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What Happens At Y Combinator

ycombinator.com

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Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#121

Post by barry-cotter »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #119

If we broadcast or even recorded the talks, the speakers would clam up. How about anonymizing it by removing the names of the startups/founders before publishing ?

It took less than an hour for someone to figure out the Partner and Venture Firm Steve Blank was referring to in his post that was approximately called "You're Just the Founder". Now admittedly he tagged the post with the name of the company so it was easier, but still.

Anonymising information while leaving it usable is hard to the point of (near?)impossibility

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#122

Post by barry-cotter »

pclark wrote: post #114

> Dinner itself happens around 7:15. Everyone eats together at long white tables designed by our architect Kate Courteau. The general atmos is like a modernist version of an Oxford college dining hall, but without a high table seriously?

[1] There was some debate whether to keep this analogy, lest it seem a pretentious comparison, but I kept it after Harj, who went to college there, insisted the atmos was in fact very similar.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#123

Post by HectorRamos »

pg wrote: post #84
dzlobin wrote: post #60

If the startup either hasn't decided what to work on Approximately what percentage of startups do you accept that apply with no particular idea?

Nearly all have some idea or ideas. Some make it clear that they're not wedded to their idea, which is fine with us, actually.

I've been eyeing YC for a while and this post has convinced me to apply.

I quit my job three months ago and have been doing consulting work in order to generate enough runway to finally dedicate ourselves fully to our own product.

I think we will be done with all of our current gigs by november, so the Winter YC cycle looks VERY attractive right now. We have a couple of ideas, and it seems like we might have enough time to get started on them before YC, but still be flexible enough when the cycle starts.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#124

Post by pg »

edanm wrote: post #110

Great article, thanks a lot for posting this. I do have one question: is the goal of all the companies to raise addition funding rounds? Or, do some startups still want to work without raising the extra capital, but rather grow organically (37 signals style). I guess another way to ask is: do you force (or even strongly expect) companies to get extra funding on demo day, do you let them choose (and they always choose…

No, not all of them. Some are already profitable when they apply, and a few more make it to profitability just on what we give them. But the distinction is not a sharp one: most of the profitable companies would take money on sufficiently good terms.

Though I don't mention this explicitly in the article, Demo Day isn't just for raising money. It's a good way to get mindshare too, because the people in the audience are so influential. So even the startups for whom raising money is not a top priority usually try hard to be impressive on DDay.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#125

Post by pg »

johnglasgow wrote: post #105
zzleeper wrote: post #38

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 chanc…

Paul was interviewed at CrunchUp this summer, and he briefly talked about what they have learned works and doesn't work. The video can be found on TechCrunch. - 2 founders is best - founders should have known each other for a while before starting the company - team is much more important then idea

2 or 3 founders is best.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#126

Post by pg »

adlep wrote: post #96

This may be too direct question to ask, but I will anyway to have some points of reference... 1. What do you - at YCombinator consider to be your best example of a successful start-up? If you can name that company, that would be awesome and appreciated. 2. On the other hand, what do you consider to be a flat out failure? An example of an idea that totally did not work? If you could name this venture, it would be appr…

I can't pick favorites, but it's pretty easy to see what the most prominent YC-funded startups are.

One good example of a bad idea that I can quote without hurting anyone's feelings is Artix: http://paulgraham.com/bronze.html

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#127

Post by pg »

rafaelc wrote: post #101

Are there any downsides to being in Y Combinator?

There are two I can think of: you have to move, and you have to give us some stock. But I'm pretty confident that in both cases what you get in return more than compensates.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#128

Post by ig1 »

stevefarnworth wrote: post #113
chris_l wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard about a startup that had to relocate to London after the YC 3 month phase and then wait a substantial time for the INS to work out their papers. That sounds like it could break a company?

Yes, I was wondering about the YC process as being involved in a London start-up, the dream is obviously to take it to YC and the Valley. Has anyone here on HN got into YC from London?

Snaptalent, Heyzap, Raportive, Songkick + a couple of others were from london. I think guys from most of those companies are on HN.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#129

Post by jon_dahl »

raminf wrote: post #52

I've always thought of YC as more of an incubator for young 20-somethings trying to get an idea off the ground. The impression has been fortified by the reported small amounts of 'seed' that is given out. I know a lot of people in older age brackets (30s-40s-50s) with a family and Silicon Valley mortgage who have great ideas and experience but wouldn't even consider approaching YC. My one suggestion is if you want to…

The other is to spell out clearly the policy of working on outside projects (to bring in some money) during the YC 3-month period. Leaving it ambiguous keeps out people who need a part-time gig to bring in some money but could spend the rest of their waking time working on a cool product.

I know people who work as consultants and make $10K-$25K in a month. To these people, the YC 'investment' is more of a deterrent. The main attraction would be to get wired into the network and tap into the experience YC and its alumni can offer. It would be good if you could clarify whether it makes sense for them to apply or not.

Pretty sure the official answer is that they wouldn't be interested in taking someone who could only work part-time. I'm sure there are edge cases here and there, and YC is all for creative ways to stay alive financially (AirBnB sold cereal to stay alive - http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/smallbusiness/1003/galle...), but the YC school of thought is that a startup should occupy 100% of your work-related effort.

Of course, plenty of us worked as consultants for $10K-$25K/month before YC (er, closer to $10K) in order to build up some savings to live on.

Re: What Happens At Y Combinator

#130

Post by skowmunk »

yoden wrote: post #67
robg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's mostly just not something typical YC applicants are interested... which is really weird, because health issues are going to be a huge concern in the western world for the next 50 years at least. Part of it may be that you need medical connections to do the much of the work. We work directly with a ton of different doctors/hospitals (for a team of only ~15 devs), and still have issues with building the ri…

That's true, the health care industry is a massive opportunity waiting to be tapped. Not just in the western world, even in the developing world, where the incidence of insurance is increasing.

Many developing countries have had none or next to nothing health insurance till recently. But the market penetration of the healthy insurance is increasing (but still very low now). Because of that more people who could not afford advanced diagnosis or treatments earlier are able to afford them now.

Imagine the potential size of the industry when 1 billion people in India and 1.4 people in China (not to mention a billion or more in other developing countries) can afford as good health care as the 300 million in US, the 450 million in Europe, etc

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