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Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

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Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#91

Post by osigurdson »

ActionHank wrote: post #83
light_triad wrote: post #49

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take…

Steve Jobs or maybe just Apple used to pit teams against each other to develop a solution to a problem and then pick the strongest of the two. It also offers a convenient way to pull investment out early if the doppelganger startup isn't meeting targets. Just get the original startup to buy them out. It's not something that is a negative for YC, but it could be for the startups they back.

Agree. I have watched several YC videos where they state this again and again. What they are less specific about is how precisely founders are selected.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#92

Post by dahart »

phyzome wrote: post #20

It'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)

Why is that interesting to you? Do you have a contrasting point of view to share? Do you have experience with startups and/or venture capital?

I have no involvement with YC, but with a little startup and VC pitching experience, I can tell you that in my experience, lots of VCs like the idea of founders doing something incremental that builds on successful ideas. The article notably did not compare YC to any other VCs, but the truth is likely that all VCs “often” back startups that duplicate others in some way. VCs will tell you not to build something original, because there’s no demonstrated market for it. And statistically they’re right, your chances of success with an unproven idea are lower than with an incremental change to something people already buy. The article also notably did not talk about how often startups duplicate other businesses on their own, before there’s VC involvement. In that sense, despite the claim in the title that there’s data, the article is unscientific.

This article struck me as one of those “studies” that shows something everyone already knows, and the title kinda seems designed to sound dramatic and/or accusatory to appeal to readers drawn to controversy even if there isn’t really any controversy there.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#93

Post by [deleted] »

ActionHank wrote: post #83
light_triad wrote: post #49

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take…

Steve Jobs or maybe just Apple used to pit teams against each other to develop a solution to a problem and then pick the strongest of the two. It also offers a convenient way to pull investment out early if the doppelganger startup isn't meeting targets. Just get the original startup to buy them out. It's not something that is a negative for YC, but it could be for the startups they back.

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#94

Post by light_triad »

keiferski wrote: post #89
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article lists a few, none of which were unique - coinbase? Cryptocurrency exchanges already existed. AirBnB? Booking.com and other hotel or bed-and-breakfast booking websites already existed. Stripe? Yet another payment provider. Reddit? A Digg clone. Dropbox? rsync. etc.

Airbnb was basically a monetized form of Couchsurfing, not a hotel alternative. It only later turned into a direct hotel competitor. To my knowledge there was no similar service at the time.

Folks had been using alternatives to rent space like HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, BedandBreakfast.com and Craigslist for years.

Airbnb won because:

- Better design, easy to use, nice pictures they took themselves at first (per PG's advice)

- Integrated payments and reviews in a seamless experience

- Popularized the idea of sharing a space when the host is there

- Offered unique accommodations in urban places

- Lots of buzz about treehouses, castles, teepees, shipping containers, etc.

- Their timing benefited from the Great Recession

- Very good at promoting their rag to riches story with YC's help

- Also you didn't need to constantly repost like Craigslist, just post once

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#95

Post by thrw42A8N »

keiferski wrote: post #89
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article lists a few, none of which were unique - coinbase? Cryptocurrency exchanges already existed. AirBnB? Booking.com and other hotel or bed-and-breakfast booking websites already existed. Stripe? Yet another payment provider. Reddit? A Digg clone. Dropbox? rsync. etc.

Airbnb was basically a monetized form of Couchsurfing, not a hotel alternative. It only later turned into a direct hotel competitor. To my knowledge there was no similar service at the time.

Yeah, back then Booking was hotels only, not people's apartments or couches.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#96

Post by keiferski »

light_triad wrote: post #94
keiferski wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb was basically a monetized form of Couchsurfing, not a hotel alternative. It only later turned into a direct hotel competitor. To my knowledge there was no similar service at the time.

Folks had been using alternatives to rent space like HomeAway.com, VRBO.com, BedandBreakfast.com and Craigslist for years. Airbnb won because: - Better design, easy to use, nice pictures they took themselves at first (per PG's advice) - Integrated payments and reviews in a seamless experience - Popularized the idea of sharing a space when the host is there - Offered unique accommodations in urban places - Lots of buz…

I agree with the reasons for their success, but I don't believe that any of those alternatives allowed you to book a room/couch in someone's apartment. They were merely ways to either use properties for vacations (VRBO), semi-hotels like beds and breakfasts, or just regular renting space (Craigslist) for short/long term. Not the same thing as AirBnb at all.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#97

Post by jjulius »

fidotron wrote: post #57
cudgy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a real danger with current era Bay Area tech that it is just a game of musical chairs played with money, with remarkably little external value being generated. So, you don’t think that is already the case?

It was nothing like as bad as this 10 years ago, no. Just look at the state of successful exits - it is awful. This is not the same as an ecosystem producing Sun, HP, Apple or even Google, which all had enormous positive externalities.

Ten years ago was 2014 - Sun, HP, Apple and Google were all very much "old hat" and entrenched. Hell, HP was in the process of significantly cutting back it's business and eliminating jobs[1] (34,000 lost jobs in 2013 and ~16,000 in 2014 is an interesting "positive externality" lol). There was no ecosystem producing them, they were the people who were either running SV, or realizing that their time in the sun was coming to an end.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett-Packard

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#98

Post by swaptr »

Not surprising. This reminds me of HBO's Silicon Valley:

Ron LaFlamme: So Pied Piper, You're one of Peter's compression plays, huh?

Richard: One of? How many does he have?

Ron LaFlamme: Not too many, like six or eight.

Richard: Okay. Why are there so many?

Ron LaFlamme: You know how sea turtles have a s*t ton of babies because most of them die on their way to the water? Peter just wants to make sure that his money makes it to the ocean.

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#99

Post by pilingual »

"Y Combinator seems to be the perfect place for mergers. Every winter for the past three winters, Y Combinator has funded a podcasting company. In winter 2017, Breaker. In winter 2018, The Podcast App. And in winter 2019, Brew."

https://dan.bulwinkle.net/blog/there-should-be-more-mergers/

Re: Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows

#100

Post by j45 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #52
light_triad wrote: post #49

> YC startups don’t have to be unique. Far from it. Slow news day. YC has made it clear over the years it's almost all about the founders not the idea. It's almost impossible to know if an idea is good at the early stages, and ideas change, startups pivot, often the timing is wrong, and the market unproven etc. More often than not most of what startups do is not unique, otherwise there's no market for it. A new take…

> More often than not most of what startups do is not unique The message is also that if your start-up is based on deep tech moats choose another seed. (Think of YC's home runs. None had an industry secret/IP secret sauce.)

YC is more focused on B2B now, so this will change.
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