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I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#522

Post by leanne07 »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #341
api wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded: statistics such as these: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77525 ... seem to show that very successful sole founder stories do exist. But nearly everything from the YC orbit says "find a partner or you'll fail," etc.

I came here to ask the same question. I started working on an idea of my own and I have many friends who are very talented but none that really seem to want to commit to something risky and obviously I don't want to force someone to come if they are not interested in taking the risk with me. This is the main reason my next application to YC will be solo but I am certainly open (and would prefer) a partner.

Hi BinaryIdiot!

I am also looking for a committed group of people to work on a start up with. Please reach out to me at leannesawyer2007@gmail.com.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#523

Post by chiddysk »

With everything said about the 'economies of scale' of launching startups in Silicon Valley, would do you think of startups in English-speaking developing countries? What are your thoughts on monetization(70%+ don't have bank accounts), market size(most use dumb phones) and relevance(i.e. Another whatsapp/facebook/airbnb? what for?)?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#525

Post by sama »

userium wrote: post #461

When should a startup start to monetize? Currently we are building a user base and iterating the product based on feedback. What do you think about delaying monetization?

Totally depends on the startups. In general it's good to monetize early, but there are very important exceptions. This is the sort of thing we have to give individualized advice about to every YC company.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#526

Post by sama »

fieldforceapp wrote: post #511

Thanks for the AMA. You haven't answered the hardware related questions in this thread yet, so I'll try: do you think you'll see the day when YC funds a hardware startup that develops custom ASICs or semi IP for licensing? If so, what type of startup would be a good fit for YC?

I predict that will happen in the non-distant future.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#527

Post by sama »

waiquoo wrote: post #67

What stage would be ideal for considering moving a project from research (at the graduate university level) to a startup? In this case I'm referring to a project that is based on custom nanoscale hardware components that rely on some pretty groovy physics. The applications are pretty immediate and the market already exists in the biotech/healthcare field.

I think startups are not well-suited for open-ended R+D unfortunately (hoping to do something about this). The best time to move from research to a startup is when you've developed technology and have a plan to make it into a product people will want.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA

#529

Post by sama »

lquist wrote: post #429

We are a bootstrapped ~2.5yr old company that is doing $5M in Revenue and ~$2M in PBT. We have fallen into a bit of a funk in the past 6-12M or so growth-wise and basically flat-lined. We are talking to a few funds to raise a ~$10M round (mostly secondary) to bring the PBT down to 0 and really swing for the fences. We've thought about applying to YC but the 7% seems high for us at this stage. Is YC interested in co-i…

Unfortunately we don't do that--it just doesn't fit our model. Plenty of companies have done YC at a later stage and still thought we increased their value far more than the 7% we take, though.
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