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Is Y Combinator worth the money?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#221

Post by lazide »

JohnFen wrote: post #189
lazide wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t speak for if it is better or not in YC land, but I can vouch for a truly amazing amount of scammers that salivate when they hear startup. It’s mind boggling. If someone makes a YC company legitimately happy, then using them with other YC companies would be both natural and a good way to filter out the scammers.

> I can vouch for a truly amazing amount of scammers that salivate when they hear startup. It really is amazing, isn't it? Over the years, I've developed a few coping mechanisms. One of which is that I never tell people I'm an entrepreneur, and I never use the word "startup". I work for a business, doing . Outside of potential investors, nobody needs to know that the company is a startup running on my sweat and blood…

That is excellent advice, thank you.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#222

Post by acecreamu »

rexreed wrote: post #217
acecreamu wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No one clearly knows, but it should be there for a reason. We used a referral when applying and I would recommend finding one. Won't hurt for sure, prob will increase the chances to be seen.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#223

Post by abfan1127 »

seshagiric wrote: post #180
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…

I could not help but notice the similarity with another popular question "Is MBA worth $100K+" and the equally similar answer "MBA is what you make of it".

this seems obvious, but its not for some. Should you get an MBA from Harvard? the material is probably very similar to other materials in other programs. But, the contacts you can make are probably priceless. Are you a shy individual who isn't going to put effort into meeting people, growing a network? probably not worth it because the actual advantage is the people, not the degree.

A classic example I use is I attended Arizona State for a bachelors and masters in electrical engineering. A friend of mine attended Arizona State for bachelors and Stanford for a masters. We both learned the same material. He had more opportunities to meet good contacts and use those resources to expand his future. Did he? no, he ended up at a defense contractor back in AZ. Instead he had larger student loans to pay back. The big fancy schools have big fancy networks of people, but if you're not going to leverage it, its not worth it. Sounds like YC is very similar.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#224

Post by Dylan16807 »

solveit wrote: post #207
Dylan16807 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eh, I know you're being facetious but the opposite of bad advice is not good advice. Things are more complicated than that. Which is why even a 20% hit rate (say) could be very impressive.

If you can get multiple wrong takes on the same topic you can very likely narrow down the correct path by a lot. Even if each piece of anti-advice is kind of vague by itself.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#225

Post by testmasterflex »

hdivider wrote: post #186
rsp1984 wrote: post #90

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…

I think we are definitely in a new era. My view: entrepreneurs should take on a little more technology risk. Not just market risk. License IP from federal labs and government agencies -- there is SO much advanced tech sitting on shelves. Do government contracting to fund R&D. Go beyond just software, especially the SaaS kind, because ultimately, software can only make so much difference in society. Investors don't li…

Can you give any example of such “advanced technology”?

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#226

Post by hu3 »

rubenfiszel wrote: post #75

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…

> a non US solo founder

As a non US citizen, I'm interested so bear with me:

1) You had move to US right?

2) Did YC provide you the finances to do so beforehand?

3) What kind of Visa status should/could I seek for this?

No need to answer what you don't feel comfortable. I would appreciate any pointers.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#227

Post by JohnFen »

mcguire wrote: post #200
rsp1984 wrote: post #90

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…

Your comment put me in mind of something I saw in 1999 or so; where a local newscast in Austin profiled a local start-up and included: "We can't discuss what we do because someone else could take the idea and beat us to it." That was the beginning of the dot-com bust.

Yep. I've heard that sentiment more times than I can count over the decades -- and in every single case, without exception, those ventures failed pretty hard.

I think its because the sentiment expresses a fundamental misunderstanding of how business works and what makes it successful. The idea is not the most important ingredient in a business, the execution is.

For the most part, it doesn't matter if someone else takes your idea and beats you to it as long as your offering is better at solving the customer's problem. And that's a matter of execution.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#228

Post by preinheimer »

Prior to covid I was paying for a business coach/group (not yc, just paid with cash no equity). We had monthly group meetings and I had a one on one with my coach every month.

The value I got out of the group took a huge nosedive when we went remote. I felt like many of my fellow attendees weren’t fully present in our group meetings, and the one on ones weren’t the same. So I left.

Just putting stuff on Zoom doesn’t make it the same. I think a lot of orgs are struggling to make things work in the new medium.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#229

Post by lossolo »

baxtr wrote: post #122
rsp1984 wrote: post #90

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…

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?

In the crypto space currently, there are projects that excel in terms of technological merits, making them far superior to their competition. However, the competition often has better marketing and generates more hype and win the market.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#230

Post by Ecstatify »

awwstn wrote: post #198
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?

next post will be: how i got into YC, shut down my company, and then added x subscribers to my substack by simply trash talking YC

Positive Review: "Upstanding fellow, pillar of the community"

Negative Review: "Degenerate, bad mindset, red flags everywhere"

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