Is Y Combinator worth the money? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#211

Post by aflag » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #172

Dylan16807 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want to talk to people who have seen hundreds of companies deal with what you’re dealing? YC is great for that. The way I read your post, saying you "can get" very valuable advice immediately followed by saying some advice was wrong undermines that "can" pretty solidly. I'm not just looking at that sentence in isolation. Could we get an estimate of how much of the advice was right, weighted by how non-obvious each…

> The way I read your post, saying you "can get" very valuable advice immediately followed by saying some advice was wrong undermines that "can" pretty solidly. I disagree. Getting advice from subject matter experts is almost always of great value. The chances of that advice being on-target for you are never 100%, but that doesn't mean the advice is without value. It just means that it's not infallible. In the end, a…

100% right is likely impossible, but the way it was written it made it sound as if it was right 50% of the time, which is essentially the worst you can do. Anything below or above that is valuable. Obviously, the closer to 0% or 100% the better.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#212

Post by samstave » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #187

samstave wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@Dang, Why the F are we having this conversation on HN and it not a seminal discussion happening with, at and of YC? Why do we need "trench knowledge" as opposed to YC actually holding an open forum on such?

I'm not sure I understand the question but HN discusses what it wants and this post happened to show up and get upvoted. Considering that the author went through YC a year ago I'm not sure that the timing matters much.

Thanks for the reply.

All I am saying is that YC terms should be a place for clarification outside of HN - and if Q's show up on HN, they should be answered and addressed in a YC FAQ/forum-specific/whatever...

Grats.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#213

Post by acecreamu » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

blast wrote: post #192

acecreamu wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge % of dilution after going through two accelerators (EF and YC). Would be too much of a burden to drag into a new venture.

Didn't you know that when you took the money?

When we took the money we were planing to build up the original idea, not to start another one. For the consecutive growth of the original idea it wouldn't be an issue.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#214

Post by TaylorAlexander » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

rsp1984 wrote: post #182

dang wrote: post #144

It's true that YC will tell you over and over to (1) work on your product and (2) talk to users. Those are the "make" and "people" in "make something people want". If you want to focus on marketing tricks / media hype / "content" / that kind of thing, you're going to hear the above repeatedly, since those are neither (1) nor (2). For my part this reflects well on YC. In fact it's a little reassuring to hear that this…

Appreciate the chime-in and honesty. > If building a valuable product, talking to users, and focusing on facts sounds good to you, you should consider applying to YC. Also being perfectly honest, it does sound very appealing, but I'm afraid it unfortunately just isn't what makes startups successful in 2023. Speaking from personal experience and carrying the battle scars.

I’d be curious what does make them successful.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#215

Post by pcthrowaway » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:01 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #201

pcthrowaway wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no intention of lying, I'd rather bootstrap or shop for other investors who don't have the same expectation of 'growth potential'. The YC model is.. it's own thing.. seems like in the current economy, they need every company to be a potential unicorn, which works out for them because they're doing it at scale, and the ones that deliver, deliver outsized returns. But possibly doesn't work out as well for the fo…

Agree. I have yet to see YC publish figures on founder returns - they mostly talk about the successes. https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-the-life-and-death-of-y-co... Amazing video on bootstrapping: https://youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw There are funds trying to succeed at the many-small-successes model of investing - personally I am skeptical (from my own experience) because the natural failure rate is so high (be…

> small software businesses asking for money is a loud signal that they are much less likely to be successful at all IMHO

Money doesn't seem like the main benefit to going through YC (otherwise there are lots of other investment firms one could approach). The main advantage seems to be the network, connections, and expertise on running a business.

Sure, if I had another 30K I'd have an extra year of runway, which can be pretty valuable right now. But I suspect solo-bootstrapping without a good VC will result in a lot of friction at points that a specialist VC would be well-suited to assist with (providing standard ToS, verifying compliance, business structure boilerplate, etc)

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#216

Post by scythe » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

tschesnok wrote: post #177

Wow. In the footnote they mention they shut down right after demo day? Perhaps I'm old school but I always had a huge feeling of indebtedness to my investors. So here they lose all the money within 3 months and write a scathing review to boot? Is it not a two way street?

I wouldn't describe the review as "scathing", although it's certainly titled as though it would be. The parts where the author offers the most critical complaints seem to be particular to their experience as a startup based in Singapore, while most of the YC companies are in SFBA or recently NYC. And in that, their feedback may be more useful for YC or others than a generic story from someone on YC's home turf.

They also seem to be thanking YC for basically inducing them to shut down before they had lost everything. Here it is more contradictory to what they wrote (3/5) about YC as a "school", because they apparently gained quite a bit from the advisement, even if it wasn't in the way they initially hoped. Though, I can certainly understand being a little unhappy with the bearer of bad news, even though we've all been taught not to be.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#217

Post by rexreed » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

acecreamu wrote: post #147

rexreed wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is a referral program, hey

Does it improve the odds of getting in or is it some sort of kickback to the referring party if they do?

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#218

Post by jay_kyburz » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #214

rsp1984 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate the chime-in and honesty. > If building a valuable product, talking to users, and focusing on facts sounds good to you, you should consider applying to YC. Also being perfectly honest, it does sound very appealing, but I'm afraid it unfortunately just isn't what makes startups successful in 2023. Speaking from personal experience and carrying the battle scars.

I’d be curious what does make them successful.

Making the "right" product, and talking to the "right" customers.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#219

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#220

Post by lazide » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #166

lazide wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that you got advice for the particular areas you needed and it was not always bad is actually a pretty major step up from what you’d otherwise be dealing with, in my experience.

If you could find a source of advice for areas you need that is always bad , that would be amazingly useful. Each piece of advice is another pitfall you can confidently avoid.

The Inverse Cramer strategy has been doing pretty good I hear.

Unfortunately, real life advice is rarely something you can short. :(