Earlier quoted context omitted.
We should have Glassdoor but for investors.
They will buy it.
Sounds like we should still do it to make a profit from toxic angel investors ;)
Is Y Combinator worth it?
61–70 of 140 posts
Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an engineer I would love to work for a company that makes money and pays me from that money.
Curious, why does it matter if your paycheck comes from VC money or revenue money? In the end the same amount comes to your bank account.
It may matter if you'd rather not look for another job in a year or two when the VC money runs out.
Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an engineer I would love to work for a company that makes money and pays me from that money.
Curious, why does it matter if your paycheck comes from VC money or revenue money? In the end the same amount comes to your bank account.
VC money dries up. Revenue money is self sustaining. From a job stability standpoint, the latter is much more appealing.
Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#64YC is a fantastic shortcut to the Bay Area market. They protect you from abusive investors, attract talent and entice new customers. Farther you are from the Bay Area, less helpful they are though. Even in the Bay you can do it all by yourself, but it's much more complicated route filled with negative experiences. At least that's my experience. The way we were treated by highly celebrated investors was hard to swallo…
"abusive investors" -> Tell me more about them.
I believe this was meant as a sarcasm, but in a chance that it wasn't here are some extreme cases (these are all different investors):
- they asked me to pay for attendance in their seminar that will teach me how to raise money before they consider investing
- I got stood up for a meeting with no word from the person. He followed up two weeks later that they are not interested. 3 years later we met at an event thrown by one of our investors and this person, after listening to me talking about the company, approached me for an investment opportunity
- I got introduced to a guy that never responded. I got reintroduced to him 4 times! on his own request, but he never replied. When we finally closed our first round he sent a note to our lead investor that he is very interested to be introduced to the company. Guess what. We never heard from him
- I was "forced" to explain our technology in an extreme detail (we use proprietary algorithms) after which I was told that this doesn't make any sense because he knows better and I'm wrong. I wrote the code
- I was asked to fly in for a meeting to NYC which should've been a final handshake after weeks of talking. They said that without meeting in person they can't close the deal. As I was sitting in their lobby, an assistant explained to me that he is busy today, lets reschedule for a date two weeks out
- a fund spent 9 months on due diligence, covering every single cranny and nook of the company. Gave us a term sheet, pushed for a closing and then refused to sign their own papers. We owed hundreds of thousands in legal fees and almost closed the shop. I wrote about it a bit here [0]
This is just a selection of them. There were many more. This was the time it was suggested to me to apply for YC to get better treatment. Unfortunately YC passed and I never tried again.
Things changed quite significantly when we turned profit and started generating tens of millions of dollars [1]. But the path was quite painful.
[0] https://turek.co/2017/12/from-near-bankruptcy-to-profitabili...
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/synopsi/status/120772243209145548...
Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ever been threatened with a lawsuit by an Angel with full time counsel at their disposal because you haven’t hit revenue targets in year one? Ever had that investor write up a pedantic missive about your startup to mock their own investment? Hostile investors are real and awful. Shielding startups from toxic money is a thing.
We should have Glassdoor but for investors.
Here you go: https://www.vcguide.co
Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ever been threatened with a lawsuit by an Angel with full time counsel at their disposal because you haven’t hit revenue targets in year one? Ever had that investor write up a pedantic missive about your startup to mock their own investment? Hostile investors are real and awful. Shielding startups from toxic money is a thing.
We should have Glassdoor but for investors.
[deleted]
Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess is that lots of the no-status ones there are chugging along just fine. No exit, no death. I'm part of Tovala (W16) and in our case, no-status means still in business. I can confirm that's the case for a handful of others too. In our case, YC was super valuable. We've never been more focused than when going through the program. They make available so many resources you're desperate to grow and try things so y…
At some point “chugging along” rounds down to “failure” for employees with equity compensation. Particularly at 10 years when it expires.
Who would consider building a successful and stable business a failure? Surely not the people that helped build it.
Isn't early employee equity compensation more a case of "if the founders make a lot of money from this, I deserve a fraction of that too" rather than being an IOU in place of compensation?
Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#68Let's compare seed valuations & dilutions of : a YC company vs Non YC Company
YC : takes 7% for 125K and then let's say you raise $1m at $12m post money. Total diluted 15%.
Non YC : If you want to raise $1m for same 15% dilution - your post money would be $6.5m.
So these are pure numbers[1]
With YC, I guess Founders' gain a network, bay area connections etc
[1] : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kxOBF0CPhcktmgFvAZtY...
Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#69Re: Is Y Combinator worth it?
#70IMHO not worth it. Moving to CA kills it for me, if it has more small centers like other incubators I might give it a try locally. $125K for 7% is a lot, for companies think that's a good deal, normally means that company has limited chance to succeed in the first place. Still the location requirement is the one many can't afford,especially those who got married and/or have kids, had industrial experience and probabl…
>$125K for 7% is a lot, for companies think that's a good deal, normally means that company has limited chance to succeed in the first place. Or they believe that the YC brand will raise their value more than 7% which is quiet possible.
100k$ or 135k$ is for me a nice cash: It gives you freedom to be 130% of your time for the project and have a budget for other things.
Looks good to me .