD degree to become Member of Technical Staff (Machine Learning) in Open AI? Thank you.
1. No 2. Definitely not!
Have you ever considered writing a startup book?
Could you outline the exact reasoning why YC still believes SV is the place to be for a startup. I've never heard any explanation that went deeper than "well investors are there and network duh" It seems very broken that IT specifically should be bound to a physical place. Are there any plans to innovate in this regard or any research YC is doing?
The short version is accumulation of know-how in that geographic region. For years, most of the brilliant minds in the tech domain from all over the world have gone to SV to collaborate together. So even if another country creates a replication of SV in terms of infrastructure (or even gives tax breaks and other incentives), it's hard to recreate the huge pool of bright professionals who have years of know-how to tackle startup related challenges.