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Is Y Combinator worth the money?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#51

Post by sp332 »

chimineycricket wrote: post #41
itsoktocry wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bef…

You can't expect them to be oracles though, right? Even the most experienced can give not-good-enough business advice, they don't do it on purpose I imagine.

Sure, but the question in the thread is whether it's worth the money.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#52

Post by hungryforcodes »

itsoktocry wrote: post #36
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 bef…

Ah it could be if you learn from it-- which it sounds like they did. They would have learned mire imagine than if they had never had to make those choices and live with the consequences.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#53

Post by pcthrowaway »

acecreamu wrote: post #2

Happy to honestly answer any brutal questions you have!

Do you think YC would make sense for a company that doesn't intend to raise money beyond the YC investment?

I have an idea for a b2c product I want to build that has a few paths to revenue (and a possible b2b offshoot), as well as acquisition by FAANG (or FAANG-adjacent). Is there something about taking investment from YC that prevents me from turning around and selling it for $2M after building it out a bit more?

Alternately, as a solo founder, if I got to a point of $10K MRR I'd be happy to just keep doing what I'm doing, but I guess I'd have an obligation to continue trying to grow?

edit: to clarify, I'd be using the $125K 7% part of the investment without necessarily dipping into the additional $375K in this situation. But maybe I'm not understanding how the MFN provision works

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#55

Post by Eiriksmal »

_sentient wrote: post #34

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 o…

Even if you can't have personal connections with the founders of 80 companies in a batch, having hundreds of companies in each batch--twice a year!--is seriously diluting my own worked-for-a-YC-startup brand equity. "Oh, yeah, I met Jeremy at $EVENT" becomes a thing of the past when there are thousands of founders with tens of thousands of early-stage employees.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#56

Post by jjeaff »

itsoktocry wrote: post #36
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 bef…

No idea about whether bad actors would think twice, but if you are asking about whether having YC attached to your business opens doors, absolutely. I did a startup with a much less well-known incubator VC and that alone got us in so many doors compared to when you are trying talk with VCs on your own. Honestly, I think that is the one and only major benefit to doing an incubator. Unless you are just really green and need the support for things that maybe aren't on your radar like taxes and payroll and compliance, etc., the unknown unknowns.

There are a lot of businesses with a great deal of traction that do incubators because it simply opens a lot more doors for VC investment. You would be surprised how little due diligence many investors actually do. Many will just invest in whatever $respected_vc is investing in. Assuming that $respected_vc has already done the due diligence.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#57

Post by gus_massa »

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…

You can call it reputation management. They can provide access to good investors, because investor know they are not selling lemons.

For example, if YC has a strict rule about inflating the startup users only up to 20%, and then everyone will inflate them 20%-25% and investors will pay only the the 50% because they never know how much the number are inflated.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#58

Post by pertymcpert »

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…

> I was not allowed to meet people in large groups until April (after the batch).

I don't understand this. Why would they stop people talking to each other?

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#59

Post by seizethecheese »

> Now, with a 500k deal, the amount is more substantial, but in turn, its terms are not super funder-friendly. Imho, the previous 125k deal was better for the founders since once the company gets accepted to YC it can raise easily a lot more money and on better terms.

Wait, the additional $375k is an uncapped SAFE. How could a company “easily raise at better terms”?

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#60

Post by notahacker »

Most surprising quote to me was this: If you have some kind of b2c or Enterprise business, all you will get is a knowledge exchange with homies. YC does not have any industrial partners, and YC partners themselves will not do external intros since this is a big part of other accelerators' pitch. Obviously YC can't compete with vertical-focused accelerators for depth of industry knowledge and day-to-day access to corporate sponsors, but knowing when and who and how to approach is one of the biggest challenges for an early stage startup and one where I'd assume YC's network was big enough to add value (beyond a list of companies to send cold emails to indiscriminately)
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