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Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#231

Post by senko »

ianai wrote: post #43
bholdr wrote: post #33

Hi Michael, is it a good idea to apply to YC to find quality co-founders? or in other words what is the right way for a single founder to apply? thanks.

Follow up: What would be the fastest, most efficient way for someone highly technically proficient to learn just enough business operations/basic 101 stuff to be functional?

Your #1 risk is you have a definite product in mind and will try to find the market for it instead the other way around. This is likely to kill your startup. If you avoid this, the operational biz stuff you can pick up along the way.

Feel free to email me (see profile) if you'd like to go in depth re this.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#232

Post by thejohnhenry »

sctb wrote: post #224
thejohnhenry wrote: post #146

you stole my name! bastard! ...also I have the same question edit: sort of forgot to abide by community norms here and keep my comments on-topic. apologies

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13896017 and marked it off-topic.

thanks.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#233

Post by wellboy »

wcchandler wrote: post #183

I want to be a farmer. I want to treat the farm like a startup. At which point in the application process can I try to convince you that you need a farmer in your portfolio? Also, when and where can I go into details to describe how it would be different from today's conventional operations?

I think if you can prove that you can scale revenue or users by the factor of 1,000 within 2-3 years, while only increasing headcount/staff by the factor of 10 then they would be interested.

That's basically the definition of a startup, so na matter what you do, if you can prove scalability like this, you are a startup.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#234

Post by wellboy »

GrantHenryHall wrote: post #228

Should companies apply if they haven't coded their product yet?

If you have a track record, they would be interested, like any investor.

If you don't have a track record, no revenue, no users, no product, most likely not, just like any investor.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#235

Post by nostrademons »

thejohnhenry wrote: post #205
jessriedel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear: YC accepts non-profits each round. www.ycombinator.com/nonprofits/ The question of whether open-source producing non-profits fit into YC is still a good one. I couldn't find an info on whether they have already accepted such non-profits, but the incubator Fast Forward has: > Intelehealth built an open-source intelligence engine for assessing primary care conditions https://qz.com/792685/silicon-valley-wa…

Sure, and I'm aware of the non-profit initiatives. I don't think many people have considered producing actual software under a not-for-profit (except for Khan Academy?), probably because it's insanely expensive. Would YCombinator help facilitate funding a fully open Facebook or Twitter clone, for instance? It sounds outlandish to consider, but it seems equally outlandish to consider the 2020 election happening over e…

FWIW, YCombinator has funded a fully open, federated Facebook clone:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/diaspora#/entity

It didn't work out so well, mostly because a.) actually cloning Facebook is pretty hard and b.) users don't seem to want to switch to fully-open Facebook or Twitter clones.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#237

Post by healthenclave »

Hello Michael,

I was suggested by few YC Alums that YC will not accept a startup if the founders are not working full time on it.

Question: In my case I am working full time because it's helping me fund my startup and It's actually helping me grow it due to connection to my peers (I am M.D from India working on a Health Startup). Is this a bad sign ?

I simply do not have the resources (and enough revenue) to quit my job Yet. But I am dedicated 200 % towards my startup and the vision. And I spend most of my time (outside of work) on my startup.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#238

Post by SmellTheGlove »

tyre wrote: post #121
refrigerator wrote: post #47

What do you think of teams that are working part-time (e.g. while in full time education/employment) on an idea with decent traction, but who are waiting for external validation (such as YC or other investment) before going full-time on it? Do you take it as a sign of low commitment?

You're basically asking YC to bet on you before you bet on yourself. If you aren't willing to go all in, what does that say? Startups are really fucking hard. You have to have a serious belief and commitment to build a billion dollar business (which is what YC is investing in.) If you're unsure, that's totally fine, but you need to be the first to believe in your company and get used to being the only ones who believ…

Sure, but consider what you're selecting out with that approach. Recent grads who just need to scrape enough money for a room and some ramen can go all in on their idea. Mid 30's with a family can't. 20's person might find the billion dollar disruptive idea, coming fresh out of a less bounded college experience or youth in general. 30's person might find the billion dollar enterprise solution, having spent 10-15 years in fortune 500 companies.

I have bias to disclose - I'm in the 2nd category, and my ideas and projects are probably very different, with a very different target market, than me 15 years ago (or someone else 15 years younger than me right now). I'm also not seriously pursuing anything at the moment, so this is hypothetical: Not only do I have a roof to keep over my family's head, I also (no offense intended here) probably have a higher opportunity cost as a barrier as well. All in on an idea for me has hard and soft costs that are very different from someone just starting out. It's not to say someone similar to me should expect to throw a few hours every two weeks at a project and merit serious consideration, but putting 25% of time and energy for some is a BFD that I think passes the commitment threshold in certain instances.

Whether it's YC, a startup, or your role in a mature business of any size, you must approach ideas through various lenses beyond your own. Please take this all constructively, I'm not trying to say I'm better because I'm older or anything like that - my point is that there are broader considerations that make varying degrees of commitment to an idea more similar than you'd think.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#239

Post by annerajb »

gingerbread-man wrote: post #220
annerajb wrote: post #198

Does YC typically invest on startups that may possibly have overlapping market segments? For example Boom Aero focused on supersonic and another startup applies to YC with subsonic aircraft. From what I read typically VC firms usually don't fund two companies as such example.

https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/#q8 Q: Will you fund multiple startups working on the same idea? A: Yes. If you fund as many companies as we do it's unavoidable you'll end up with some overlap. Even if you tried not to accept competing companies, you'd still get overlap because startups' ideas morph so much. The way we deal with it is that when two startups are working on related stuff, we don't talk to one about wha…

Thanks,

I read that a long time ago and forgotten that was there.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#240

Post by sandGorgon »

ramezrana wrote: post #199
sandGorgon wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we (RedCarpetUp) were accepted to YC with extremely minimal levels of early funding. Feel free to reach out to me if you have India/YC questions.

What is the best way to reach you for YC related questions?

My email is my profile
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