YC without being in YC • Hacker News Board

Re: YC without being in YC

#41

Post by mindcrime » Sun, May 05, 2013, 12:37 AM UTC

jrmattox1 wrote: post #40

mindcrime wrote: post #7

On a sort-of semi-related note... has anyone here participated in nReduce? The "Open Source YCombinator" that launched to much fanfare a while back? They seemed to get quite a bit of buzz out of the gate, but I haven't heard much about them lately. Anybody gone through the program and care to write up your experiences and submit here? I, for one, would love to read something like that.

I hadn't heard of nReduce. Very interesting. My take is that if you are accepted to YC and are willing and able to move to SV, then there are clear benefits in doing so: network, external validation, brand, access to capital, etc. If you are not accepted and/or are unable to relocate to SV, then a MOOC version of YC makes sense for the reasons that MOOCs make sense in higher ed: location & time independent, high qual…

If you are not accepted and/or are unable to relocate to SV, then a MOOC version of YC makes sense for the reasons that MOOCs make sense in higher ed: location & time independent, high quality learning, structured peer review, clear milestones and deadlines, tuition free, and most importantly ... it is far superior to the alternative, which is often doing nothing.

I tend to agree, but would love to hear any first-hand experiences from anyone who has participated. I'm sure there are a few, maybe I'll throw up a "Ask HN" sometime and solicit some input from some of them.

Re: YC without being in YC

#42

Post by snambi » Sun, May 05, 2013, 4:46 PM UTC

excellent post. sounds like the story of "Ekalavya" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekalavya

Re: YC without being in YC

#43

Post by VeteranShield » Fri, May 10, 2013, 4:20 AM UTC

aidscholar wrote: post #2

Can someone explain the mantra "Do stuff that doesn't scale"? Is this another way to say focus on the hard stuff? Then scale later?

I believe that this important mantra is illustrated by the use of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) technique. This is described in detail by Eric Ries in The Lean Startup (pgs. 99-102), wherein he explains the tremendous amount of learning and customer discovery that a startup founder/team can experience first-hand by making the effort to personally provide initial customers with customized one-on-one "concierge treatment"...