41–50 of 100 posts
Why did Teespring take $1.3M in funding if they were on pace to make $1M the following month? Why dilute your pool when your figure was just a month away (plus whatever else was saved) anyone have any insight?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ability to communicate is a critical skill in any company. If none of the founders at your startup can write at a basic, clear level - YC applications are no works of literature - and the founders cannot hold a conversation (that tjeu prepared for) in front of a camera (let alone a spontaneous real life conversation), then the founders have no business starting a company that one day might have 5, 10, 20, 50, 100…
True. Not all the points I am suggesting above would be correct. However, how would you (let's say you're running YC) separate a genuine technology startup with great communication skills from a fake one with great communication skills?
It’s because of this power law: If a company has a 1 percent chance of being a hundred-billion-dollar company, then it’s worth about a billion dollars Really, is this a power law? Looks to me like a simplistic application of expected value.
Also nobody really has even a 1% chance at becoming a 100B company. There have been very few of those in human history, the odds are << 1% even for a top YC company.
Guess this one looks like a post enthusiasm state but here is what I think is going on lately (Disclaimer: I am an entrepreneur, I feel this, so please take it all with a pinch of salt): It seems that the race to get into a coveted program like YC has become crowded. Almost every other startup that I met during last one year (50 odd in two cycles) had applied to the YC program [premise-A], some gotten the interview […
I didn't read this whole comment, but that part at least is false, because we've hired new partners at a higher rate than batches have grown. We now have 5 people doing for 50-startup batches what I used to do alone for 20-startup batches.
Guess this one looks like a post enthusiasm state but here is what I think is going on lately (Disclaimer: I am an entrepreneur, I feel this, so please take it all with a pinch of salt): It seems that the race to get into a coveted program like YC has become crowded. Almost every other startup that I met during last one year (50 odd in two cycles) had applied to the YC program [premise-A], some gotten the interview […
The ability to communicate is a critical skill in any company. If none of the founders at your startup can write at a basic, clear level - YC applications are no works of literature - and the founders cannot hold a conversation (that tjeu prepared for) in front of a camera (let alone a spontaneous real life conversation), then the founders have no business starting a company that one day might have 5, 10, 20, 50, 100…
If you're bad at presentations, it's not because you're an introvert. It's because you don't know what you're doing. Holding a stage, as any well-practiced performer will tell you, takes attention, skill, and work. Talent helps, but that just makes it easier to develop what's essential: skill.
You wouldn't pay to hear a performer practice scales. Nor (generally speaking) would you pay to hear a performer who hasn't practiced scales. But disagreement about the cause of bad presentations aside, I fully agree; leading (as opposed to managing) an organization demands the ability to tell a story that can bring together a broad range of people and interests to make the thing work as a whole. And that's a skill so important it borders on an art.
Why are some investors losing interest in YC companies? It's not only noted in this article, but was also a topic of discussion after this past demo day. Is it because YC seems to be investing in less startups 'trying to hit the home run' like Airbnb, Dropbox, arguably Stripe now? To me, it's somewhat confusing because the companies are still solving pretty darn realistic problems and are doing so uniquely. [edit] th…
And it's not true, incidentally. We don't have all the data yet but it's clear valuations remained high last batch.
Why did Teespring take $1.3M in funding if they were on pace to make $1M the following month? Why dilute your pool when your figure was just a month away (plus whatever else was saved) anyone have any insight?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True. Not all the points I am suggesting above would be correct. However, how would you (let's say you're running YC) separate a genuine technology startup with great communication skills from a fake one with great communication skills?
I think experience has shown that YC is pretty good at that by focusing on the problem the startup is trying to solve as well as understanding the founders well enough to know if they can solve it and exactly how they are going to solve it. Whereas some of the more spectacular startup failures of late have been from companies (like Color) that promise a revolutionary new thing but don't really have a basic problem st…
Why are some investors losing interest in YC companies? It's not only noted in this article, but was also a topic of discussion after this past demo day. Is it because YC seems to be investing in less startups 'trying to hit the home run' like Airbnb, Dropbox, arguably Stripe now? To me, it's somewhat confusing because the companies are still solving pretty darn realistic problems and are doing so uniquely. [edit] th…
Imagine if we could crowd fund this event!.. sigh.