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Was Y Combinator worth it?

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Re: Was Y Combinator worth it?

#81

Post by tptacek »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #77
tptacek wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you choose if you go to YC? Plenty of YC companies have not raised A rounds.

voluntarily not raised A rounds, or been unable to though?

Voluntarily not raised A rounds. What do people think happens if you don't raise after YC? YC isn't a conventional VC firm. They don't take board seats. They don't need you to shoot the moon (they'd like it if you do, but they're not structurally dependent on it). They are in fact pretty chill about you going on to bootstrap after your batch wraps up.

Re: Was Y Combinator worth it?

#82

Post by hackyhacky »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #66
grotorea wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this has something to do with the local opinion on Haskell?

Funnily enough you can't actually implement the proper y-combinator in Haskell because the type system won't allow it. Which is a real shame because in most Lisps you can only implement the applicative order y-combinator due to a lack of lazy evaluation.

What is "improper" about this implementation in Haskel?

  fix :: (a -> a) -> a
  fix f = let x = f x in x

Re: Was Y Combinator worth it?

#83

Post by moneywoes »

paxys wrote: post #19

> We, however, were not in this position. Eric and I still had full-time jobs when we were accepted. While we had been meeting regularly for a few months to discuss different ideas, we had absolutely zero traction, no working product, and very little validation. This is the key part IMO. It's easy to give up 10% of what is essentially an idea in your head in exchange for $500K and some legitimacy from a big brand. Th…

Given YC seldom invests in solo founders that equity stake just hurt I imagine

Re: Was Y Combinator worth it?

#84

Post by moneywoes »

benreesman wrote: post #47

The value of the YC network is difficult to even price. A Bookface profile alone is more flow on cutting-edge B2B than Oracle gets out of some crazy-senior sales/BD type. You’re going to get in front of any VC even remotely in your sector if you do anything interesting and solidly executed. And if you bust out completely you’re going to be on a first name basis with dozens of people who didn’t and now run highly-conn…

Any more insight on Bookface?

How is it different from zoominfo

Re: Was Y Combinator worth it?

#85

Post by hmcamp »

mitchpatin wrote: post #11
elaus wrote: post #6

What a curious product: CSV import as a service (or hosted on premise). Would love to know where they pivoted from (according to the blog post).

We actually pivoted multiple times: 1. We applied to YC and initially started work on what we referred to as "data-stack-as-a-service". The premise was to provision, configure, and maintain the different components required for a data stack: Data Warehouse, Integrations, Transformations, Visualizations, etc. We had a working product and a few paying customers. Ultimately we decided to pivot as we felt the market for…

Would you be willing to share your YC pitch deck?

Re: Was Y Combinator worth it?

#86

Post by moneywoes »

paxys wrote: post #21
pclmulqdq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real question is whether the benefit is worth the 10%. That's pretty expensive. From a macchiavellian perspective, it does appear that the benefits mostly attach to the founders (unless you are selling products to startups) and the 10% attaches to the company, which suggests that the optimal strategy post-YC may be to fail and start another company. Edit - Obviously I'm not suggesting killing a good compa…

90% of a big number is a lot better than 100% of a small number. If you get benefit out of YC and your company has momentum, killing it and starting fresh on your own is absolutely not the best strategy.

Realistically, how many will get big

Re: Was Y Combinator worth it?

#87

Post by GravityLab »

Thank you for the exciting and interesting read!

> 10% is a meaningful chunk of a company. While $500k sounds generous, many startups with traction could easily raise that money on much better terms.

How much traction would likely earn the money on much better terms and what would make the terms much better? I've been interested in Y Combinator or raising funds for what I'm working on but I'm still prepping to launch the MVP so there are no users yet. It'd be useful to be able to gauge what types of MVPs and launches or pre-launches may make the cut. Thanks!

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