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Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

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Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#21

Post by neilv »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #17
burcs wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This mindset is tiresome, especially seeing it on Hacker News... I literally went to the cheapest state school in rural Pennsylvania and still was accepted into YC. My co-founder didn't even finish college, at some point I think people just want to make excuses. Also — I don't understand your second point. It's an accelerator. Capital is part and parcel when it comes to accelerating.

Fancy schools are just a way to get pre-vetted candidates. If you aren’t pre-vetted, it doesn’t mean you’re worse, it just means vetting you is more work and has more risk.

Fancy schools might indeed, coincidentally, vet founders for the same things these particular investors are looking for.

For example, wealthy family safety net for extended risk-taking, connections for finding customers and partners and investors, confidence of founders in asserting will over hires, and appealing to class-based beliefs of other investors.

But since most of us aren't investors, this isn't to say that fancy schools vet for, say, hires.

While I generally like and respect the people I've known who happened to attend fancy schools, I've learned not to pay much attention to what schools someone attended.

Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#22

Post by calmbonsai »

burcs wrote: post #8
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #5

Go to ivy league school + ai raising pre-seed venture capital is more similar to getting hired at an investment bank (as an entry level/post mba banker) than it is to starting a company

This mindset is tiresome, especially seeing it on Hacker News... I literally went to the cheapest state school in rural Pennsylvania and still was accepted into YC. My co-founder didn't even finish college, at some point I think people just want to make excuses. Also — I don't understand your second point. It's an accelerator. Capital is part and parcel when it comes to accelerating.

What year was your class?

Just because it’s tiresome doesn’t make it untrue in this “era”.

This is not a bag on YC, but yesteryear’s “web store”, begot “social”, begot “blockchain”, begot “ai” and today’s private markets are more conservative for Seed and A rounds.

Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#23

Post by LanceJones »

carlgreene wrote: post #10

Any other founders feel like YC has lost its luster? Not only are the number of AI companies in the portfolio ridiculous, but the large class sizes seem so much less personal. Not to bag on anyone who’s in YC right now, but it seems to be going the way of many ivy leagues - still meaningful, but very much not the same proxy for extraordinary it once was.

Looks like YC is moving to 4 cohorts annually -- and I agree with you on the AI product density in the past few batches -- but I've heard (from two alum) that the smaller sub-cohorts (i.e., within a batch) make it feel smaller and more intimate.

Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#24

Post by dgfitz »

senko wrote: post #12
dgfitz wrote: post #9

I guess I don’t get it, and I’d like to. Y-Combinator enables connections and mentorship along with a stipend. This allows a team to work full time for a few months, having quit or taken a hiatus from their day job. So the risk is $dayjob unless you’re a serial founder, the reward is the connections and money to float for a few months, while selling I think 10% of your company? The odds of your idea working out, even…

My feeling is that if you think quitting the day job is risky, you probably won't fit the profile YC and VCs look for. YC is an enormous brand in the VC and startup industry, and as a YC startup doors open to you that would be harder to pry open otherwise. The connections, and willingness of people to "pay it forward" are a huge (probably biggest) asset. The odds of your idea working are not great, that's correct. YC…

Thank you for the explanation, that is very helpful.

You said “ My feeling is that if you think quitting the day job is risky, you probably won't fit the profile YC and VCs look for.”

And

“ The odds of your idea working are not great, that's correct.”

So it is kind of geared towards wealthy people?

Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#26

Post by Swizec »

dgfitz wrote: post #24
senko wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feeling is that if you think quitting the day job is risky, you probably won't fit the profile YC and VCs look for. YC is an enormous brand in the VC and startup industry, and as a YC startup doors open to you that would be harder to pry open otherwise. The connections, and willingness of people to "pay it forward" are a huge (probably biggest) asset. The odds of your idea working are not great, that's correct. YC…

Thank you for the explanation, that is very helpful. You said “ My feeling is that if you think quitting the day job is risky, you probably won't fit the profile YC and VCs look for.” And “ The odds of your idea working are not great, that's correct.” So it is kind of geared towards wealthy people?

> So it is kind of geared towards wealthy people?

Or young enough that there’s not much more to lose than a few years.

If you’re choosing between going to a masters/phd or YC, then you’re in the right place. Or if you got laid off from a FAANG and looking for something fun to do while your severance lasts, doing a YC startup will beat other things you could add to your resume during this time.

And if it works, great you’re on your way to something cool. If it doesn’t, then at least you had a fun gap quarter.

But the people who really build successful companies don’t need any of this stuff. If you’ve got traction, VCs will find you.

~15 years ago I really wanted to get into YC. Now I realize that was because I wanted to be a founder more than I wanted to build a successful business. These days I focus on making the money machine go brrr and that's been working much better for me.

Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#27

Post by dbbk »

carlgreene wrote: post #10

Any other founders feel like YC has lost its luster? Not only are the number of AI companies in the portfolio ridiculous, but the large class sizes seem so much less personal. Not to bag on anyone who’s in YC right now, but it seems to be going the way of many ivy leagues - still meaningful, but very much not the same proxy for extraordinary it once was.

Yes the sheer number of AI slop companies is so uninspiring. Where is the creativity? There are still plenty of great technology companies to be built that are not ChatGPT wrappers.

Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#28

Post by setgree »

carlgreene wrote: post #10

Any other founders feel like YC has lost its luster? Not only are the number of AI companies in the portfolio ridiculous, but the large class sizes seem so much less personal. Not to bag on anyone who’s in YC right now, but it seems to be going the way of many ivy leagues - still meaningful, but very much not the same proxy for extraordinary it once was.

Off-topic but when was the Ivy League a proxy for extraordinary? Yale selected for height until at least 1965, Harvard was super dedicated to excluding Jews in the 30s and its athletes had SAT scores that were 100 points lower on average as of 2005, etc.[0]

[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in-ivy...

Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#29

Post by n2d4 »

dgfitz wrote: post #24
senko wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My feeling is that if you think quitting the day job is risky, you probably won't fit the profile YC and VCs look for. YC is an enormous brand in the VC and startup industry, and as a YC startup doors open to you that would be harder to pry open otherwise. The connections, and willingness of people to "pay it forward" are a huge (probably biggest) asset. The odds of your idea working are not great, that's correct. YC…

Thank you for the explanation, that is very helpful. You said “ My feeling is that if you think quitting the day job is risky, you probably won't fit the profile YC and VCs look for.” And “ The odds of your idea working are not great, that's correct.” So it is kind of geared towards wealthy people?

It's geared towards people who want to become wealthy, and are willing to take the risk that it needs to get there.

500k is enough to get you by for a few years at least, even in the bay area. You might not be able to afford champagne at the club every weekend, though.

Re: Guide to applying to YC – from a founder who was accepted on the third try

#30

Post by tptacek »

carlgreene wrote: post #10

Any other founders feel like YC has lost its luster? Not only are the number of AI companies in the portfolio ridiculous, but the large class sizes seem so much less personal. Not to bag on anyone who’s in YC right now, but it seems to be going the way of many ivy leagues - still meaningful, but very much not the same proxy for extraordinary it once was.

What ever was the "luster"? It depends on what you thought YC was. Everything else it did or could do aside: if you're building a company that is going to need to raise funds for the business model to work, YC is still the most straightforward path to doing a high-dollar syndicated unpriced seed round, which is a funding model that YC more or less pioneered.
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