Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures • Hacker News Board

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#31

Post by pg » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 3:17 AM UTC

tbrooks wrote: post #23

lanceweatherby wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what may be heresy here on HN I am going to partially disagree with PG. Regional YCs may indeed be of the nth quality bucket, but that does not necessarily doom them to failure anymore then not attending Stanford or MIT dooms a hacker to failure. The proof as they say is in the pudding. TechStars seems to be doing just fine so far. Let's see what Shotput's births before we call their babies ugly.

YC ignores a lot of good ideas because it's really focused on BIG ideas. YC wants to build Paypal, not 37signals. They lean toward ambitious infrastructure ideas which also have a higher failure rate. But there is a huge number of great ideas with lower risk/reward ratios that will still make stellar companies. I say bring it on... it's a great time to be in the HTML writing business. :)

We'd be happy to have funded 37 Signals. We funded Wufoo, which is very much like 37 Signals, and we'd be delighted to fund more companies like that.

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#32

Post by pg » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 3:56 AM UTC

ajju wrote: post #16

rjurney wrote: post #15

Dear Paul Graham, Everyone but you sucks. Allow me to explain. I either live in the valley or want to live in the valley. I idolize you and love this site. You are the smartest guy on planet earth, and anyone that copies you is pathetic because they could never be as cool as you. Who do they think they are!? Now that I've impressed you with flattery and have defeated your enemies on your behalf, I'd like to tell you…

For those who may not be able to pierce @rjurney's smoky satire, this is indeed satire. I have to agree with the spirit of what he's trying to convey in this comment: news.yc would be a more interesting community if a majority of the people didn't default to PG's opinion on everything in general (this is my anecdotal observation and might be incorrect) and YC clones outside the valley being of nth quality bracket in…

Surely trying to recreate YC outside the valley can only help?

Well, no, actually. YC being in the Valley doesn't actually do that much for the Valley. I explained why here:

http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html

It's the stage after YC that makes the Valley what it is-- the angel stage. YC could be anywhere. We contributed as much to Silicon Valley when we were in Boston.

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#33

Post by suliali » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 3:56 AM UTC

ajju wrote: post #30

quizbiz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reminds me of microloans. It's a growing trend in Africa. I believe there are websites that connect you to farmers in Africa and you actually make good ROI.

The difference is that I am talking about funding in amounts larger than what microloan sites like Kiva allow (Kiva's top loan amount is ~2K) but more importantly, provide mentoring like YC does. Therefore, it has to be done by experienced entrepreneurs who guide these new entrepreneurs closely.

Love this idea. There are already incubators and seed funds doing this in India and China. And I suspect the trend will accelerate.

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#34

Post by quizbiz » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 4:06 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #32

ajju wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who may not be able to pierce @rjurney's smoky satire, this is indeed satire. I have to agree with the spirit of what he's trying to convey in this comment: news.yc would be a more interesting community if a majority of the people didn't default to PG's opinion on everything in general (this is my anecdotal observation and might be incorrect) and YC clones outside the valley being of nth quality bracket in…

Surely trying to recreate YC outside the valley can only help? Well, no, actually. YC being in the Valley doesn't actually do that much for the Valley. I explained why here: http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html It's the stage after YC that makes the Valley what it is-- the angel stage. YC could be anywhere. We contributed as much to Silicon Valley when we were in Boston.

What % of participants travel from outside Silicon Valley?

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#35

Post by pg » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 4:22 AM UTC

quizbiz wrote: post #34

pg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely trying to recreate YC outside the valley can only help? Well, no, actually. YC being in the Valley doesn't actually do that much for the Valley. I explained why here: http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html It's the stage after YC that makes the Valley what it is-- the angel stage. YC could be anywhere. We contributed as much to Silicon Valley when we were in Boston.

What % of participants travel from outside Silicon Valley?

In the last two cycles, 66% were from outside the Bay Area.

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#36

Post by ajju » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 4:34 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #32

ajju wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who may not be able to pierce @rjurney's smoky satire, this is indeed satire. I have to agree with the spirit of what he's trying to convey in this comment: news.yc would be a more interesting community if a majority of the people didn't default to PG's opinion on everything in general (this is my anecdotal observation and might be incorrect) and YC clones outside the valley being of nth quality bracket in…

Surely trying to recreate YC outside the valley can only help? Well, no, actually. YC being in the Valley doesn't actually do that much for the Valley. I explained why here: http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html It's the stage after YC that makes the Valley what it is-- the angel stage. YC could be anywhere. We contributed as much to Silicon Valley when we were in Boston.

Here's my train of thought about why Shotput, if successful, would help Atlanta:

- There is really very little seed stage funding in Atlanta (unlike the valley)

- The people who choose to startup in Atlanta AND need seed funding usually do so because they want to live in Atlanta for the foreseeable future (or have to, for some reason). If they didn't, they would just move to the valley since getting seed funding is so much easier there.

- Therefore, after seed funding, they are likely to stay in Atlanta (The round 1 funding scene in Atlanta is better than the seed funding scene..although not optimal)

- Hence, Atlanta will be one startup ahead because of Shotput Ventures

The gist is that if first time entrepreneurs were going to leave Atlanta after seed stage, they would likely have done so at seed stage since seed stage funding is so much harder here.

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#37

Post by pg » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 4:44 AM UTC

ajju wrote: post #36

pg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely trying to recreate YC outside the valley can only help? Well, no, actually. YC being in the Valley doesn't actually do that much for the Valley. I explained why here: http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html It's the stage after YC that makes the Valley what it is-- the angel stage. YC could be anywhere. We contributed as much to Silicon Valley when we were in Boston.

Here's my train of thought about why Shotput, if successful, would help Atlanta: - There is really very little seed stage funding in Atlanta (unlike the valley) - The people who choose to startup in Atlanta AND need seed funding usually do so because they want to live in Atlanta for the foreseeable future (or have to, for some reason). If they didn't, they would just move to the valley since getting seed funding is s…

Unless they restrict applications to people from Atlanta, they'll get them from all over the country. Meanwhile, most groups from the Atlanta region won't apply only to Shotput, but also to the other seed firms.

So unless they restrict applications, there will end up being little local component, just as with every previous seed firm. Techstars intended to be the YC of Boulder. But IIRC only 4 of the 20 startups they've funded so far have been from Colorado. As far as I know, the same thing has happened to everyone after them as well.

The seed funding business isn't regional. People would like to believe it is, because it's 20x cheaper to run a YC than to do what you'd actually have to do to make startups stick to a particular city. But it isn't.

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#38

Post by ajju » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:00 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #37

ajju wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my train of thought about why Shotput, if successful, would help Atlanta: - There is really very little seed stage funding in Atlanta (unlike the valley) - The people who choose to startup in Atlanta AND need seed funding usually do so because they want to live in Atlanta for the foreseeable future (or have to, for some reason). If they didn't, they would just move to the valley since getting seed funding is s…

Unless they restrict applications to people from Atlanta, they'll get them from all over the country. Meanwhile, most groups from the Atlanta region won't apply only to Shotput, but also to the other seed firms. So unless they restrict applications, there will end up being little local component, just as with every previous seed firm. Techstars intended to be the YC of Boulder. But IIRC only 4 of the 20 startups they…

OK You've got a point. But let us say only 20% of the applicants stay in Atlanta. That's 4 more than otherwise would. Also, as I said before, once you pass the seed stage, it's easier (but not valley easy) to get the $1M you mention in "Can you Buy a Silicon Valley". It will help long term.

Basically, if we could at least get the ease of raising seed funding in Atlanta at parity with the ease of raising 1st round for a startup with revenues, it would be a significant win for us.

I do agree with you that if there were more VCs funding at the $1M level in Atlanta, we could keep all the Shotput applicants here and maybe a bunch of startups would move from across the country to Atlanta. But since politicians are unlikely to be as enlightened as making the $1B investment you mention in your essay would require, we'll have to attract private investors. If 1 of those 4 startups has a big successful exit, we'll probably get 1 more large fund to come to Atlanta.

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#39

Post by unalone » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:09 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #31

tbrooks wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC ignores a lot of good ideas because it's really focused on BIG ideas. YC wants to build Paypal, not 37signals. They lean toward ambitious infrastructure ideas which also have a higher failure rate. But there is a huge number of great ideas with lower risk/reward ratios that will still make stellar companies. I say bring it on... it's a great time to be in the HTML writing business. :)

We'd be happy to have funded 37 Signals. We funded Wufoo, which is very much like 37 Signals, and we'd be delighted to fund more companies like that.

But Wufoo still deals with a Big Idea: namely, something that's creating a large infrastructure on the Internet. 37signals is a private, internal service: they make things that appeal to closed niches. On the other hand, Wufoo is something that's more public, in a sense.

Maybe it's just a matter of what YC companies get named more than others, but the ones that immediately come to mind are big-problem companies. Reddit for finding news online. Disqus for comments. Scribd for document indexing. Wufoo for forms. There aren't as many niche sites (versus something like TechStars, which had a cooking site) - or am I just missing lots of niche YC sites?

Re: Atlanta Gets Its Own Y Combinator In Shotput Ventures

#40

Post by pg » Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 5:11 AM UTC

ajju wrote: post #38

pg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless they restrict applications to people from Atlanta, they'll get them from all over the country. Meanwhile, most groups from the Atlanta region won't apply only to Shotput, but also to the other seed firms. So unless they restrict applications, there will end up being little local component, just as with every previous seed firm. Techstars intended to be the YC of Boulder. But IIRC only 4 of the 20 startups they…

OK You've got a point. But let us say only 20% of the applicants stay in Atlanta. That's 4 more than otherwise would. Also, as I said before, once you pass the seed stage, it's easier (but not valley easy) to get the $1M you mention in "Can you Buy a Silicon Valley". It will help long term. Basically, if we could at least get the ease of raising seed funding in Atlanta at parity with the ease of raising 1st round for…

But let us say only 20% of the applicants stay in Atlanta.

This assumption is off by an order of magnitude. YC funded 61 startups in Boston. Only 3 are still there, and 1 of those is talking about moving to SV. So the assumption should be more like 2-3%.