Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA • Hacker News Board

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#291

Post by cocktailpeanuts » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 11:43 PM UTC

healthenclave wrote: post #254

fnbr wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He answered a similar question (mine) below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13895615

Thanks. But for me, I am NOT looking for any external validation. Except my users, whom I deeply care about. My situation (being in a Developing country) is a little different from your IMHO.

Your question was "Is this a bad sign?" And the answer to that is NO. You're doing just fine. But if you're looking for a funding from YC (which is an external validation btw), they would rather fund someone who are willing to quit their job and commit 100%.

Like I said there's nothing wrong with your approach. If you believe you're doing the right thing and you can see the growth then you are doing it right.

You WILL know when it's time to quit your job and commit when the time comes.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#292

Post by brudgers » Fri, Mar 17, 2017, 11:44 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #166

ptero wrote: post #91

Can you provide some info on how does YC support hardware startups? More specifically, what is a good stage to apply? We are working on building a demo-quality HW prototype, with the ETA of ~6months. That means we will not be focused on growth, but on tech development. Should we wait until we have a working system and apply to YC when we are ready to scale and grow it (this is our current thought).

You want to join YC because you want the money and investors, but your product isn't ready yet so what's the money for? If you only need to pay your own living costs and small development costs for R&D, maybe you should look for an angel investor and a pre-seed round. Speaking of, there's a void in the VC market for funds that invest in the R&D stage like this.

YC has traditionally been seen as provided seed round funding and its investment as being for living expenses and early development costs.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#293

Post by _ao789 » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 12:43 AM UTC

jasim wrote: post #245

guelo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think the web is maturing and consolidating quickly and there will be fewer and fewer opportunities for a guy with a camera to build a billion dollar business?

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." The status quo is _always_ broken. Change is unceasing. Assumptions that are true today need not remain so in the future. This can happen to any product, business and their culture. Opportunities are everywhere, but we get normalized to reality pretty soon, the status quo fervently resists change, new things by virtue of being new are hard to do and fail…

This is such a motivational response, not sure if you intended it to be so (to that degree). Either way, thank you.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#294

Post by pedalpete » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 1:13 AM UTC

jdorfman wrote: post #272

Hi Michael, YC-funded companies are known to be large-scale consumers of free and open source software. They are able to leverage the competitive advantage provided by this digital infrastructure to build successful, high valuation businesses. Some of those companies have gone on to make great contributions to the Open Source community themselves. Would YC ever consider setting up a fund for the builders and maintain…

I may be a bit dense here, but who are the 'builders and maintainers of the infrastructure'? Can you give an example?

I'm thinking Docker, GitLab, NPM are both in some ways doing both the development of their businesses, and maintaining the infrastructure and open-sourcing their code.

Are these not the sorts of examples you're thinking of? Does this require a separate fund?

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#295

Post by nashadelic » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 1:15 AM UTC

soheil wrote: post #157

Sam Altman wrote about the current make up of YC founders based on their gender and ethnicity. If I recruit two co-founders of color and one woman primarily for the purpose of getting into YC is that shunned upon?

Not affiliated or related with yc but I imagine yes, it would be frowned upon. Don't hire them because you want to get into yc, hire hem because they are good at what they do and a good fit for you. Secondly, while getting into yc is a laudable stepping stone, you should think of life beyond yc. If you don't get into yc, will you fold your company? If yes, then you're already not committed enough.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#296

Post by nashadelic » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 1:16 AM UTC

sharode19 wrote: post #271

What's the best way to pick between two ideas when you like one idea better but the other is more feasible given your skill set? >>>>>>>>>>> We're two founders working on products for people of color. We have two ideas we want to work: 1) a networking type idea 2) a media and entertainment idea. We love both these ideas deeply, we've committed most of our time to idea 1 bc we can make an MVP for it but we want to wor…

FYI, you should take a look at the application itself, it allows for multiple ideas

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#297

Post by intrasight » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 1:21 AM UTC

tedmiston wrote: post #284

beambot wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about the evolution of various web technologies: Chat & Direct Messaging: Unix Talk, IRC, SMS, Jabber, XMPP, Snap, slack, etc. Message boards: Usenet, gopher, BBS, Wiki, Blogs, Myspace, Facebook, etc. You can literally look at almost any web technology, and it seems to be constantly reinvented, improved, and updated. It seems likely that the tools of today will necessarily evolve, at the hand of new upstarts.

Each is also getting more and more centralized and privatized.

Exactly. The software business is about commoditizing your competitors stack. The internet business is about eliminating commodity stacks.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#298

Post by Alex3917 » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 1:29 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #294

jdorfman wrote: post #272

Hi Michael, YC-funded companies are known to be large-scale consumers of free and open source software. They are able to leverage the competitive advantage provided by this digital infrastructure to build successful, high valuation businesses. Some of those companies have gone on to make great contributions to the Open Source community themselves. Would YC ever consider setting up a fund for the builders and maintain…

I may be a bit dense here, but who are the 'builders and maintainers of the infrastructure'? Can you give an example? I'm thinking Docker, GitLab, NPM are both in some ways doing both the development of their businesses, and maintaining the infrastructure and open-sourcing their code. Are these not the sorts of examples you're thinking of? Does this require a separate fund?

> 'builders and maintainers of the infrastructure'?

Python, Django, Postgres, PyPy, Rest Framework...

I don't want to just list out all the dependencies we're using, but I'm guessing at least a simple majority of all the page views from YC startups involve Python.

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#299

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 3:04 AM UTC

tyre wrote: post #121

refrigerator wrote: post #47

What do you think of teams that are working part-time (e.g. while in full time education/employment) on an idea with decent traction, but who are waiting for external validation (such as YC or other investment) before going full-time on it? Do you take it as a sign of low commitment?

You're basically asking YC to bet on you before you bet on yourself. If you aren't willing to go all in, what does that say? Startups are really fucking hard. You have to have a serious belief and commitment to build a billion dollar business (which is what YC is investing in.) If you're unsure, that's totally fine, but you need to be the first to believe in your company and get used to being the only ones who believ…

> If you aren't willing to go all in, what does that say?

That you are smart enough not to weaken your negotiation position if you don't actually have to?

Re: Michael Seibel, CEO of YC, is doing an AMA

#300

Post by 32wattle_park » Sat, Mar 18, 2017, 3:13 AM UTC

mwseibel wrote: post #142

ankitsoni wrote: post #23

Hey Michael, Thanks for the AMA. How do you approach an application when you have no domain knowledge of the field in which the startup is working in?

That is a great question! First I look at how clearly the founders communicate their idea and their insights. When someone has a truly deep understanding of their domain, they are able to explain it to intelligent people from any background.

Hi Michael, as a tech person, I'm not articulate enough to sell my ideas (and I have lots of them :)) or explain problems that need to be solved. Does YC sees that articulate founders (speech & presentation/looks) is a pre-requisite? Looking back at recent YC allumni, there have been 'easy' problems solutions (eg, tea bot, uber condom, smart mattress etc). I have a feeling that it was not easy for Mark Z to explain what Facebook all about. I understand that founders need to be able to sell ideas to VC. How can YC help companies with not-so-articulate founders? Thank you.