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This is even better now that YC is back in person. I think W22 batch was the last remote batch
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> 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…
> Sometimes their advice is right, and sometimes it's wrong? That doesn't sound particularly valuable. This is true of literally every source of advice you'll ever encounter. It's not that the advice is right or wrong in an absolute sense, it's that how good the advice is depends on the context of it. So you always have to evaluate the advice according to your own circumstances. Some of it will be appropriate to you…
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I guess both perspectives seem completely rational to me. Why shouldn’t Ycombinator care most about viability and why shouldn’t startups care most about vision? Each side needs to cater to the other a bit but ultimately this is just the difference between funders and builders.
When a woman is pregnant, the fetus tries to grow as large as possible, while to womb/woman works to restrict growth. Too much of either is not good, so perhaps the same is true here.
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>>Some of the advice I did not take and did the opposite and it was the right decision. // FWIW that does not mean the advice was wrong. Trivial example: "head East, there's a great bakery there", "I went West and found a place for a lovely lunch". Unless the parent elucidates (and maybe even then) you can't tell if the advice was right or wrong.
Then why do you need the VC
And that's all any advice is - "based on what I've experienced before, here's what I see". You never should take advice unevaluated, but it's additional data that might help you to come to a better decision.
If that additional data is worth enough to you is a separate question, but there's certainly value there.
As the other ones in this thread have mentionned, YC is what you make out of it. For the fundraising alone, it allowed me to raise - a non US solo founder - at very comfortable terms and on the financial aspect alone it would have been worth it. But most importantly, the hardest part to start a company in my opinion is to keep being motivated.
I was under the impression that surely a successful startup wouldn't have to go to any struggle and that founders were a special - genius-like - kind of breed. Being in YC opened my eyes:
- everyone struggle, relax and keep working
- the great people of this world are smart, but not crazy smart. They are crazy pragmatic, and crazy motivated, which you can be TOO
- YC founders are nice people, and they make for great friends to keep. Those people are the only one that will understand truly what you're going through.
YC was a transformational experience for me and I would recommend it to all.
EDIT: To give a more balanced view, YC was also stressful, and the expectations were the same, solo founder or not. Be prepared for an intense ride.
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…
The review has four stars for fundraising. So it's not like they don't address that.
However I don't understand "1.2. Network of clients/partners". I wonder why YC is expected to provide that. And for the Money one, that's common knowledge and only makes sense if you don't get a lot of value out of it.
The most concerning one to me is that Networking isn't 5 stars and I would like to hear reviews from others because I suspect it might still deserve that.
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…
This attitude may have something to do with the skepticism we low-quality people out in the regular world may harbor for the Silicon Valley startup sphere
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…
How can one do an all-remote batch ??
S22, solo founder, open-source infra + internal tools (windmill.dev). As the other ones in this thread have mentionned, YC is what you make out of it. For the fundraising alone, it allowed me to raise - a non US solo founder - at very comfortable terms and on the financial aspect alone it would have been worth it. But most importantly, the hardest part to start a company in my opinion is to keep being motivated. I wa…
These things are really important, just that in comparison I saw alternatives which can help with it better (being in a small in-person group, for example)
> In their picture of the world, you, the founders, should only build a product and talk to customers, everything else is superfluous and waste of time. Hiring is waste of time, paid advertising is waste of time, content is waste of time, talking to investors is waste of time, getting media coverage is waste of time.
I talked to many other founders who also disliked this view (only talk to customers and build), and they all tended to be the worse founders in the batch - a large part of the value add yc provides imo is acting as coach/therapist and pushing back against founder pschology/thinking traps. The view that many things founders want to do early is a waste of time is correct and works, and hearing that can be jarring for many.