Reflections on my time in Y Combinator

Post by throwaway_4ever » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 11:04 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #25

swyx wrote: post #19

this was a great ad for YC :) i think where people are more borderline is if they can raise at a decent seed valuation elsewhere already (eg based on existing revenue or prior reputation/technology being far more established). It's well understood that YC has some value add. So the fun question is - what is the valuation you can raise at which it does NOT make sense to enter YC? YC values you at ~2m when they invest…

S16 here. I think the greatest value add was actually being able to work heads-down for 3 months knowing that you would almost certainly get investment on Demo Day. Almost all companies got investment, since YC was extremely selective back then (batch sizes were much smaller) and investors generally trusted YC's judgement. Prior to S16, this was probably even more true. If it weren't for YC one would have to spend 50…

Post by throwaway_4ever » Wed, Aug 24, 2022, 7:06 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #82

throwaway_4ever wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just by going to enough house parties with seasoned founder attendees Do you think this is realistic getting access to these just by living in the Bay? I don't think so.

> Do you think this is realistic getting access to these just by living in the Bay? Yes, if (a) you're nice and approachable (b) you're working on something interesting (c) are reasonably good at socializing, it's pretty easy to ask around and get looped in on such events. People here are pretty open about having interesting friends-of-friends show up to house parties.

Post by alexcnwy » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #68

falsemove wrote: post #42

Thanks for sharing. It seems like everyone was mostly focused on sales and some were doing quite well. Were there any strategies that stood out to you that were working? Was there some leg up provided to companies in their sales efforts who were in YC?

Everyone in YC sells to each other. It's quite encouraged to buy from other YC startups and test out their tech as alpha customers because it increases the valuation of the YC network (including your own company). It's a very interesting model because as a SaaS getting the first enterprises to sign up is extremely hard, yet those add enormous equity value and provide the proof and case studies for growth at scale. YC…