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Is Y Combinator worth the money?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#31

Post by danenania »

aatd86 wrote: post #10
dtagames wrote: post #3

Interesting quote: Even when it came to fundraising, all the YC’s advice came down not to how to raise smarter and more, but to the fact that everyone needs to follow their simple framework, not try to shine too much, not try to choose the right words, wash off all the makeup, put on a gray uniform, and present dry facts—how much money customers already paid you, what the size of the market, if you count all the unit…

Or maybe they have learnt that investors due-diligence is about the hard facts and not sentiment? Not everyone is a good story-teller either so to avoid the confounding charm factor, just be as boring and straight to the point as possible? Which should also keep every startup of their batches on equal footing and hopefully mitigate the hype factor? Not defending them, just me brainstorming about what could be plausib…

I think the rationale here is "be so good they can't ignore you". While advanced fundraising skills could potentially help someone to raise without first making a great product that people demonstrably want, nailing product and early growth sufficiently well makes fundraising achievable even for founders who are notably lacking in the charm and storytelling departments.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#33

Post by dkuntz2 »

So much of this seems to just be a misunderstanding of how venture capital works. Like, yes, obviously they want your pitch to minimize flashy and showy and maximize real numbers like customer count, average spend, and market size.

I may have a low opinion of venture capitalists but at the end of the day they're not complete idiots. They're operating with a known framework, they're trying to maximize their own returns, and the only way to know if that will happen is to know hard numbers (like how many customers you have, how much money you have in the bank, how quickly you spend money), all the hype and sales charisma is not going to help you, and if that's your entire presentation to investors they're going to tell _other_ investors not to waste their time talking to you.

The reason you're getting advice to minimize hype and showmanship and maximize hard numbers is because when you get into those investor meetings they're going to cut off hype and showmanship and ask you to just tell them the numbers. This isn't some "make life easier for YC and make every startup fit into a box" thing, it's just how investor pitches work.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#34

Post by _sentient »

I wonder how much of this is a function of the W22 batch being remote.

We all know the benefits: The fundraising pop is great, the brand patina helps you hire better talent than you would otherwise, the advice can be useful, especially for first-time founders, you can sell into the YC network, etc. All of this pales, IMO, to the value of the personal connections you make in the program. It sounds like OP, by virtue of being 8,400 miles away, missed out on that.

I went through YC in S14, and I found the in-person experience to be invaluable. There were 80 companies at the time, so we had somewhere around ~200 founders in our batch. Even at that scale, you're not going to get to know everyone, and I found myself gravitating toward a smaller group of people who I connected with personally.

I'm not going to lie, YC was stressful. You're dropped in amongst bunch of smart and accomplished people who are sprinting as fast as possible toward the all-consuming Demo Day. It's a bit of a pressure cooker, but that's not unintentional. Those shared experiences formed the substrate of some amazing, life-long friendships.

I have 15+ close friends who went through S14. We talk every day. We've been in each other's weddings. We've watched each other have kids, shut down companies, start new ones, get acquired for enormous amounts of money, and everything in between. It's been incredible watching their trajectories over the last 9 years. Some are C-level execs at public companies, some are tier 1 VCs, a couple are billionaires, some are homesteaders and amazing parents. All of them are solid, kind, high-quality people, the likes of which you are unlikely to meet in the regular world.

I think you lose much of that in the remote-only format. If I were to go through a remote-only accelerator located in Singapore, I imagine I would make few meaningful personal connections. Like it or not, Zoom is a pretty thin facsimile of real human interaction.

My life's trajectory is meaningfully better for the friendships I made in S14, and I expect that trend to keep compounding over the next 30 years. If you missed that benefit, you missed much of what makes YC special.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#35

Post by mikrl »

mbesto wrote: post #16

YC doesn't scale for students. In fact, no accelerator does (500startups has ~3k investments as well). Accelerators are about relationships, signalling, prestige, advisory, networking, etc. The success is asymmetric, because YC is a numbers game - the more bets they make, the higher likelihood they are to succeed. Many of the negative criticisms here have to do with the fact that there are 4k companies that have gone…

>Accelerators are about relationships, signalling, prestige, advisory, networking

Interesting to see this after reading the ‘nice vs competent’ threads because everything you mentioned is a soft skill, and correlated with EQ/SQ, niceness and playing of the game.

I guess it’s a reminder that there is no objective superior strategy of being nice vs being competent because the game is too complex for that. It’s strategically applying both to increase your own survivability and if you’re so inclined, that of your company too.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#36

Post by itsoktocry »

hassy wrote: post #25

Did YC S21 which was an all remote batch. my 2c. YC is 100% what you make of it. It's not a lean back experience. I did not meet most of the companies in my batch but I've gotten to know many founders through YC that I would not have otherwise. Founders that have been source of advice and support. Network of clients - yep don't go into YC expecting to sell to other YC cos. It is easier to get warm intros through the…

>Some of the advice I did not take and did the opposite and it was the right decision. And some advice that I did not take was exactly right, but I only saw it in retrospect months later.

Sometimes their advice is right, and sometimes it's wrong? That doesn't sound particularly valuable.

>Fundraising - being a YC company definitely opens doors, and also helps protects you from bad actors who have to think twice before fucking with a YC co. Very valuable for any first-time founder.

I'd love to see this substantiated.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#37

Post by cl42 »

I went through YC in S12 and have been investing in YC companies + active on Bookface and YC’s founder matching program. I recommend YC to almost everyone I meet and plan to apply again when/if I am working on a new product company.

We’re all adults and we all have agency. Every community is a function of how much you put into it; how much you invest in getting to know others.

It feels like the author expected YC to do all the work of community engagement for him. That’s 100% not what YC is about. Folks like Michael Seibel, Garry Tan, and other partners all respond to emails + engage as much (or as little) as you ask them to.

It's unfortunate the author had an experience that wasn't ideal, but I'd be wary of saying this is representative.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#38

Post by bell-cot »

hassy wrote: post #25

Did YC S21 which was an all remote batch. my 2c. YC is 100% what you make of it. It's not a lean back experience. I did not meet most of the companies in my batch but I've gotten to know many founders through YC that I would not have otherwise. Founders that have been source of advice and support. Network of clients - yep don't go into YC expecting to sell to other YC cos. It is easier to get warm intros through the…

> YC is 100% what you make of it. It's not a lean back experience.

THIS. Running (or even being the lowliest employee of) a maybe-not-yet-viable new & hopefully-fast-growing company is so, SO what you make of it.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#40

Post by itsoktocry »

ahstilde wrote: post #17

I did YC in W21 in NYC. I was not allowed to meet people in large groups until April (after the batch). I disagree with each and every one of these ratings and conclusions. Firstly, the comparison should be "Is the alternative to YC worth it?" For many companies, the alternative is raising nothing and bootstrapping, or raising at significantly lower valuations. Additionally, I believe founders approach YC the wrong w…

>They are there to give you access to hundreds of exceptional founders

Define "exceptional"? Is that major exits above a certain valuation? YC has hundreds of these?

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