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My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

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Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#101

Post by ajju »

valleycynic wrote: post #52
sytelus wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are massively undervaluing YC. It's not just "advice dispensed over diner", there is lot goes on [1]. In startup world, there are just too many bad decisions you can make at any point in time and even just 5 minute advice from an experienced person who has literally seen it all 100s of times is worth all of the 7% cut that you give to YC. In the book[1] you will see several cases described by author where founder…

Read their own terms. They don't provide you with office space, living space, or other necessities that even other, less vaunted incubators do. And the seed money used to much lower: $17,000 (a few months salary). Again, 7% is an enormous chunk of a company, and for a firm like Dropbox, such a stake runs easily into the millions. YC on its face has always been a terrible deal, except it isn't, because YC is the first…

"that ends with you getting bought by Facebook or Google regardless of whether you actually deserve it"

..and this is because Facebook and Google are not independent companies with their own self-interest at heart, but stooges of YC remote controlled by a secret cabal of YC alumni?

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#102

Post by jyu »

webwright wrote: post #70
valleycynic wrote: post #32

"Access to venture capitalists: Raising money is incredibly hard and incredibly distracting. The faster you can get it done, the faster you can get back to building something people want. YC is the perfect forcing function to help you raise capital. Network: Being an entrepreneur is a lonely path. There are few people who truly understand what you’re going through and even if your friends (or parents) are well meanin…

Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch. Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy . Imagine it as a multi…

Could you please link the study you are citing from? I'd be curious how it'd look after being equity adjusted.

This article looks at only founding teams which get the vast majority of equity. The study found that while less than 1 percent of venture-capital-backed company founders were African American and 12 percent were Asian, 83 percent had a racial composition that was entirely Caucasian.[1] The study mentioned was done by CB Insight from 2010.[2]

This lack of diversity in the founders that receive VC funding may not be that surprising given the lack of diversity of the investors making those choices.[3] And it's not too hard to find other sources that say there is a lack of diversity at the top.[4]

[1] http://elitedaily.com/money/venture-capitalists-still-overwh...

[2]http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/data-race-gender-silicon-vall...

[3] http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/05/14/swisher-wadhw...

[4] http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/272646...

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#103

Post by webwright »

jyu wrote: post #102
webwright wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points. There was a non-rich mom in my batch in 2008 (one of the hardest fundraising climates in the last decade). She and her co-founder kicked ass and raised more money than most of the batch. Point #2: You need to expand your view of meritocracy beyond just product/code. Expanding who you know, how much they like/admire you, and how much they want to work with you is part of meritocracy . Imagine it as a multi…

Could you please link the study you are citing from? I'd be curious how it'd look after being equity adjusted. This article looks at only founding teams which get the vast majority of equity. The study found that while less than 1 percent of venture-capital-backed company founders were African American and 12 percent were Asian, 83 percent had a racial composition that was entirely Caucasian. [1] The study mentioned…

I should've dug it up originally. My bad: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-small-business/post/i...

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#104

Post by Jem »

mlichtenstern wrote: post #96
Jem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously - could your comment be any more patronising? Just because your experience gave you the impression that this "working or entrepreneurial parent" lark isn't as hard as it's made out, doesn't mean that's the case for everyone. I went self-employed the week after my 2nd child was born, working from home around my two children. I was profitable in my first month and every month after that until I stopped nearly…

Patronising? I find it interesting when people take offense to things so easily. How is sharing my personal experience patronising? I didn't say it wasn't hard - or "really, really, bloody hard," but given that there are people mining for coal, risking life and limb in the armed forces, and children digging through trash heaps for a living, I'd venture to say it's not THAT hard. The first three years of my daughter's…

Sharing your personal experience isn't patronising. Telling the world you're shocked at how hard people make it out to be based purely on your single personal experience IS patronising.

You're right, of course people have been having kids and working single "the beginning of time", but that doesn't change whether or not they find it hard, does it? Playing "who's got it worse" top trumps only serves to alienate those who ARE struggling at a time when they most need support.

And I wasn't offended, for the record.

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#105

Post by [deleted] »

valleycynic wrote: post #32

"Access to venture capitalists: Raising money is incredibly hard and incredibly distracting. The faster you can get it done, the faster you can get back to building something people want. YC is the perfect forcing function to help you raise capital. Network: Being an entrepreneur is a lonely path. There are few people who truly understand what you’re going through and even if your friends (or parents) are well meanin…

[deleted]

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#106

Post by randall »

ryanSrich wrote: post #38
randall wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally valued the experience of being home on the weekends... I was commuting from Utah, but it was really really draining to travel that much. If possible, I think I'd opt to bring the family out. (My wife was pregnant, so that wasn't a real option for us.)

If you don't mind. Would you be willing to go a bit deeper into how you were able to afford that (flying every weekend/YC in general)? I assume you had quite a bit of money saved in order to afford your typical living expense, flying to and from YC every weekend, and a place to stay in Mountain View. If you did in fact save, were you doing that actively in the event that you got into YC or did you essentially just dr…

We already had revenue which was paying for my salary, and had been for the prior 6 months. We were in a position where YC's value and my desire to be with my family meant we could spend the cash to achieve both.

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#107

Post by mlichtenstern »

Jem wrote: post #104
mlichtenstern wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patronising? I find it interesting when people take offense to things so easily. How is sharing my personal experience patronising? I didn't say it wasn't hard - or "really, really, bloody hard," but given that there are people mining for coal, risking life and limb in the armed forces, and children digging through trash heaps for a living, I'd venture to say it's not THAT hard. The first three years of my daughter's…

Sharing your personal experience isn't patronising. Telling the world you're shocked at how hard people make it out to be based purely on your single personal experience IS patronising. You're right, of course people have been having kids and working single "the beginning of time", but that doesn't change whether or not they find it hard, does it? Playing "who's got it worse" top trumps only serves to alienate those…

"Telling the world" I'm shocked at how hard people make it out to be BASED ON MUCH MORE THAN "purely" my "single personal experience" is not patronizing. Why would you assume it is based on my experience alone? I've referenced other examples elsewhere, including a self-made millionaire and mother of four - and there are countless others. Your response speaks much more to your personal experience of how hard it was for you.

pa·tron·ize ˈpātrəˌnīz,ˈpatrəˌnīz/Submit verb verb: patronise 1. treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority. "“She's a good-hearted girl,” he said in a patronizing voice" synonyms: treat condescendingly, condescend to, look down on, talk down to, put down, treat like a child, treat with disdain.

I don't look down on fellow parents or treat them with disdain (nor do I consider myself superior). If anything, I think the notion people hold that WOMEN IN PARTICULAR cannot be effective or even exceptional parents AND entrepreneurs is patronizing.

Even more so, the suggestion that they are unworthy of the support provided to other entrepreneurs by virtue of said parenthood is patronizing. So I believe your [insert adjective of choice] response is misdirected.

If you are not offended by my comments, your choice of words and the tone of your response suggests otherwise.

Re: My story of applying, getting in, and being a mom in Y Combinator

#108

Post by argonaut »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #64
argonaut wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you implying that no woman has a surplus of time (and that they never do)? Do you disagree with my assertion that if you want to start a company, you have to have lots of time, and if you don't have that, then you'll have to trade something else for that (like money: for hiring people, paying for flights, etc)? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. If you have no time, and no money, don't expect to be abl…

You're missing the point. The qualification you describe in your last sentence excludes the overwhelming majority of people anywhere, but especially in the U.S., and it does so by pure (bad) luck and accident of birth. That is to say, the qualification you note is either a polite way to say, "Non-rich, or affluent, or already-connected need not apply," or an incredibly obtuse equivocation. As a result, for example, t…

No, you're missing the point. Success in any field requires time or money (or some combination of both). You want to be a Nobel Prize winning scientist? You're going to need lots of time to become an expert in your field, publish papers, AND run experiments. You want to become an actor? You'll have to spend enormous amounts of time running around doing auditions, trying to find work.

And that's exactly it. The overwhelming majority of the world will never start a startup. Or become a top scientist. And those that do grow up in poverty but start businesses / become academics / other success have time to spend studying/being entrepreneurs, and those that have little time because of other obligations but still manage to do these things have to make enormous time sacrifices.

The world isn't egalitarian, and it's wishful thinking to think it is.

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