Anyone have similar insights about Entrepreneur First? Btw I still don't understand if during the program they you a salary anyway or only if they end up taking a stake in your company.
Is Y Combinator worth the money?
121–130 of 349 posts
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#122Their 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…
Super interesting.
Do you have an example in mind where a startup excels through marketing in a crowded niche with the mentioned 10-15 startups?
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#123Interesting article!
>"Remember: accelerators and their help are temporary but the equity you give away forever"
True!
But the other side of that argument ("The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." - Niels Bohr) -- is that some entrepreneurial endeavors require the assistance of multiple specialized parties without whose help the entrepreneurial endeavor will not succed, and:
Owning only part of a business venture that is successful -- might very well be more valuable -- than owning all of a business venture that is unsuccessful...
In other words, a founder who accepts capital for equity (AKA "Debt") in whatever form -- is paying a percentage of future rewards for a better chance at initial success, and faster growth once that initial success has been achieved...
Now, the counter-counter argument to the one I make above, which is applicable to myself, which is applicable to a few other founders, is that we don't want to give away any equity in our future companies -- thus our trade-off is one of guaranteed or near-guaranteed (or at least easier) potential early success and faster growth curves (what we give up) -- in exchange for doing things the hard way, doing things the old-fashioned way, doing things the debt-free way -- at the expense of time (and watching many other people who took other people's money be more successful in the short and mid-term) -- but NOT at the expense of education -- a real and practical business education that could not be had at most universities, at most institutions of higher learning, even in their MBA programs...
So which of these two approaches is right?
Well, I don't think either one of them is wrong -- it all depends on the individual or individuals involved and their personal preferences, goals and values...
The only one differentiator between the two, perhaps, could happen many years in the future -- a company which has sold too much of its equity could become the subject of a hostile takeover...
A single founder who has never given so much as a single percent of equity -- will have his company taken from him over "his (proverbially) dead body"...
That differentiator is ownership -- true ownership -- of a company...
Still, there is value in "team lifts", and putting together teams to accomplish what single founders cannot accomplish alone...
Related: Joel Spolsky, "Foreword to 'Eric Sink on the Business of Software'": https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/04/07/foreword-to-8220er...
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's the opposite! Only the good hype-makers and storytellers get early access to investors before demo day. If you're a good huckster, no one finds out about your stats. Even though... YC tells people to be dry and boring and focus on stats. That's his complaint.
Exactly, a rational facts-driven investor is a myth
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a YC founder, never received a single reply to a couple of emails sent to Garry Tan ;(
Did you expect YC status was going to get you a direct channel to one of the busiest people affiliated with YC?
I replied to a comment which stated exactly that, and my point that it's false.
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#126Anyone have similar insights about Entrepreneur First? Btw I still don't understand if during the program they you a salary anyway or only if they end up taking a stake in your company.
In fact I (OP) have, we went through EF before YC.
They do give you a stipend regardless whether you make it to the second stage (investment)
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you expect YC status was going to get you a direct channel to one of the busiest people affiliated with YC?
I replied to a comment which stated exactly that, and my point that it's false.
Yeah, I'm just asking if that was your actual expectation going into the program.
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#128I 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?
Purely based on numbers YC is more selective ;)
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#129Earlier 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…
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.
Only if what you learned is better than what you would have learned without that advice.
Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?
#130I 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…
[deleted]