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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)

#41

Post by Kaizyn »

pg wrote: post #12
lux wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. I doubt PG and co were losing sleep over a copied application form ;) They're probably watching their competition with much interest. It's not like there's room for only one after all.

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…

Unless once someone 'accepts' an offer from one of these micro-VC firm they are entering in a binding contract that has some sort of penalty for breaking it, could you not simply allow candidates who have accepted elsewhere to still interview with you? If you like them and accept them, then they'd get to choose whether they'd like to stay with their existing micro VC or jump ship for YCombinator. Granted, filling one of your limited slots with people who have opportunities elsewhere may be a waste of your time. But that would at least mitigate the problem of people 'stealing' away your interviewees.

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

#42

Post by Kaizyn »

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.

Releasing more data would just give the competition something else to copy. Instead, YC could build a 'one click' application process and patent it.

Seriously though, YCombinator could always franchise their system. That way, they at least profit when others use the fruits of their labors.

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

#43

Post by pg »

attack_forgotpw wrote: post #19
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…

YC is a clone of Google's SOC project that occurred the prior summer. Taking on multiple projects simultaneously, providing about 5k, accepting applications, three month timeline, having frequent meetings between people and mentors, bringing in outside mentors, having a day at the end for people to present their accomplishments. It is natural to be concerned about competitors, but everyone who is being abrasive to th…

YC wasn't copied from the Summer of Code. We weren't really aware how that worked. What it was copied from, initially, was the classic college student summer job at a software co. The idea was basically to let people get a summer job starting a startup.

Later we tossed some aspects of that (going back to school in the fall doesn't work well with startups), but kept others, like the 3-month cycle.

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

#44

Post by attack_forgotpw »

pg wrote: post #43
attack_forgotpw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC is a clone of Google's SOC project that occurred the prior summer. Taking on multiple projects simultaneously, providing about 5k, accepting applications, three month timeline, having frequent meetings between people and mentors, bringing in outside mentors, having a day at the end for people to present their accomplishments. It is natural to be concerned about competitors, but everyone who is being abrasive to th…

YC wasn't copied from the Summer of Code. We weren't really aware how that worked. What it was copied from, initially, was the classic college student summer job at a software co. The idea was basically to let people get a summer job starting a startup. Later we tossed some aspects of that (going back to school in the fall doesn't work well with startups), but kept others, like the 3-month cycle.

So everyone is a clone.

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

#45

Post by projectileboy »

freax wrote: post #36
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.

> 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.

I've never applied to YC, so maybe I'm not qualified to comment, but I'm not sure your remark fairly characterizes what's going on. It seems to me that if YC gets hundreds and hundreds of applications, and if most founders who are accepted say yes, and if people know the situation going in to the interview (which they clearly do), then it's just not worth YC's time to futz around dealing with the few people who can't decide immediately.

Now, if YC and all their clones could agree to a similar cycle, so that founders could pick between different offers, then I would say that YC were the bad guys. But that's not the case (yet).

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

#46

Post by davidw »

bouncingsoul wrote: post #22
davidw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think an application form indicates thought about the program? They're just going to copy a few forms and start throwing thousands of dollars at people... Right... If this were a statically typed conversation, it would have been impossible to make a mountain from this molehill.

I don't understand your comment. Could you clarify?

1) My point was that these people have decided to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars. Saying they "haven't thought about it" because of an application form seems to be jumping to conclusions.

2) It's a programming language joke. MoleHillFactory (a Haskell example would be better, but I don't know it) wouldn't be able to return objects of type Mountain. Maybe it's not funny, but I kind of liked it:-)

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

#47

Post by flipbrad »

attack_forgotpw wrote: post #44
pg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC wasn't copied from the Summer of Code. We weren't really aware how that worked. What it was copied from, initially, was the classic college student summer job at a software co. The idea was basically to let people get a summer job starting a startup. Later we tossed some aspects of that (going back to school in the fall doesn't work well with startups), but kept others, like the 3-month cycle.

So everyone is a clone.

midgets standing on the shoulders of giants, as even the mighty will admit. what matters is the evolution with each new generation. get the right mix of memes and you end up with something very powerful, which YC arguably is

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

#48

Post by bouncingsoul »

davidw wrote: post #46
bouncingsoul wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your comment. Could you clarify?

1) My point was that these people have decided to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars. Saying they "haven't thought about it" because of an application form seems to be jumping to conclusions. 2) It's a programming language joke. MoleHillFactory (a Haskell example would be better, but I don't know it) wouldn't be able to return objects of type Mountain. Maybe it's not funny, but I kind of liked it:-)

I still think it's reasonable to think the application form reflects thought put into the program. If I showed up shitfaced to a job interview it would be reasonable for the interviewers to wonder if I took it seriously. I may take it completely seriously, but I would understand if my behavior seeded doubt.

Your argument doesn't really sway me: I'm judging the program based on something real; you're judging it based on what must obviously be the case.

I don't completely write-off a YC-clone just because they put zero thought into the application form. But it does alter my impression.

I disagree with your static typing argument too. "Mountain out of a molehill" means making a bigger deal out of something than it is. Which means both things could be class Mound, just with different values. So in this case static typing wouldn't have saved the day ;-)

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

#49

Post by freax »

projectileboy wrote: post #45
freax wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I've never applied to YC, so maybe I'm not qualified to comment, but I'm not sure your remark fairly characterizes what's going on. It seems to me that if YC gets hundreds and hundreds of applications, and if most founders who are accepted say yes, and if people know the situation going in to the interview (which they clearly do), then it's just not worth YC's time to futz around dealing with the few people who can't…

> and if people know the situation going in to the interview (which they clearly do)

You do the interview. Then you get a phone call with a percentage mentioned and no negotiation allowed. You say yes or they claim you "failed an IQ test". 5 minutes to decide.

> then it's just not worth YC's time

Yeah, not when you do this stuff in bulk, assembly-line style, with most companies fizzling out if they don't fund them (so very little risk of "being proven wrong").

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

#50

Post by projectileboy »

freax wrote: post #49
projectileboy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never applied to YC, so maybe I'm not qualified to comment, but I'm not sure your remark fairly characterizes what's going on. It seems to me that if YC gets hundreds and hundreds of applications, and if most founders who are accepted say yes, and if people know the situation going in to the interview (which they clearly do), then it's just not worth YC's time to futz around dealing with the few people who can't…

> and if people know the situation going in to the interview (which they clearly do) You do the interview. Then you get a phone call with a percentage mentioned and no negotiation allowed. You say yes or they claim you "failed an IQ test". 5 minutes to decide. > then it's just not worth YC's time Yeah, not when you do this stuff in bulk, assembly-line style, with most companies fizzling out if they don't fund them (s…

I'll give you that "failed an IQ test" seems a bit harsh. But when did all this occur? 2005, or later? If later, there's been so much written on the web about this that it seems amazing to me that you would have been shocked by the offer.

To the second point, I agree with you that an assembly line style makes individual negotiations impossible. But I'd say two things: (a) that's a feature, not a bug, and (b) if you're a young founder with no track record, exactly what are your other options?

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