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Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

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Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#31

Post by jkent »

pg wrote: post #18
nikiscevak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul, why do you call the firms clones? Aren't you a clone of a seed stage incubator? I absolutely love what you do but to say that there are clones in the investment world (where there is zero scale) is a weird way of looking at the world. You probably have enough money to fund every good idea in each intake but you certainly don't have the time to spread out across those ideas. So if you have inspired more capital…

I was calling them clones because that's what other people were calling them. They are, though. All we have in common with seed stage incubators is investing at the seed stage. What these guys have in common with us is a whole list of distinctive things: investing in multiple startups simultaneously, taking about 6%, using an application form instead of accepting business plans, making founders move to where we are,…

So what is to be done about this?

I assume one of your main distinctive features is unique to YC - you.

Surely by continuously refining the detail you can be one cycle ahead of the competition - possibly shortening the 'application open' window.

Why not release more data on your successes. They can't copy that.

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#32

Post by defen »

freax wrote: post #29
pg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing I really worry about is that competitors will use artificial deadlines to panic founders into taking offers from them before they've interviewed with us. 100% of the clones make decisions before we even do interviews, probably not by coincidence. Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard fro…

> Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard from us. I assume they'll do that again. That makes me mad, I admit. It seems such a nasty thing to do to a group of young founders. Wait a minute, aren't you the guy who gives them 5 minutes to accept once you make your offer? If they did their interviews/accept…

I think the point of the 5 minute thing is that you know going in what the terms will be if you are accepted, so you have plenty of time to think about it beforehand. Furthermore, YC has a good reputation so you can be sure that you're not going to get screwed over by verbally agreeing to an ambiguous deal.

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#33

Post by davidw »

freax wrote: post #29
pg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing I really worry about is that competitors will use artificial deadlines to panic founders into taking offers from them before they've interviewed with us. 100% of the clones make decisions before we even do interviews, probably not by coincidence. Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard fro…

> Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard from us. I assume they'll do that again. That makes me mad, I admit. It seems such a nasty thing to do to a group of young founders. Wait a minute, aren't you the guy who gives them 5 minutes to accept once you make your offer? If they did their interviews/accept…

Maybe someone should do a startup to auction off potential startups to potential seed-angel-incubator-YC-clones;-)

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#34

Post by pg »

freax wrote: post #29
pg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing I really worry about is that competitors will use artificial deadlines to panic founders into taking offers from them before they've interviewed with us. 100% of the clones make decisions before we even do interviews, probably not by coincidence. Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard fro…

> Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard from us. I assume they'll do that again. That makes me mad, I admit. It seems such a nasty thing to do to a group of young founders. Wait a minute, aren't you the guy who gives them 5 minutes to accept once you make your offer? If they did their interviews/accept…

If they did their interviews/acceptance AFTER you, it would be the same situation with YOU pressuring founders before they'd heard back from anyone else!

Sure. And if we stole their wallets we'd be robbers. But we don't, do we?

I'm going to propose to all the clones that in future we all have a common date for startups to make decisions by. But since we currently decide last, we're not pressuring anyone.

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#35

Post by colellm »

johnrob wrote: post #17

I'd just like to mention that, if YC clones use the same application forms, it does make life easier for the applicants...

A lot of the applications for the yc like programs are similar (ex. launchboxdigital), which, I agree, does make it easier to apply to multiple programs.

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#36

Post by freax »

pg wrote: post #34
freax wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard from us. I assume they'll do that again. That makes me mad, I admit. It seems such a nasty thing to do to a group of young founders. Wait a minute, aren't you the guy who gives them 5 minutes to accept once you make your offer? If they did their interviews/accept…

If they did their interviews/acceptance AFTER you, it would be the same situation with YOU pressuring founders before they'd heard back from anyone else! Sure. And if we stole their wallets we'd be robbers. But we don't, do we? I'm going to propose to all the clones that in future we all have a common date for startups to make decisions by. But since we currently decide last, we're not pressuring anyone.

> But since we currently decide last, we're not pressuring anyone.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible, eh?

And then there's the "accept immediately or you failed an IQ test" attitude. If you have a common date with the others then that's got to change.

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#37

Post by rguzman »

pg wrote: post #34
freax wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last year when they made offers to groups that had also been invited to interviews with us, they tried to pressure them into accepting before they'd heard from us. I assume they'll do that again. That makes me mad, I admit. It seems such a nasty thing to do to a group of young founders. Wait a minute, aren't you the guy who gives them 5 minutes to accept once you make your offer? If they did their interviews/accept…

If they did their interviews/acceptance AFTER you, it would be the same situation with YOU pressuring founders before they'd heard back from anyone else! Sure. And if we stole their wallets we'd be robbers. But we don't, do we? I'm going to propose to all the clones that in future we all have a common date for startups to make decisions by. But since we currently decide last, we're not pressuring anyone.

alphalab decides after YC. http://www.iwalphalab.org/survey_overview.aspx (look in the sidebar)

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#38

Post by keating »

pg wrote: post #9

This was nice of them. It didn't bother us too much. We were indignant the first time someone copied our application form, but at least these guys admitted it.

It kind of reminds me of a salary history where a company wants to pay you according to how other companies value you, instead of making their own determination.

It's like they don't know what to ask, so they went with what you came up with. Well, if they can't figure out what information they need on their own, how are they going to figure out who to invest in on their own?

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#39

Post by rms »

rguzman wrote: post #37
pg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they did their interviews/acceptance AFTER you, it would be the same situation with YOU pressuring founders before they'd heard back from anyone else! Sure. And if we stole their wallets we'd be robbers. But we don't, do we? I'm going to propose to all the clones that in future we all have a common date for startups to make decisions by. But since we currently decide last, we're not pressuring anyone.

alphalab decides after YC. http://www.iwalphalab.org/survey_overview.aspx (look in the sidebar)

I would be surprised if that was the reason for the timing of the decisions, I suspect it was just convenient for them. AlphaLab is going after a decidedly different market than YC: people that live in Pittsburgh. AlphaLab is also consciously an incubator and not something that failed at copying YC and accidentally turned into an incubator.

Re: Sincere Apologies to Paul Graham and the Y Combinator Team (from the Seattle Founder's Co-op)

#40

Post by pg »

jkent wrote: post #31
pg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was calling them clones because that's what other people were calling them. They are, though. All we have in common with seed stage incubators is investing at the seed stage. What these guys have in common with us is a whole list of distinctive things: investing in multiple startups simultaneously, taking about 6%, using an application form instead of accepting business plans, making founders move to where we are,…

So what is to be done about this? I assume one of your main distinctive features is unique to YC - you. Surely by continuously refining the detail you can be one cycle ahead of the competition - possibly shortening the 'application open' window. Why not release more data on your successes. They can't copy that.

I don't think we have to do much about it. Copies are never as big a problem as they seem.
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