91–100 of 194 posts
Getting accepted into YC immediately values your company at $1.7M.
It does seem though that the primary aim here is to provide more for living expenses, which means that the $1.7m implicit valuation might need to be taken with a grain of salt. Not that it matters much anyway.
The 17k for 7% is what always stopped me from considering the Y Combinator route. It's a huge chunk of your company for not very much money. If the new deal had been in place when we started, I think we would have been very tempted to join. The real benefits of YC though are the focus it brings you, and being able to get access to the YC ecosystem. Oh, and being able to attend Demo Day, but with so many companies in…
17K for 7% isn't as raw a deal as you think when you realize that at an "acceptance" into YC essentially doubles your valuation to most seed investors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off topic, but if your son has the chance to go Harvard/MIT/Stanford, he absolutely should. The difference is primarily in the caliber of the other students, and it makes a world of difference to have such a concentration of talent in one place. (Note that I'm not saying there isn't talent elsewhere, just that there's an incredible concentration of it in the top n schools.)
It doesn't necessarily make world of difference. When you compare students who attended top private schools vs. those who were admitted but attended state schools, they actually have equivalent incomes down the line. What's likely happening is that really smart kids at good state schools end up finding the pockets of talent there anyway. Pretty scary implications for the value of a Harvard degree. source: http://www.…
Raising a venture round from Sequoia is probably a decent non-academic example of this. I would not be surprised if companies who turn Sequoia away are just as successful as those who are funded by them (although the former is probably a small data set!).
I predict that this is going to lead to an increase in the number of applicants who have already raised some money (though not a full round). > Most people don’t do YC for the financial investment—they do it because they want the advice, the help of the network, the benefits of the program, etc. But still, more money for less equity is definitely better. This is good news for people who've issued convertible notes be…
I also think this is great news for what it will force other accelerators to do. Many people out there claim to copy YC's model with much less friendly terms on the convertible note. This puts everything out in the open if they want to keep up.
I have wondered if affluent parents can replicate at least the money part of Y Combinator. $120K is about the list price of two years of Harvard/MIT/Stanford . With a son who loves to program, I have wondered if sending him to a cheaper school and giving him the difference in installments after he graduates is better than paying for a "name" school. It depends on the quality of the cheaper school, of course. And I th…
Sure, I'll be graduating about ~$140k better off than most other students. But over the lifetime of a successful tech entrepreneur that amount of money is fairly meaningless. Having spent a significant amount of time on top campuses (where most of my friends went), I often regret making that decision—the caliber of students is truly higher, and the friends/networks you have from a school like Harvard will pay dividends throughout life.
Why do nonprofits get less money?
we tried asking some foundations if they would do a similar deal, and disappointingly they wouldn't. we will keep trying, but we wanted to get something in place for this batch. 100k is not that different 120k. i think it's pretty awesome that one of our startups is stepping up and being creative when traditional supporters of non-profits were reluctant to try a new approach.
Not that $20k is a huge difference, but it seems like the dividends from funding a YC non-profit for nearly any player in the tech scene far exceed $20k.
What does it mean for a startup to be non-profit? When YC and Teespring each invest 50k into a non-profit, do they expect a return on investment? or is it purely a donation?
Just wanted to say that we're excited to be a part of the non-profit side of YCombinator. It's been humbling to have Watsi working with us in our office and watching the amazing things they achieve on a daily basis. I have no doubt that amazing non-profits will continue to emerge from YC.