Is Y Combinator worth the money? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#81

Post by acecreamu » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:26 PM UTC

rhtgrg wrote: post #49

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…

YC will absolutely coddle you if you manage to become one of their “darling” startups, just like any other incubator or VC firm. That’s the type of thing that you have to earn, and if you earn it you don’t need it.

That's totally true, we also heard that the attitude is dramatically different if you're in the top of the batch.

Unfortunately, long-term performance is proven to not correlate well with performance during the batch, and YC are transparent about it. So I wouldn't recommend over-stressing it.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#82

Post by rexreed » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:28 PM UTC

silverlake wrote: post #5

I always thought the primary benefit of YC was the brand. It's like an Ivy League school for startups. The article suggested it didn't help much. Perhaps going too big has diluted the YC brand?

I actually like the YC as Ivy League school comparison - it has many parallels. Highly selective, has a set regimen ("world view"), has a somewhat high cost of entry ($500k for 7%, not bad tho), and has a fairly exclusive clique that provides value by association that's difficult for outsiders.

Given that, is it harder to get into Harvard or YC based on admission numbers?

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#83

Post by acecreamu » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

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

Is there anything you can't do on your own? Like finding email and writing? Mentioning that you're from YC in the beginning adds less to the conversion than the actual message you're conveying, imo.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#84

Post by rexreed » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

cl42 wrote: post #37

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…

When you recommend YC, how do you help the people you recommend actually get in to the YC program?

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#85

Post by yawboakye » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#86

Post by acecreamu » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

ngiyabonga wrote: post #26

I find these two concepts [1, 2] at odds with each other. Not a critique on the author - on the contrary, empathy: I felt the same when applying to YC (did not make a batch). On one hand, the general impression you get when preparing for your application (via FAQs, Startup School, YC videos, etc) is very much in line with [1] - YC is looking for _very_ early stage. But once you go through the actual application you f…

You're right, it feels contradictive.

On the defense of YC, I would say, they aim to make you think in terms of metrics and $ from day 1, perhaps?

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#87

Post by abe94 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

ychnthrowaway24 wrote: post #80

I did YC also remote, though a bit earlier than the article's author. The part that stood out to me was > 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 tim…

The founder psychology bit was key for us as well. You may not like hearing what you need to hear. Hiring before product market fit, increases the chance of death

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#88

Post by acecreamu » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

cl42 wrote: post #37

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…

As a YC founder, never received a single reply to a couple of emails sent to Garry Tan ;(

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#89

Post by ychnthrowaway24 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

acecreamu wrote: post #2

Happy to honestly answer any brutal questions you have!

What led you to shut down and not continue and pivot?

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#90

Post by rsp1984 » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

Their logic can be understood: make a good product, and the rest will catch up. But in real life marketing and hype really matters, and when everyone does these things while you naively sit and code, they get an advantage in the market, and you get your cool product.

I sometimes get the feeling, also by watching their public content on YT, that a lot of YC advice, especially w.r.t. what to prioritize, is from an era of startups about 10-15 years ago.

Back then there were about 10x fewer SaaS startups (maybe that's a conservative estimate) and if you had a decent product that solved a problem for your customers and you were just plugging away at it, that was enough to get noticed and grow.

Nowadays every worthwhile niche seems to have 10-15 companies in it in no time, all of them doing more or less the same thing. Even if your company differentiates in a very special and useful way, getting that across to your potential customers is a totally different game now. You basically need 1-2 full time staff doing nothing but content creation and social media outreach marketing. Also locking in (micro-) influencers in your niche is key. Once they start promoting your competitors it's game over.

From the content that I see publicly on YT etc. it seems to me that YC thinks such things are basically a waste of time. And back in the late 2000s and early 2010s that was largely true. If you are targeting a narrow hyper-niche it is probably still true, however it's just not the reality for 99% of today's startups, even YC ones.