131–140 of 214 posts
> 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…
> 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…
I 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…
First, compared to a traditional VC, YC is micro-investing in far more startups and doing so faster and more frequently.
Second, YC highly prioritizes founder/team quality over ideas but teams come to YC by pitching an idea. I just read an article yesterday citing evidence that in the last 10-15 years the diversity of startup ideas has declined significantly. This makes sense. Enormous amounts of information about what other very early stage startups are doing as well as which areas are currently being funded is readily available in near real-time. As a serial entrepreneur who did my first startup in the 80s, second in the 90s and third in the early 00s, I can attest we had nothing like this visibility in earlier eras. Ideas which are getting funded and which sound like good ideas in hot areas are obviously going to influence founder idea selection and cause clustering.
Third, YC knows that many startup teams will pivot away from their initial idea once they engage with real customers in real markets. So much so, YC considers it a sign of a smart team working well together. However, like all VCs, at any given time YC has broad sector themes it considers especially ripe for various reasons ranging from new technologies enabling disruption to expected high growth in an emerging sector.
Fourth, is the reason you identified. Having a good enough high-concept idea is necessary but far from sufficient for startup success. In addition to the execution details like go to market that you mentioned there's also timing. Even being 12 months earlier or later can make a difference toward making it. Finally, there's the luck factor. While it's true that quality teams are better able to maximize good luck when it happens and also have a tendency to increase their overall odds too, luck still matters. In my successes we had to get a lot of things right but there were also three or four serendipitous things that made a big difference at important moments. The only way for YC to solve for both the micro-timing and luck factors is betting on multiple similar startups around the same time.
> 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminds me of how pelicans will raise two chicks and then kick the weakest of the two out of the nest and devote all future resources to foster the stronger of the two. YCombinator as convergent evolution, I guess.
> how pelicans will raise two chicks and then kick the weakest there is a youtube video ( pls don’t watch ) that gave me nightmares for days on end. i had completely forgotten about those pelicans and now you had to bring it up again in the comments. the little pelican had a broken leg. It was limping, so mom and brother together pushed it out of the nest. Very cruel.
So similar to companies.
In the end, both teams failed to scale so it ended up being the wrong platform at the wrong time, but if one of them could have taken off then the bet they made would have paid off.
"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/
Any idea why mergers aren’t more common? The article doesn’t really seem to have an answer to that.