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Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

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Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#71

Post by grendix »

rememberlenny wrote: post #39
docker_up wrote: post #7

I think the biggest difference between today and 20 years ago when I first go into Silicon Valley is that most founders are generally already planning their exit. There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc". And unfortunately this is a legitimate play because it leads to quick payouts so it motivates founders and VCs alike. It's a f…

> I just don't think I would get excited working for someone I know with that short term of a mentality. This. I was recently the first full-time hire at a seed funded company that was in the right place and the right time. They grew to 10 people over a few months, and I loved the people I was working with. Knowing that the founders had a 10-40x equity stake larger than mine made it nearly impossible to feel invested…

> Knowing that the founders had a 10-40x equity stake larger than mine made it nearly impossible to feel invested in the company.

Knowing that you don't have an equal stake in the company makes it almost impossible for the founders to view you as a peer. This is bad for everyone involved.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#72

Post by anonuser123456 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #49

I'm not an economist, but the SV economy (which has become a nontrivial chunk of the US economy) just doesn't seem like it can keep doing this forever. The driving ethos is to throw everything related to building a sustainable business out the window, in the interest of cashing-out as fast as possible. Slash-and-burn capitalism. That's not how you create jobs. That's not how you grow an economy. That's how a few peop…

Those few people only get rich by providing useful services at scale, and those useful services definitely cause the economy to grow.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#74

Post by lnsru »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #60
lnsru wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am currently analyzing how to launch robot affector business in Germany. With physical goods I must be present during sales pitch, video is not enough. It collides with my current corporate job, but it is doable. What kind of actuators do you sell?

I don't sell any. I just went back to school for Physics and am finishing up first course on EM. I'd like to simulate and build motors from scratch.

You need decent manufacturing capability for decent motors like these: https://www.siemens.com/press/en/feature/2015/corporate/2015...

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#75

Post by myth_buster »

docker_up wrote: post #7

I think the biggest difference between today and 20 years ago when I first go into Silicon Valley is that most founders are generally already planning their exit. There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc". And unfortunately this is a legitimate play because it leads to quick payouts so it motivates founders and VCs alike. It's a f…

> already targeting a $50M exit makes it less interesting to me [...] with that short term of a mentality.

$50M is short term or long term depends totally on the growth rate and while bootstrapping, that target could be a formidable challenge.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#76

Post by tptacek »

idlewords wrote: post #69
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working at startups since the mid-1990s and building-to-flip was as prevalent then as it is now. I'd say the much bigger change is that randos have a real shot at getting funded today, due to YC and the syndicated convertible debt round. It's hard to overstate how much more open the funding market is now than it was even 15 years ago.

Funny what happens when you have stupid amounts of institutional money pour into a sector for 15 years.

I think there was less money in the sector for the first 10 years or so of YC than there was during the dot-com era, so I don't know that it's true that the opening of funding markets to first-time founders is a consequence of too much VC funding.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#77

Post by hinkley »

reaperducer wrote: post #62
docker_up wrote: post #7

I think the biggest difference between today and 20 years ago when I first go into Silicon Valley is that most founders are generally already planning their exit. There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc". And unfortunately this is a legitimate play because it leads to quick payouts so it motivates founders and VCs alike. It's a f…

There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc" Yep. I worked with a startup that, after a few months, obviously had this as its primary motive. They made an app similar to another big-name (at the time) app, with the intent of having that bigger app buy them out. When the big fish didn't swallow their little fish they blew all of their…

I got 'stuck' at a similar place during the recession around '05. One of their projects was just demo-ware we were selling as finished product. When I wasn't on the project it wasn't so much my problem, but as time went on they consolidated all their work on that one, in part to improve their financial story for investors. So then I'm working on a slow trainwreck that I didn't get to set strategic direction on when the project was young and flexible. So many antipatterns repeated throughout that code. I learned to hate/fear caching on that project (ex: you can't cache a table scan, unless the entire table fits into memory, and then it's not a cache).

When we got bought the founders complained about how it wasn't enough to retire on. Aww, poor babies. We were too early (Apple introduced a similar product 6+ years after we started ours), so the payoff was only enough for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Except they immediately got condos downtown with unobstructed water views so I doubt that lasted very long.

I think you had the same problem we did. Potential investors take competition in a space as validation. Legitimate competition just solidifies that validation. The moment you folded, the screws got tightened on the other company. Either they didn't get any offers at all, or with terms that were terrible. Founders don't want to be treated the same way they treat their employees.

(This thing where companies get bought out and discontinue their flagship product is, in my mind, a failure mode. That's not success if you make things for a living. Somebody, not us, got rich, while we have a project on our resume that was a failure by our standards, but makes us more attractive to the next guy who wants to pump and dump a company. An attractive little cog for their big wheel. And maybe, just maybe, enough from shares or bonuses to get a loan on a new car)

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#78

Post by tptacek »

m_ke wrote: post #68
edouard-harris wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among many of YC's advantages, they do signal boost your company in a lot of important ways. But if you don't make something people want, no accelerator in the world will save your company from dying.

My statement was conditioned on getting into YC, which is really hard to do if your product sucks or has no traction. Even with a weak product you'll be in a much better position because you'll able to meet with a lot of other founders/potential customers and get valuable feedback.

Oh, I don't think that's true. From what I can see and what I've heard from friends that have been through YC, they take a lot of flyers. That's part of the point.

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#79

Post by [deleted] »

lozzo wrote: post #65
reaperducer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc" Yep. I worked with a startup that, after a few months, obviously had this as its primary motive. They made an app similar to another big-name (at the time) app, with the intent of having that bigger app buy them out. When the big fish didn't swallow their little fish they blew all of their…

It's hard to fully appreciate this story without you naming names. Any reason why not to ?

[deleted]

Re: Why I turned down my Y Combinator interview

#80

Post by reaperducer »

lozzo wrote: post #65
reaperducer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of startups whose mentality is "get big quick enough so that we can get bought out by Google/Facebook/Amazon/etc" Yep. I worked with a startup that, after a few months, obviously had this as its primary motive. They made an app similar to another big-name (at the time) app, with the intent of having that bigger app buy them out. When the big fish didn't swallow their little fish they blew all of their…

It's hard to fully appreciate this story without you naming names. Any reason why not to ?

Basic human tact. If I was mad at the company, I would probably overcome decorum and dish. But I wasn't an employee, just someone involved with the company.

I gave them data from my company, and they gave me things in return. Through a bunch of sales that database ended up being the core of a large mobile app that's a household name, but you'd never know it from the outside.

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