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What Happens At Y Combinator

ycombinator.com

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Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#31

Post by robg »

pg wrote: post #27
robg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides music labels, are there other industries you try to steer startups away from, either through not accepting them or through nudging them in other directions? I'm looking specifically at medical applications, but I imagine there are others too.

No others are quite as bad. We'd be dubious about startups building stuff for the government, for example, because there is such a horrible mismatch between startup culture and government culture. But we'd still fund a startup building stuff for the government if they weren't naive about what selling to the government would entail.

Thanks and agreed. I'm surprised I haven't seen many (any?) medical applications from YC companies given the margins available over consumer applications. Do you think it is the uncertainty of the FDA regulations or just a space that Silicon Valley doesn't tend to mine as frequently? Make something patients want is particularly alluring to me.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#32

Post by pg »

andrewacove wrote: post #30

How frequently do companies grow (hire, add a cofounder) during the YC term? Does that ever happen? Is advising on that ever part of the YC role/conversation?

Maybe 15-20% do. And yes, we care a lot about that, and often help not only in advising but in recruiting.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#33

Post by Swizec »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #29

I found the following sentence to be hard to parse: "The general answer is to pick something where the product of how fast it can be built and how excited users would be about it is high."

    x = speed-of-implementation(idea)
    y = usefulness(idea)
    rank(x,y) = x*y
Something like that I think.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#34

Post by pg »

Swizec wrote: post #28
pg wrote: post #3

This was an attempt to describe everything we do, so if there's anything I didn't cover, please let me know. (Sorry it's so long. I was surprised myself how long it turned out, but we do a lot.)

Wow, this list really made me glad we applied for the next cycle. One question though, what about startups from outside the US? Can you offer advice there visa-wise and such? I know it doesn't really matter for the three month period, but what about after that. It would really suck for a startup to do well on Demo Day, only to be unable to go to any meetings because they can't get back to the US for a few months (I t…

Visas are something I don't know much about. The rules seem to vary a lot from country to country. There is a mailing list of YC founders from other countries who exchange advice about the topic. And we've certainly funded startups from a lot of different countries. So if I were you I'd just apply, and if we fund you, you can ask the alumni for advice about immigration stuff.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#35

Post by danilocampos »

Makes me wonder about how selection criteria shifts based on maturity of the company.

What signaling does YC look for in a company whose idea was birthed a week before applying, versus one who applies while their beta is in progress? Is it as simple as "these guys are smart" in both cases?

I've met lots of guys way smarter than me with less motivation, so there's got to be more to it.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#36

Post by pg »

fatjonny wrote: post #25

I enjoyed reading it. It is nice to read about what the startups in Y Combinator go through. Minor typos I noticed (since you seem like you want the feedback): missing 'the': "to get the company into best shape possible" spelling of predict: "know the investors but can preditct their reaction to each specific startup" see instead of seem: "no one except the current batch of startups gets to seem them"

Thanks; fixed.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#37

Post by Swizec »

pg wrote: post #34
Swizec wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this list really made me glad we applied for the next cycle. One question though, what about startups from outside the US? Can you offer advice there visa-wise and such? I know it doesn't really matter for the three month period, but what about after that. It would really suck for a startup to do well on Demo Day, only to be unable to go to any meetings because they can't get back to the US for a few months (I t…

Visas are something I don't know much about. The rules seem to vary a lot from country to country. There is a mailing list of YC founders from other countries who exchange advice about the topic. And we've certainly funded startups from a lot of different countries. So if I were you I'd just apply, and if we fund you, you can ask the alumni for advice about immigration stuff.

Thanks, that doesn't sound too bad then.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#38

Post by zzleeper »

Thanks for the insight Paul. As an outsider, it's quite interesting to understand how (successful) startups get formed.

It's funny that in my field (economics/finance) we treat startups as black boxes, and we have no clue about how they work. We argue that they are "crucial to the economy and to growth", but yet we haven't made any progress at understanding [1] them.

Do you guys think that we (academy) have any chance at finally understanding/modelling what you do?

[1] "Understanding" = Either writing a mathematical model, or test some hypothesis with a few regressions.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#39

Post by pg »

danilocampos wrote: post #35

Makes me wonder about how selection criteria shifts based on maturity of the company. What signaling does YC look for in a company whose idea was birthed a week before applying, versus one who applies while their beta is in progress? Is it as simple as "these guys are smart" in both cases? I've met lots of guys way smarter than me with less motivation, so there's got to be more to it.

Mostly we care about the people, regardless of how far along the company is. Which can be a problem, actually, because startups that have been running for a while generally overestimate the percentage of the work that's behind them.

For us the most important thing about the company having been running for a while is that it gives us more information about the founders. E.g. we can ask them "what have you learned from your users?"

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#40

Post by danilocampos »

danilocampos wrote: post #35

Makes me wonder about how selection criteria shifts based on maturity of the company. What signaling does YC look for in a company whose idea was birthed a week before applying, versus one who applies while their beta is in progress? Is it as simple as "these guys are smart" in both cases? I've met lots of guys way smarter than me with less motivation, so there's got to be more to it.

Though it occurs to me now this may be just the thing PG and friends can't share with us. It's to their benefit to make expectations for a great application very clear.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are a handful of red flags and heuristics that they emphatically won't share, simply because they're effective filters. Their disclosure could let people better obscure true problems or falsely inflate perceived value. Reviewing applications after that would be a lot less fun.

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