Awesome.
Welcome Peter
91–100 of 161 posts
Re: Welcome Peter
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. I have 4 kids, I have been married for 15 and my co-founder had a 3 months old when we did YC. And we are from Portugal, so we were away from our families when we went through YC. It was hard and it required sacrifice, but it was certainly worth it and YC was super supportive. Our lives, and the lives of our kids are much better for it.
I am interested in your story then? Did you incorporate in US and move your family to the US? Did the pressure to do long hours cease once you finished the YC programme and got funding? > Our lives, and the lives of our kids are much better for it. This implies some level of financial success from your participation :-)
Doing a startup when you have kids is (almost) always harder. YC actually makes it easier. Since you are more likely to get funding, you can actually pay yourself at least enough that you don't have to worry if you will be able to make rent. There is advantages to it also. When you have kids you are more aware of the consequences of failing, you value your time more and are less likely to "play house" as PG calls it, in my opinion. We didn't move the family to the US because kids where in school and because they have a better support network in Portugal (granparents, aunts, etc). Regarding the financial success, it depends on whether you care about valuations at this stage which are fairly subjective. In terms of valuation it most certainly did, and since I own stock in my startup, it represented measurable success. More importantly though, the access to better funding and better investors allowed me to have better conditions to focus on growing the company and doing what I love, while providing for my family. Even though we don't have luxuries, the ability to work on something I love without my kids having to feel like they are sacrificing is a luxury in itself.
I would actually go so far to say that if you are doing a startup and have kids, YC is by far your best chance of creating a successful startup without having to go through financial distress. In that sense it is the most family friendly incubator. Having done 4 startups always with kids, I speak of experience.
Re: Welcome Peter
#93Thiel joining makes YC look like the 1992 Olympics "Dream Team" compared to all of the other accelerators.
Funny that you make a sports analogy here. I wonder if the partners see themselves as players or coaches. After listening to Scott Kupor from a16z talk, I know that they see themselves as a talent agency rather than being directly involved in the "sport".
Re: Welcome Peter
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. I have 4 kids, I have been married for 15 and my co-founder had a 3 months old when we did YC. And we are from Portugal, so we were away from our families when we went through YC. It was hard and it required sacrifice, but it was certainly worth it and YC was super supportive. Our lives, and the lives of our kids are much better for it.
I didn't mean to imply that nobody with a family could do this, but that it's structured in such a way as to be strongly biased against people with families/kids. How many others did you see in YC with children?
In our batch there were at least three teams with founders that had kids. I think that what you mean that is that doing a startup in general is biased against people with kids/families. I agree, but that is mostly because living on a smaller budget with kids is harder. The beautiful thing of a startup is that in most cases you work really hard and at the same take breaks in moments where it is important to be there for your kids. YC is structured in a way where during those three months you kind of take a break with your regular life and focus relentlessly on your company, but I believe that doing that is one of the most brilliant things from YC, it makes all the difference in the world for your chances of success.
Re: Welcome Peter
#95As time goes on, YC will continue to attract the best people in the valley (both founders and investors). It's a talent singularity.
It's becoming a powerhouse and that usually causes problem in the long run if the chemistry isn't present. Or say the need to be hungry enough to attain goals (just like a strong sports team losing against a lower tier team, aka the underdog). Yes, surrounding yourself with smart people is great, but surrounding yourself with hungry people is another. Otherwise, good luck and more success to YC!
Great advice. A well fed person can't understand a hungry one.
Re: Welcome Peter
#96As time goes on, YC will continue to attract the best people in the valley (both founders and investors). It's a talent singularity.
Attract the best people for building YC companies, yes. Although that is sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. There is so much amazing talent outside of YC or even SV it is incredible. Just have to know where to look.
Re: Welcome Peter
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
All those are valid. One you forgot: YC, like nearly all other accelerators, is implicitly age-ist. Note that I said implicitly. There is no explicit age discrimination that I am aware of, but the entire program is structured in a way that makes it horribly impractical for anyone who isn't a bachelor/bachelorette and childless. You must move to the Bay Area, put in family-unfriendly hours, and live on a quantity of m…
25-30 year olds smart enough to build their own business wouldn't waste their time with YC. Most of the information and knowledge YC provides is openly published for free online. Aside from that the partners are always open to emails and communication. So why waste your money?
A lot of the value that YC provides is in the network, brand recognition, and mostly importantly, demo day. Depending on the circumstances, I would say just demo day itself is worth doing YC for.
Re: Welcome Peter
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship a bit latter that decade. I recommend all of them and also Porter's 5 forces update article in HBR.
And I won't be surprised if someone pops up with a Sun Tzu quote before long. (I'll leave Ecclesiastes 1:9 as an exercise for the reader.)
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
Re: Welcome Peter
#99Just finished reading Zero to One for a second-time, and it was interesting to see that Peter Thiel's contrarian approach to investing in startups ("What valuable company is nobody building") is very similar to PG's thesis that "all good ideas look like bad ideas to begin with (black swan investing) [0] It will be even more interesting to see if their combined insights and approach can increase their chances of ident…
I'd still love to hear Peter Thiel and PG duke it out/reconcile the "choose an idea that avoids competition at all costs" vs. "don't worry about competition at all" messages.
You could look at them as two sides of the same perspective: Paul is saying basically that competition doesn't exist because if you focus on the customer need enough it ensures uniqueness, and Peter is saying don't copy what someone else has done, be unique.
Re: Welcome Peter
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am interested in your story then? Did you incorporate in US and move your family to the US? Did the pressure to do long hours cease once you finished the YC programme and got funding? > Our lives, and the lives of our kids are much better for it. This implies some level of financial success from your participation :-)
Doing a startup when you have kids is (almost) always harder. YC actually makes it easier. Since you are more likely to get funding, you can actually pay yourself at least enough that you don't have to worry if you will be able to make rent. There is advantages to it also. When you have kids you are more aware of the consequences of failing, you value your time more and are less likely to "play house" as PG calls it,…
Very good answer, thank you.
> When you have kids you are more aware of the consequences of failing, you value your time more and are less likely to "play house" as PG calls it, in my opinion.
Yes I agree with this. I think having kids is kind of training for some aspects of start-up life. Definitely in juggling a lot of things at once with limited time.
In terms of success I just wanted to know if it carried on beyond the YC incubator period and it sounds like it has so well done and good luck with it :-)