Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#1

Post by kradic » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 8:24 PM UTC

Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud
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Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#2

Post by gscott » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 8:43 PM UTC

It seems this guy was wrong and his own link is dead. If he didn't have enough faith in his product to continue why would he expect YC to.

Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#3

Post by STHayden » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 9:33 PM UTC

I think it's pretty clear that Reddit started development before digg was well known. So it's hardly a rip off though perhaps not the winner in that battle.

Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#4

Post by chengmi » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 9:42 PM UTC

Has anyone else noticed that the level of YC bashing upped a notch this time around?

Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#5

Post by mhartl » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 9:55 PM UTC

Don't judge Lucas Carlson too harshly for something he wrote almost three years ago, in the throes of dealing with his own YC rejection. Take a look at his credits at http://rufy.com/ and I think it's clear he's an accomplished developer, author of multiple Ruby gems and the Ruby Cookbook (O'Reilly, July 2006). I don't know Lucas, so I can't speak from experience, but anyone with his hacking credits (and a physics degree from Reed College to boot) has to fall into the "smart and gets things done" category.

Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#6

Post by paulgb » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 10:08 PM UTC

chengmi wrote: post #4

Has anyone else noticed that the level of YC bashing upped a notch this time around?

I haven't noticed, but I think in this particular case the link was posted in irony, and not to bash YC. After all, Reddit became one of YC's best acquisition.

Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#7

Post by kradic » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 10:35 PM UTC

chengmi wrote: post #4

Has anyone else noticed that the level of YC bashing upped a notch this time around?

This is from 2005. I posted it to show the crazy things people used to write about YC in the past.

Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#8

Post by sharpshoot » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 10:55 PM UTC

YC's been iterating on this model for 3 years now and are getting even better at identifying promising ideas and entrepreneurs. I suspect its going to take one or two more cycles to absolutely nail the model.

In terms if lessons learnt, YC has the most experience of any micro seed fund.

This is its competitive advantage.

Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#9

Post by rokhayakebe » Sat, Apr 12, 2008, 10:57 PM UTC

Guys, relax.

this guy wrote the post when most people did not know about the YC program. Give it up to him for knowing about the first funding cycle. I think a few 150 applicants knew about it.Most of people here did not hear about YC or PG until after their first demo day.

The author's opinion was the result of a rejection. If you read thoroughly,you will see that he is not dissing YC or PG. He felt that his idea was better than those funded, and frankly any entrepreneur who truly believes in his idea would think the same. Ask any YC rejects and they would show you at least 5 YC funded who they believe have an idea less creative/profitable than theirs.

That is their mistake. Most investors ideas do not mean as much as the team ability to execute against them, and YC is not different as far as that.

I am certain if you contact the author today, he would laugh and simply say "I thought I knew it all back then"

Re: Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud

#10

Post by pg » Sun, Apr 13, 2008, 12:37 AM UTC

sharpshoot wrote: post #8

YC's been iterating on this model for 3 years now and are getting even better at identifying promising ideas and entrepreneurs. I suspect its going to take one or two more cycles to absolutely nail the model. In terms if lessons learnt, YC has the most experience of any micro seed fund. This is its competitive advantage.

That first batch was actually great. It had both Reddit and Loopt in it, plus Firecrawl, which morphed into Textpayme, plus Justin and Emmett, who went on to do Justin.TV after selling Kiko.

Reddit was a merger of 2 startups from that batch, so if you count Loopt as a success (a fairly safe bet), 4/8 succeeded: Reddit, Infogami, Textpayme, and Loopt. I'd be delighted if we managed to achieve a 50% success rate ongoing.