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Is Y Combinator worth the money?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#321

Post by MichaelZuo »

GreymanTheGrey wrote: post #308
satvikpendem wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is saying you/we are not high quality people? No one is saying that high quality people don't exist outside YC, just that YC accepts high quality people. You are committing the logical fallacy known as the fallacy of composition [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

I believe this was the offending sentence fragment that implied the sentiment you say is not there: "the likes of which you are unlikely to meet in the regular world"

I read that as 'There's a higher probability of meeting high quality people in a location that actively concentrates them, then just randomly going through life.'

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#322

Post by tschesnok »

acecreamu wrote: post #206
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?

That's why we did it, instead of spending money dragging the decision or even taking more money and spending them while building mediocre company, we wind up operations in a shortest term, and returned everything, to minimize damage for investors. We even cancelled the checks which were about to get wired. How to perceive it—is up to you, we sleep well because we did the best we could in that situation.

Startups are hard, and I should not have been so critical.

Everything looks bad and impossible before product market fit. How did you know you could not pivot? Did YC agree with you that this was the best decision? I'm really curious as to how that conversation went.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#323

Post by zamnos »

lmm wrote: post #304
zamnos wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing a thing, and doing it well is a really good differentiator! The thing about software is that it scales way easier than a Korean bakery, so the brand itself is the important differentiation. If you can identify a need in the market and throw the right pieces at it, and spend 6-months building it in secret, that 6-month head start building your product and adding features before you release to the public is your…

Did Slack even spend 6 months building something in secret? Microsoft and everyone else were already in that space. If anything it felt like Slack were the ones playing catch-up.

ah yeah that's a fair point. Look at Skype, they've been doing video calls since approximately the beginning of the public Internet. Yet zoom was still able to become the dominant cross-platform video chat app. So that "build in private for 6 months and be ahead of your competitors" isn't a one size fits all tactic. "doing it better" is another good moat.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#324

Post by rhtgrg »

opportune wrote: post #312
rhtgrg wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what your goals are and what your business needs. I would recommend reaching out to your local angel investors —- even if you don’t plan to fundraise with them, they usually have an avenue for you to get in touch directly with investors —- and they can interview you about your startup and dispense free advice that is much more informed than what I can give you here. Assuming you are at a very nascent st…

Thanks! Yeah I guess to be more specific, what meant to ask is: besides YC and angel investors, what will help me as much or better than YC? Particularly in the context of the person I was replying to saying that people with my background can potentially find better deals than with YC (which I guess I assumed meant in terms of VC - you’re right that it probably helps with alternative funding routes too). Like, what b…

You might be able to find some of those, but you probably don't want to work with incubators or accelerators that consider anybody -- let alone such a large absolute number of people as "ex-FAANG" -- a "shoo-in". Just think about the second order consequences of that.

And yes, when it comes to startups (i.e. business) and funding, word of mouth is very powerful and not to be underestimated.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#325

Post by red-iron-pine »

tester457 wrote: post #302
abfan1127 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 atten…

Is being a defense contractor that bad?

Plus what's the long term on that?

5 years out he's doing defense work in AZ... but 20 years out he's flexing that Master's to get CTO roles, and making connections at the local Cornell / Stanford / MIT club, etc. etc.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#326

Post by lmm »

zamnos wrote: post #323
lmm wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Slack even spend 6 months building something in secret? Microsoft and everyone else were already in that space. If anything it felt like Slack were the ones playing catch-up.

ah yeah that's a fair point. Look at Skype, they've been doing video calls since approximately the beginning of the public Internet. Yet zoom was still able to become the dominant cross-platform video chat app. So that "build in private for 6 months and be ahead of your competitors" isn't a one size fits all tactic. "doing it better" is another good moat.

It's not a "moat" in any meaningful sense as far as I can see. Doing it better isn't a particularly defensible position, it's just something you can win by doing.

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#327

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #173
rhtgrg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's true that the business is governed by power laws at every level and you can't ignore those and succeed. I hope that doesn't prevent people from still being decent to each other.

[deleted]

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#328

Post by majani »

mritchie712 wrote: post #234
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.

building a valuable product doesn't make you successful in 2023? Please, elaborate.

At least on the consumer side of things it doesn't. The consumer-facing side of the internet is quite mature. You are fighting for consumers' attention with giant companies that have addiction down to a science. Furthermore there are entire categories of the internet that have people's attention on lock (social media, video, music, gaming, news, chat, e-commerce and gambling). Breaking through all that existing noise is super tough now, a valuable product won't cut it. If you look at the big consumer-facing successes post-2015 (TikTok, OpenAI, Fortnite, Disney+), they all spent obscene amounts of money to get where they are at now

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#329

Post by majani »

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…

I think this dissonance comes from most of YC's guiding literature being written by PG in the 2000s and early 2010s. Back in those days it was definitely possible to grab the attention of users and investors with janky prototypes. But now the reality is that prototypes are nothing and traction is king. The new YC partners probably have to make this shift in practice and out of politeness, they don't call out the guiding literature

Re: Is Y Combinator worth the money?

#330

Post by majani »

rhtgrg wrote: post #46

YC used to be for people who investors wouldn’t normally take a chance on…and imo, it still is. If you have a FAANG attached to your name with multiple years of experience, you can probably find better deals elsewhere. YC has done a relatively good job of scaling themselves, but it has never been a “one size fits all” funding solution, and if you are a founder you’d be wise to consider your options carefully. That be…

> YC used to be for people who investors wouldn’t normally take a chance on…and imo, it still is.

It absolutely is not. The recently released Founders Directory[1] shows that YC is practically a big tech company now. Most alumni are from FAANG or Ivy League. This was an inevitable result when YC became the most prestigious accelerator in the West

[1] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/founders

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