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How Y Combinator Started

ycombinator.com

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Re: How Y Combinator Started

#41

Post by zzaman »

"We realized early on that what we were doing could be national in scope and we didn't want a name that tied us to one place."

Personally I find that one of the most important reasons to think long and hard about a name. Most startups go through many pivot points until they finally get it right. Choosing a name that is overly representative of the present business model can lead to team lock-in that could spell the death of a company before it even gets going.

It seems a wiser decision is to go with a name that represents a startup's future ambitions instead of its present circumstances.

Re: How Y Combinator Started

#42

Post by southpolesteve »

abalashov wrote: post #9

So doing the winter batch in California seemed like one of those rare cases where the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious one were the same. There is nothing more heavenly, more sublime than that rare situation in life in which the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious choice align. There's a keen insight to be had there. Unfortunately, those moments are very rare. For instance, at least, in terms of my persona…

Madison, Wisconsin

Re: How Y Combinator Started

#43

Post by chubot »

ig1 wrote: post #34
callmeed wrote: post #16

"But the founders in the first batch turned out to be surprisingly good. And great people too. " I'd love to read a "where are they now" post on the first couple batches of founders, along with some quotes from them.

Reddit - Acquired by Conde Nast. Kiko - Acquired by Tucows, team founded Justin.tv Loopt - Raised 15million in Series A and B financing, at it's peak was valued at $500m, sold for $40m to Green Dot Simmery - Closed. Founder went back to uni. Infogami - Merged with Reddit. MemAmp - Never launched, one founder (Chris) joined reddit one (Zak) went back to uni. FireCrawl - Never launched, team founded TextPayMe and got a…

Wow, that's phenomenal. In 7 years, out of 8 companies there were 5 acquisitions (and a couple mergers). I'm sure any VC would be ecstatic to have that kind of success rate.

Reddit is the most prominent. It's had a huge impact although from what I understand it hasn't done extremely well financially.

Re: How Y Combinator Started

#44

Post by larrys »

chubot wrote: post #43
ig1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit - Acquired by Conde Nast. Kiko - Acquired by Tucows, team founded Justin.tv Loopt - Raised 15million in Series A and B financing, at it's peak was valued at $500m, sold for $40m to Green Dot Simmery - Closed. Founder went back to uni. Infogami - Merged with Reddit. MemAmp - Never launched, one founder (Chris) joined reddit one (Zak) went back to uni. FireCrawl - Never launched, team founded TextPayMe and got a…

Wow, that's phenomenal. In 7 years, out of 8 companies there were 5 acquisitions (and a couple mergers). I'm sure any VC would be ecstatic to have that kind of success rate. Reddit is the most prominent. It's had a huge impact although from what I understand it hasn't done extremely well financially.

"Wow, that's phenomenal."

That's quite a halo effect that has prevented you from seeing the true "success rate".

Where are you getting 5 acquisitions from?

Reddit, Loopt basically made out.

Infogami merged with Reddit. That's essentially a save face maneuver and doesn't exactly signal success.

Clickfacts - "YC stake acquired by private investors" doesn't sound like that would be a win but a break even. More like "take it off our hands".

Kiko - Sold in an ebay auction for 258,000.

http://gigaom.com/2006/09/05/tucows-bought-kiko/

http://tucowsinc.com/news/2006/09/why-we-bought-kikocom/

I'd give it 2.1 out of 8.

Re: How Y Combinator Started

#45

Post by barry-cotter »

abalashov wrote: post #9

So doing the winter batch in California seemed like one of those rare cases where the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious one were the same. There is nothing more heavenly, more sublime than that rare situation in life in which the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious choice align. There's a keen insight to be had there. Unfortunately, those moments are very rare. For instance, at least, in terms of my persona…

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Ticino, Switzerland

Slovenia

Re: How Y Combinator Started

#46

Post by GuiA »

juliennakache wrote: post #17
abalashov wrote: post #9

So doing the winter batch in California seemed like one of those rare cases where the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious one were the same. There is nothing more heavenly, more sublime than that rare situation in life in which the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious choice align. There's a keen insight to be had there. Unfortunately, those moments are very rare. For instance, at least, in terms of my persona…

That's the reason I actually moved in NYC. For a French 20 something, it's a great city to live in, it's not too far from Europe and the tech scene is booming. My next stop will probably be Brazil. I've travelled over 45 countries and Brazil seems to have that unique combination of "human" perspective, a work culture and a growing tech ecosystem. You should give it a try :)

I'm also a French 20-something, currently calling the San Francisco Bay Area home— my next stop will probably be Berlin or Amsterdam.

What a great age we live in!

Re: How Y Combinator Started

#47

Post by nl »

abalashov wrote: post #9

So doing the winter batch in California seemed like one of those rare cases where the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious one were the same. There is nothing more heavenly, more sublime than that rare situation in life in which the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious choice align. There's a keen insight to be had there. Unfortunately, those moments are very rare. For instance, at least, in terms of my persona…

the colour of Greece, Italy, southern Spain, Portugal, Argentina, etc. I can appreciate the comparative orderliness and clockwork of Teutonic and Anglo-American civilisation, but it doesn't make me happy, and yet I need that whole universe in order to sustain my livelihood in any practical sense

Maybe try Hong Kong? I haven't lived there but it seems colourful (in the Asian rather than Southern European sense) and yet still has the British history.

Re: How Y Combinator Started

#48

Post by nl »

DilipJ wrote: post #37
karamdeep wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sequoia is already an investor

no, I meant like direct to institutions like pension funds. why would a pension fund give money to Sequoia, and then have them give it to YC? that's an unnecessary management fee the pension funds have to pay

Because the pension funds want to invest such huge amounts of money that I suspect Y Combinator wouldn't know what to do with it.

If a pension fund wanted to invest $250m in YC, they'd have to scale up by so much I doubt it would work the same.

Re: How Y Combinator Started

#50

Post by hef19898 »

SOmetimes, opportunity meets preparation, or so the saying goes. When things fall into place and fit, usualy great things emerge. And that happy smile, even it would have been only for that moment and one summer batch, I think most people involved it would have ben worth it. Happy birthday and continue on like you do!
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