Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YC Fellowship

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 399 posts

Re: YC Fellowship

#171

Post by lmb »

pilingual wrote: post #22

This is exactly why Y Combinator is the best. This is what leadership is (and what those other accelerators do, is follow the lead). > but as always we’ll consider solo founders too. Please be extremely open minded about solo founders. I feel that is one consideration that hasn't been adapted with the changing tech landscape.

I think you're setting yourself up for a world of hurt here. Starting a company is really hard, and there is very little downside to being in a team. VCs agree on this, and will show the same attitude towards solo founders as YC does.

The real question is why you're even contemplating being a solo founder. Discounting you actually wanting to be solo (that's a whole different kettle of fish) the reason is probably because it's really hard to find a co-founder. Co-founder dating doesn't work, meetups have terrible SNR, etc.

It's an unfortunate (for the rest of the world, YC might disagree) fact that the best place to find a co-founder are places like Stanford. Elite US universities, which encourage entrepreneurship, where external factors align to create lots of liquidity around able co-founders.

So while I think something like the YC Fellowship is great, the team has missed the boat. The actual problem in very early stage startups is not money, but suitable co-founders.

(Of course I'm totally biased, since I run a startup program based on this concept in the UK [1].)

[1] http://joinef.com

Re: YC Fellowship

#172

Post by bicknergseng »

arihant wrote: post #167

I'm not sure why it is repeated over and over that 12k is small sum of money. 12k can easily pay off 2-3 months rent, server costs, marketing stuff, even a few flights. That's mental peace for 12 weeks to build something with 100% focus. That's an extremely high value priviledge. This should make sense for a lot of startups.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Average...

12k is a small sum of money in SF. Assuming the founders don't want to live together in a studio, looking at >5k month in just rent. Other costs of living are also high. This leaves almost nothing for any actual start up costs.

Makes some sense if you're 22 and have no dependents, but 12k wouldn't be persuasive for a Bay Area founder with a family.

Re: YC Fellowship

#173

Post by lebek »

arihant wrote: post #167

I'm not sure why it is repeated over and over that 12k is small sum of money. 12k can easily pay off 2-3 months rent, server costs, marketing stuff, even a few flights. That's mental peace for 12 weeks to build something with 100% focus. That's an extremely high value priviledge. This should make sense for a lot of startups.

12k per team. Ideally founders colocate but that isn't an option for everyone.

Re: YC Fellowship

#174

Post by will_brown »

> "...kickoff and end events in Mountain View where teams will present to the YC community. We'll fly out remote teams for those."

YC community? Is this going to be like Demo Day but without investors? I know this is an experiment, but what is envisioned here? Is it envisioned that the Fellows will/will not be ready for funding at the end of the fellowship...or completely unknown at this point?

Starting with idea/prototype where are Fellows expected to be at the end of 8 weeks?

Re: YC Fellowship

#175

Post by _delirium »

barrkel wrote: post #133
drsim wrote: post #110

I started my first business (web design) at 15 with a £1,000 grant from The Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust. It was a very significant amount for me. Without it I wouldn't have been able to start. My family were on income support so the money went straight on a PC, internet, phone line, business cards and public transport to reach my clients to pitch them. Thankfully I still lived with my parents: no rent unti…

Means testing adds a lot of bureaucratic overhead, especially if it's international, and it could dissuade some marginal people from engaging if they have to produce a bunch of documentation.

One option I've seen, though it's not bullet-proof, is to just have an explanation of who the money is intended for, and require applicants to sign a statement about their financial condition. Someone could always lie about it, but most people won't (especially since lying on an application for money is illegal).

Re: YC Fellowship

#176

Post by chippy »

hbhakhra wrote: post #137

What about a situation where one cofounder is willing to go full-time with this YC Fellowship but the other would only work part time? How does that work out?

This was the same question I was wanting to ask. $12K would be enough for one founder living in a non SV part of the world for one year, but it's not enough for two. What this implies is that the startup should be making money from the get go.

So, I imagine, they are after startups that work and have some revenue but have no initial funding.

Re: YC Fellowship

#179

Post by _delirium »

s73v3r wrote: post #169
_delirium wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a U.S. resident, PPACA has made this a lot easier. I recently bought an individual health plan on healthcare.gov for $250/mo (not including subsidies). If you make less than $50k/yr the amount is further subsidized. It can be more if you have a family, but in any case, with a fellowship income of $6k/mo you should be able to buy a health plan, at least for those two months.

It's my understanding that the grant should be used on the business, not necessarily the incomes of the people working on it.

My read was that the main business expense is expected to be the expenses of the founders, so it's perfectly okay to use the money to pay for rent / food / insurance / etc.

Re: YC Fellowship

#180

Post by wiseleo »

bicknergseng wrote: post #172
arihant wrote: post #167

I'm not sure why it is repeated over and over that 12k is small sum of money. 12k can easily pay off 2-3 months rent, server costs, marketing stuff, even a few flights. That's mental peace for 12 weeks to build something with 100% focus. That's an extremely high value priviledge. This should make sense for a lot of startups.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Average... 12k is a small sum of money in SF. Assuming the founders don't want to live together in a studio, looking at >5k month in just rent. Other costs of living are also high. This leaves almost nothing for any actual start up costs. Makes some sense if you're 22 and have no dependents, but 12k wouldn't be persuasive for a Bay Area founder with a family.

There is plenty of less expensive real estate along BART. Take a look at San Leandro, for example.

Other costs can be reduced as well.

I consider living in SF as an unnecessary luxury.

Post reply on HN