reinforcement learning done right, amirite?
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Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
11–20 of 214 posts
Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#12VC sees buzzword in pitch and throws money at it, data shows.
Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#13I think there's something missing from this analysis - YC companies might duplicate one another's products but that doesn't say anything at all about their target markets, route to market, product focus, etc. As an example, my first startup was a requirements management app that, on paper at least, was a copy of IBM DOORS. Except DOORS is a massive enterprise app targeted at companies who are building a new airplane…
That's not the case for most dev tools YC startup, they are targeting the same HN users/ other YC startups (trying to sell shovels)
Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#14In executing on an idea, the end result is often very different from where you started. They might look similar now, but in 5 years one went enterprise on feature set and the other consumer etc etc.
So true, all the Blockchain startups are now LLM startups.
Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#15It makes sense as an investor, doesn't it, you identify markets you see an opening, you check which companies are in that domain, pick the ones where they can execute and have good people on their team. It would worry me as a startup company, who knows where the information I share with them will end up...
A more interesting question is, do you as a startup company have any information worth sharing? Ideas are dime a dozen and like you just said, the differentiator is the capabilities of those people. And that is not something that can be shared, and no other startup can benefit of it.
It's not always about ideas. Growing startups often have proprietary information they can't share with competitors.
Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more interesting question is, do you as a startup company have any information worth sharing? Ideas are dime a dozen and like you just said, the differentiator is the capabilities of those people. And that is not something that can be shared, and no other startup can benefit of it.
It's not always about ideas. Growing startups often have proprietary information they can't share with competitors.
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Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#17> Yet, a deep dive into the data from all of the nearly 5,000 companies YC has backed to date [...]
The answer is in that number. YC is a startup accelerator. These days they back 500-1000 companies every year. There is no intention of having only one horse in every race. At that volume that is impossible. Their funding model allows them to bet on as many horses as possible to increase their own chances of success.
Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#18It makes sense. If you are an investor and have a strong belief that a specific product or idea is a good one - you might want to decouple your odds of success from the people/team/company executing that idea.
Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#19That approach is perfectly valid and could even be smarter than other VCs that avoid funding competing projects. I also think that, since YC operates at an earlier stage than major funds like Sequoia, different heuristics could apply. Ultimately, it's about balancing risk and reward—duplicating efforts can increase the chances of success while mitigating risks. Of course, it's not easy to establish processes that help competing companies in the same space without inadvertently favoring one over the other.
Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows
#20It's interesting how many of the commenters are starting from the assumption that this is both intentional and desirable (or in some other way smart on the part of YC) and then reasoning only on that basis.
(Or maybe it's not interesting, since this is on YC's own site... :-P)