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A New Standard Deal

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: A New Standard Deal

#51

Post by pb7 »

tanilama wrote: post #32
headcanon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cost of living is so high, I wonder why they wouldn't invest in a dorm-like living space for founders? I'm not familiar with the area, so I imagine there's reasons for it, but being able to focus on work instead of life-maintenance details seems like it would benefit the organization.

Maybe because the plan is to ditch Bay Area in the future? Why would people come to a specific place to found an internet company?

To be among likeminded people to use as a network for social and business purposes for one. You're more likely to feel at home and happy if you are surrounded by people going through similar challenges as you. I'm sure there are other reasons.

Re: A New Standard Deal

#52

Post by monadic2 »

tlb wrote: post #13
headcanon wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cost of living is so high, I wonder why they wouldn't invest in a dorm-like living space for founders? I'm not familiar with the area, so I imagine there's reasons for it, but being able to focus on work instead of life-maintenance details seems like it would benefit the organization.

(a) It's not clear why YC could run an apartment complex better or cheaper than the many companies who already do it (including some YC-funded startups like https://zeusliving.com ) (b) Founders tend to be independent-minded people who like to do things their own way.

YC doesn’t need to be in a high-demand place at all, especially so long before you need to ramp up hiring.

Re: A New Standard Deal

#53

Post by monadic2 »

ska wrote: post #37
Chris2048 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> better or cheaper than the many companies why would existing companies be offering cheaper? The price will be set by the market, and any saving will be taken as profit, not passed on to the tenants. The easiest way to insure against rent increase is buy a big chunk of local land. Actually offering it to your own startups just means they reduce overheads a little, provide an extra perk, and a small competitive advan…

What is the opportunity cost of that land investment? Is YC really better off getting into the landlord business rather than using the same money to fund more companies?

I mean the money is going to landlords either way is it not?

Re: A New Standard Deal

#54

Post by vmception »

cannaceo wrote: post #46
vmception wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rents dropped 9% but landlords are also offering 8 weeks free Which really means an annual lease has dropped 25% quite steep, you could probably offer something closer to 38% lower.

It’s unrealistic to project those incentives in to future years

It’s realistic to use them as market signals for actual price discovery in the current year

Re: A New Standard Deal

#55

Post by TheCoelacanth »

Naac wrote: post #38
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100K won't buy enough professional services to build, launch, and operate an MVP unless the app is very simple. If it's simple enough that anyone can drop $50K-100K on design services and have your business cloned, it's not a very defensible startup idea. There are occasional exceptions, but typically the founding team must have the majority talent and skills required to launch the MVP.

That doesn't seem right. In what timeframe? By looking at plenty of the "Show HN:" posts we can see many examples of more than just "simple" services that were made on a much smaller ( or $0 ) budget.

"Show HN" posts are usually the result of people doing free labor, not the result of people hiring out tasks to an agency.

Re: A New Standard Deal

#57

Post by katm »

joshpadnick wrote: post #40
alehul wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, why would you be interested in YC? What would it offer you? It seems disappointing that YC's value is no longer qualitatively good advice for early-stage founders and a close-knit community of hackers. Maybe I'm just jaded, but it appears increasingly corporatized every year. Sometimes it feels like YC might as well be a certificate — just a stamp of approval that provides access to a network of investo…

> In this case, why would you be interested in YC? What would it offer you? It's a fair point. The irony is that because our startup is doing well, we'd rather spend our time talking to customers and building the product than pitching to investors. Maybe what we're really looking for is a next-gen take on capital that would look something like this: * Minimal time needed by us to reach a decision on whether they'd li…

Those all sound like reasons to apply to YC. :) We've funded a good number of companies at this point that were farther along when they applied and had millions in revenue (MessageBird, for example, who was just on HN a couple days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624854). I recommend reaching out to some of those alum and talking to them about their experience.

Re: A New Standard Deal

#58

Post by _jal »

saagarjha wrote: post #56
_jal wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many women have obvious, easily predicable concerns about sharing living space with unknown men.

Surely you could set up the spaces so that this could be much less of an issue?

Sure. Those are called "apartments".

Re: A New Standard Deal

#60

Post by edhallen »

joshpadnick wrote: post #40
alehul wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, why would you be interested in YC? What would it offer you? It seems disappointing that YC's value is no longer qualitatively good advice for early-stage founders and a close-knit community of hackers. Maybe I'm just jaded, but it appears increasingly corporatized every year. Sometimes it feels like YC might as well be a certificate — just a stamp of approval that provides access to a network of investo…

> In this case, why would you be interested in YC? What would it offer you? It's a fair point. The irony is that because our startup is doing well, we'd rather spend our time talking to customers and building the product than pitching to investors. Maybe what we're really looking for is a next-gen take on capital that would look something like this: * Minimal time needed by us to reach a decision on whether they'd li…

I co-founded a company that found itself with a similar set of criteria for what we wanted. For us, VC worked out well. We weren't the typical company they saw, but going in with a very clear set of things we wanted from a partner was very helpful. Ultimately, they were high value add when relevant but otherwise let us focus on growing the business.

My guess is it comes down to the right VC/Partner and finding mutually agreeable terms.

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