YC Stats • Hacker News Board

Re: YC Stats

#11

Post by ryanSrich » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

julien_c wrote: post #5

Number of companies we offered to fund yesterday for the first YC Fellowship: 32 That's a figure I was looking for (took the interview yesterday, didn't get in).

Can you write a blog post on your experience? I'd be interested to see how closely it resembles YC.

Re: YC Stats

#12

Post by dantillberg » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

These stats are great, or at least they sound great to an aspiring entrepreneur. I've seen stuff like this for a long time on HN, and a feeling took hold in me that I've only started to really shake recently, a feeling that the best and most determined founders will always get into YC, and that failing to get into (or apply to) YC is an indication of weakness.

But just remember that, even though these numbers look amazing, you can create a business via other means and still possibly achieve whatever sort of success you're after -- you don't have to join an accelerator, or get prestigious seed or venture funding.

Or at least, I think that you shouldn't have to.

Re: YC Stats

#13

Post by sydneyliu » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

Sam also just tweeted that 300 YC companies are no longer around. Amazing how much transparent they are and how great YC is at picking and training. So many really crazy ideas that most would think are insane and YC is able to find the ones that make sense and help them. Seems like that's a bit less than 1/3 of all YC companies

Tweet is here: https://twitter.com/sama/status/636586179970752512

Re: YC Stats

#14

Post by mdc2161 » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

another stat from sama on twitter:

> Oh, another important stat: about 300 of the companies we have funded have shut down.

Re: YC Stats

#15

Post by npalli » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

Interesting twitter update by sama

> Oh, another important stat: about 300 of the companies we have funded have shut down.

This is a hard gig. Even after you get into the top accelerator in silicon valley.

Re: YC Stats

#16

Post by 7Figures2Commas » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

"Market cap" is a poorly-chosen descriptor because the vast majority (all?) of the companies in YC's portfolio are private.

The use of the term "market cap" is especially ironic given Sam's recent post on "financial misstatements"[1]. If founders are expected to use financial terms accurately and appropriately, shouldn't investors be expected to do the same?

[1] http://blog.samaltman.com/financial-misstatements

Re: YC Stats

#17

Post by cm2012 » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

Considering there is probably a vintage effect, and currently 5% of YC companies are worth over $100 million, that means that most likely 5-10% of founders that join YC will become millionaires over time. That's pretty impressive.

Re: YC Stats

#18

Post by gsharma » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

jypepin wrote: post #4

how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M. I assume YC is doing great for themselves, so I'm wondering, what is the rule of thumb to say an investment was successful? (for YC, knowing they invest cheap and early.) Is it once a company reaches 10M? 1M? Where there is an exit? It would be interesting to know how many companies YC says the investment was a success…

These numbers are great from aggregation/press perspective, but they are not enough to tell if YC is doing good or bad. For instance, last 3 YC batches had ~250 (or maybe 300) companies funded. That is almost 1/3 of the total companies funded by YC. It will take another couple of years to determine what the success rate for these companies is.

Re: YC Stats

#19

Post by JonFish85 » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:21 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #17

Considering there is probably a vintage effect, and currently 5% of YC companies are worth over $100 million, that means that most likely 5-10% of founders that join YC will become millionaires over time. That's pretty impressive.

Keep in mind that there really haven't been many large exits, which lock in the valuations. I think YC is doing extraordinarily valuable things, but let's not get too blinded by big numbers. On-paper millionaires are one thing; actually being able to lock that money down is another thing entirely.

Edit: Forgot a word.

Re: YC Stats

#20

Post by onion2k » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

jypepin wrote: post #4

how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M. I assume YC is doing great for themselves, so I'm wondering, what is the rule of thumb to say an investment was successful? (for YC, knowing they invest cheap and early.) Is it once a company reaches 10M? 1M? Where there is an exit? It would be interesting to know how many companies YC says the investment was a success…

how good or bad are those numbers? only 8/970 companies are worth > 1b and 40 are worth over 100M.

The billion dollar number is freaking incredible. There are 115 venture-backed private companies globally that have unicorn valuations[1]. For 8 of them to have been through the same accelerator is amazing.

[1] http://graphics.wsj.com/billion-dollar-club/