41–50 of 63 posts
I'm 18, and my co-founder is just turning 18 in a week. So we never really expected to get in. We are both completely broke, so we're going to launch a kickstarter campaign to see if we can get the funding for more hosting (and the ability to work full-time over the summer). From there, well, I guess we try to grow and take over the world.
I never even thought to apply. Why? The San Francisco requirement was against my ideals that tech exists everywhere, and that's not how I wanted to build a company. More so, the stake they required relative to funding was pretty huge. I would now, to a degree, put YCombinator kind of in the same vein as Shark Tank in outside perceptions - allegedly that show takes 3% of your company whether you get a deal or not. Cle…
Probably the wisest words spoken regarding the startup business on HN for months. If you are not able to launch a company without external money, there are two possible reasons behind that. Either you aren't ready to build a company, or your idea is not worth your efforts and there was never an expectable RoI to begin with.
I never even thought to apply. Why? The San Francisco requirement was against my ideals that tech exists everywhere, and that's not how I wanted to build a company. More so, the stake they required relative to funding was pretty huge. I would now, to a degree, put YCombinator kind of in the same vein as Shark Tank in outside perceptions - allegedly that show takes 3% of your company whether you get a deal or not. Cle…
The only requirement is that you be in the bay area for the duration of the program which I think is essential because of the networking opportunities,office hours and dinners that you'll be attending in person.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From http://foundrs.com/find-a-cofounder : (the wrong reasons to want a co-founder:) Yes, it's true that startups with only one founder are more likely to fail. But it's due to signaling: if you, as passionate about your idea as you are, can't even convince one more person to join you, how will you get users excited to download your app, get investors excited about the market, and get Microsoft and Coca-Cola to partn…
> usually fail because they are bad at convincing anyone of anything. Without any data on usually vs. unusually a debate is lost anyway! FWIS there are enough stories of successes from solo-founders to contradict your theory - flat on its face. > can't even convince one more person to join you ... is not the same thing as don't want another person in the founding team. I still do not see how that 10 year old logic of…
A lot of the rejected companies are confused as to why they didn't get into YC or are behaving as if it's some great mystery. Looking at some of their websites though it kind of seems like they just didn't read Paul's essays. If I can't visit your website and immediately understand your business that is a red flag. People are always fancy-fying and abstracting the descriptions of their businesses. Most of the busines…
I never even thought to apply. Why? The San Francisco requirement was against my ideals that tech exists everywhere, and that's not how I wanted to build a company. More so, the stake they required relative to funding was pretty huge. I would now, to a degree, put YCombinator kind of in the same vein as Shark Tank in outside perceptions - allegedly that show takes 3% of your company whether you get a deal or not. Cle…
> without the weird investment ecosystem that does exist in the bay area, I don't think many of them would exist Probably the wisest words spoken regarding the startup business on HN for months. If you are not able to launch a company without external money, there are two possible reasons behind that. Either you aren't ready to build a company, or your idea is not worth your efforts and there was never an expectable…
As an investor who thought Instacart, Uber and BufferBox were really stupid ideas and missed a chance to invest in them (Uber through AngelList), I know this possibility is all too real. :)
We were rejected last year after doing a very late application and probably because we hadn't quit our jobs nor built a prototype, or even lived in the same city (I hired my co-founder on a remote team before, and took him with me when I left). We probably ticked all the reject boxes. We kept pitching other investors for a while, then quit and bootstrapped the prototype by taking on consulting work. Pitching was hard…
My recommendation is that you should start with a problem you are passionate about. Quite literally, I keep a notebook of stuff that annoys me. Then, every night I review it and try to coalesce it down to the essence of a problem. Youll find that youre probably passionate about 5 or 6 of the problems you come accross. Fix one of these problems for yourself and 99 times out of 100 someone will be willing to pay for it…