don't give up!
My Y Combinator interview.
51–60 of 114 posts
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will, but it's very disheartening, sadly...
> I got an email from Paul Graham saying basically that being a single founder put me at a disadvantage, because two founders can talk each other out of bad ideas, but I appeared too stubborn. This applies equally for being talked out of good ideas. And if your idea is good to start with, then there would be no point in changing it until you've pursued it long enough to see where it leads. The thing to remember about…
Two parts that seem incorrect:
1) YC has one company with very high potential of a billion dollar exit in Dropbox. An IPO in a few years isn't out of the question either. They also have at least a half dozen that are likely to be as big or bigger than Viaweb:
2) Google took seed funding early and then raised VC. That is the model YC uses.
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#53It's great that you are going forward with your idea.
From a user point of view of your application, my main concern would be privacy, how do you address this?
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#54I would see this as a win for you :)
Being invited is a strong sign that you/your idea have merit. But instead of having to deal with funding/investors/other crap, you get to work on your idea, in a "remote area of Greece", be your own boss and grow the company how you want. I can very easily see this idea being modestly successful and giving you a lot of freedom to work on other ideas.
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see this is the Greek corner of the comments section, so I should also congratulate Stavros for going through the experience, and hopefully it altered his perception in ways that will help him in the future. Stavro, my offer still stands, if you're ever back in London, drop me a line and I'll buy you a beer.
Thank you, I think it has. I'll definitely be coming to London soon, so I'm not missing that beer :)
Looking forward to it. Good luck with everything.
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#56Have you considered applying to The Openfund ( http://theopenfund.com/ ) or HackFWD ( http://hackfwd.com/ )?
Or perhaps techstars.org too.
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#57I have to ask what benefits your idea offers over something like diigo.com or even delicious.com. You present the idea slightly differently from diigo, but in the end diigo does exactly the same things, and then some (a lot more actually). I don't mean to discourage you at all, I'm just wondering what I may be missing here.
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#58Have you considered applying to The Openfund ( http://theopenfund.com/ ) or HackFWD ( http://hackfwd.com/ )?
Or perhaps techstars.org too.
Yeah, too bad the application deadline for Techstars NY was closed couple of hours ago. I suggested Openfund because it's also based in Greece, but it's Pan European.
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will, but it's very disheartening, sadly...
> I got an email from Paul Graham saying basically that being a single founder put me at a disadvantage, because two founders can talk each other out of bad ideas, but I appeared too stubborn. This applies equally for being talked out of good ideas. And if your idea is good to start with, then there would be no point in changing it until you've pursued it long enough to see where it leads. The thing to remember about…
@Chesser: you should post this on a blog and submit as a link; I'd be very interested to see the debate that could go into some of the points you're making here.
Bravo for being contrarian, btw. It's quite refreshing to see some criticism for the YC model, good as I think it is.
Also, a counter point: it's pretty clear that regardless of startup quality, YC does provide tangible benefits to any and all startups that get accepted into its program. Demo day provides instant access to a bunch of high-profile investors, pg has the benefit of 10 years+ of startup pattern recognition, and YC companies get instant attention/Techcrunch coverage.
Plus, while it's difficult to quantify the amount of help YC gives startups vs startups being good outside of the program - we have to remember that YC isn't a school. And so the metric for quality of an investor is really their ability to see which startups are good, and which are not - which YC does, admirably.
Re: My Y Combinator interview.
#60Have you considered applying to The Openfund ( http://theopenfund.com/ ) or HackFWD ( http://hackfwd.com/ )?
If I recall correctly, the Open Fund doesn't take single founders.