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Investor Day

blog.ycombinator.com

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81–90 of 92 posts

Re: Investor Day

#81

Post by emmett »

lihorne wrote: post #73
emmett wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is sharing the rating with students so critical? I can see why people would be curious, but I'm not sure why it matters so much?

Because students don't know how much a company wants them, and so cannot set their ranking with that knowledge in mind. For example, Apple could rank a student a 9 and Microsoft a 2, but to the student it looks like their level of interest is the same. The student could personally prefer Microsoft, but have a low chance of getting matched, whereas if they knew Apple was closer to a sure-shot of having a job, they mig…

I still don't see how on average it's worse for students. It might be worse for student A who would have applied to MS knowing a higher chance of getting in, but that's then probably worse for student B who genuinely wants to work at MS and doesn't get the slot that A took.

Isn't it better if everyone expresses their true preferences and then we do the best matching we can on that basis, rather than having students attempt to game the system in response to company ratings? Your description makes the system sound close to optimal to me.

Re: Investor Day

#82

Post by Finbarr »

chicagoBears76 wrote: post #77

Is there a signaling issue introduced at all? 1) can investors see that a startup is not at the venue or at a table all morning and get a feel for demand? 2) can investors gather any information from the matching results to get a feel for demand? 3) is there a chance for investors to send false signals by showing their interest in other startups artificially? Vice versa for startups at all (would require collusion so…

I don't think so.

1) There are way more investors than startups and we anticipate a busy day for everyone based on past data. 2) Not the demand for a company. 3) No.

Re: Investor Day

#84

Post by steve_taylor »

sandGorgon wrote: post #79

Depending on how this is organized, this can be a spectacularly BAD idea. Investors would love it because they now have visual confirmation of who all are the "hot" matches. I bet everyone other than the Sequoias would be straining to look at who the hot startups are...and completely ignore the ones in front of them. For the long tail of a YC batch - the ones that are not hotly contested - this could be a disaster. P…

I don't see anything in the description that allows investors to see an aggregated ranking of YC startups.

Re: Investor Day

#85

Post by sandGorgon »

steve_taylor wrote: post #84
sandGorgon wrote: post #79

Depending on how this is organized, this can be a spectacularly BAD idea. Investors would love it because they now have visual confirmation of who all are the "hot" matches. I bet everyone other than the Sequoias would be straining to look at who the hot startups are...and completely ignore the ones in front of them. For the long tail of a YC batch - the ones that are not hotly contested - this could be a disaster. P…

I don't see anything in the description that allows investors to see an aggregated ranking of YC startups.

I said - it might as well be that. They can physically do that now (using their associates,etc) by checking out the marquee VC activity in the room.

Even if these were individual rooms, you would have significant tailgating behavior.

People don't realize this, but the most popular question of demo day is "who else is investing in you"

While earlier every deal was always evaluated in isolation.

Re: Investor Day

#86

Post by elmar »

beambot wrote: post #32
beambot wrote: post #26

> ...if Investing/General Partner is not present, the slot will be cancelled. These seems to be an attempt to reinforce FOMO to force key people to attend demo day. Resorting to these tactics implies a pretty big perceived power imbalance... Eg. is this a reaction to senior partners sending their underlings because of DDay burnout? If so, this could backfire. The senior partners might just not show up (still), and fo…

Why the downvotes? Seems like a well-reasoned hypothesis and contributes to the overall discussion. Has HN become that critical of different opinions that downvotes are used to punish dissent rather than using upvotes to indicate agreement?

Who cares about downvotes! just enter the "Aspergian mindset" and write what you think is right.

If you are looking for social feedback you will never get far on startups.

Re: Investor Day

#87

Post by pc86 »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #37
pc86 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't get a single investor to give you 20 minutes after Demo Day you've got much bigger problems.

20 minutes? I thought they got an order of magnitude less time. Regardless yeah it's probably a sign of an issue but with the current climate I don't think that necessarily has to be true.

The linked article states Investor Day appointments are 20 minutes.

Re: Investor Day

#88

Post by rhc2104 »

lpolovets wrote: post #74
zacharycohn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love the "open to experiments!" attitude. I think you nailed it here - 20 minutes is enough to rule someone out. If our original scenario is: Scenario 0: 25 1-hour meetings over the course of a few days. Investments = 25-n You seemed to be suggesting in an earlier comment you might end up with: Scenario 1: 25 20-minute meetings followed by 25 1-hour meetings. Investments = 25-n I think you'll actually end up with: Sc…

Roughly speaking, our investing process is: 1 hour one-on-one meeting, then 1 hour full partner meeting, then decision. The way I think about the math: Current scenario: 25 1-hour one-on-one meetings -> 10 full-partner meetings -> 2-3 investments. Worst case for Investor day: 25 20-minute meetings -> still don't have enough info -> 25 1-hour one-on-one meetings -> 10 full partner meetings -> 2-3 investments. Good cas…

lpolovets - shouldn't the follow up one-on-one meetings be only 40 minutes?

Re: Investor Day

#89

Post by Kinnard »

elmar wrote: post #86
beambot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the downvotes? Seems like a well-reasoned hypothesis and contributes to the overall discussion. Has HN become that critical of different opinions that downvotes are used to punish dissent rather than using upvotes to indicate agreement?

Who cares about downvotes! just enter the "Aspergian mindset" and write what you think is right. If you are looking for social feedback you will never get far on startups.

Well, users are social feedback . . .

Re: Investor Day

#90

Post by lpolovets »

rhc2104 wrote: post #88
lpolovets wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly speaking, our investing process is: 1 hour one-on-one meeting, then 1 hour full partner meeting, then decision. The way I think about the math: Current scenario: 25 1-hour one-on-one meetings -> 10 full-partner meetings -> 2-3 investments. Worst case for Investor day: 25 20-minute meetings -> still don't have enough info -> 25 1-hour one-on-one meetings -> 10 full partner meetings -> 2-3 investments. Good cas…

lpolovets - shouldn't the follow up one-on-one meetings be only 40 minutes?

That's a good point. I guess they could be!

40-min meetings might be a little awkward because usually the first 5-10 minutes of a meeting are social / chit-chat, so it might feel a little weird to immediately start a 2nd meeting exactly where you left off on the first meeting. Also, most of the time a 40-min meeting still takes up a full 1-hr time-slot since most people schedule meetings on the hour.

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