What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
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What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
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Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#2> Experience is only loosely correlated with age
It’s very important to remember that just as youth is not necessarily a disadvantage, so too is being older than the average anything to worry about.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#3>> No one knows the right answer
Hmmmm. Be careful about this. Lots of people do know the right answer.
Youth energy and enthusiasm count for a lot, especially backin the earliest days of computing like when bill gates got started. That was because adults knew very little.
> Experience is only loosely correlated with age
These days age and experience count for a lot. Lots of older people have incredibly valuable answers to common challenges in competing and business.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#4> ...we realized we needed to build a services business more than a technology business and that's not what we set out to do...
Welcome to one of the cold, hard realities of forming a company and selling something. If you don't make something that someone wants to buy, you won't succeed. And that something needs to be more than just a shiny or useful object. (Those are commodities and can be replaced -- it's your service which'll set you apart and make you worth paying.)
Even if tech is your primary focus, that needs to be bundled up in some sort of package that makes it worth paying for.
Doubly (or more) so if you are going to have actual customers and aren't going through the startup process in the hopes that some other company buys you out.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#5>> No one knows the right answer Hmmmm. Be careful about this. Lots of people do know the right answer. Youth energy and enthusiasm count for a lot, especially backin the earliest days of computing like when bill gates got started. That was because adults knew very little. > Experience is only loosely correlated with age These days age and experience count for a lot. Lots of older people have incredibly valuable answ…
The container revolution that I witnessed made half of my co workers obsolete quicker than you can say JDBC ORACLE EAT MY SHORTS
EAT MY SHORTS OBSOLETE DOUBLY
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#6> East Coast VCs are much more conservative, which is ultimately bad because it results in less moonshots succeeding.
This is really accurate, at least from my experience as someone of a similar age working on my first startup at the time.
With cold outreach to VCs in NYC I had zero responses, and only two meetings with BigCos curious about us; they seemed easier to get the attention of.
When I reached out to investors on the west coast it was entirely different. I still remember getting my first reply. It was a rejection, but a super-detailed one from Topher Conway of SV Angel that stuck with me. Despite it being a cold email, he offered up a lot of points that helped me adapt my strategy and address what investors may be concerned about.
I was a kid with anxiety and never replied back to that rejection email (pains me to this day), but I have so much appreciation for people like that, who are aplenty in the Bay Area.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#7> East Coast VCs are much more conservative, which is ultimately bad because it results in less moonshots succeeding. This is really accurate, at least from my experience as someone of a similar age working on my first startup at the time. With cold outreach to VCs in NYC I had zero responses, and only two meetings with BigCos curious about us; they seemed easier to get the attention of. When I reached out to investo…
Reply to his email now?
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#8It may be true that you don't need to have worked in a white shoe firm to be respected in SV, but I'm pretty sure there's certain characteristics that are advantageous:
- Got into a top university. Good grades are popular, unsurprisingly. A proxy for intelligence and hard work.
- Speaks English. How many YC folks don't? I'm sure there are a lot of smart people in the world who just didn't grow up with English and so are somewhat cut off from SV. Not insurmountable though.
- High EQ. Helps smooth interactions with just about everyone, including investors and employees.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#9> East Coast VCs are much more conservative, which is ultimately bad because it results in less moonshots succeeding. This is really accurate, at least from my experience as someone of a similar age working on my first startup at the time. With cold outreach to VCs in NYC I had zero responses, and only two meetings with BigCos curious about us; they seemed easier to get the attention of. When I reached out to investo…
Reply to his email now?
I lost the domain of the email address a while back so I can’t even see it anymore... Will try to guess his email address to send a thank-you later today; better late than never even if very late?
One of those funny situations of “ah, yes, now with my own domain Gmail can never take my email away from me!” but then my payment failing and my domain going to auction before I notice.
Re: What I Learned Going Through YC as a 17 Year Old
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reply to his email now?
I lost the domain of the email address a while back so I can’t even see it anymore... Will try to guess his email address to send a thank-you later today; better late than never even if very late? One of those funny situations of “ah, yes, now with my own domain Gmail can never take my email away from me!” but then my payment failing and my domain going to auction before I notice.
Yuk! Domains suck in that regard.