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YC Stats

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Re: YC Stats

#91

Post by lawstudent2 »

sydneyliu wrote: post #13

Sam also just tweeted that 300 YC companies are no longer around. Amazing how much transparent they are and how great YC is at picking and training. So many really crazy ideas that most would think are insane and YC is able to find the ones that make sense and help them. Seems like that's a bit less than 1/3 of all YC companies Tweet is here: https://twitter.com/sama/status/636586179970752512

This is also rather misleading - because 300 have been shut down, 904 have been funded, which includes 107 in the last batch, which can be discounted entirely from these stats. This gives us 300/797 have shut down, or a percentage of about 38%.

What I'd like to know is the value, at exit, of the companies that have exited or gone public. Because I can guarantee you that the "valuation" of $65B+ is a totally meaningless number. This includes every single company that had a huge, unsustainable up round which will almost certainly be devalued based on future financings or exits.

Re: YC Stats

#92

Post by ugolino91 »

kevin wrote: post #41
lordnacho wrote: post #10

Since applications are opening tomorrow, it would be interesting to have a breakdown of interviews/acceptances based on various criteria: sole founder, has revenue, has user, etc... It would allow prospective applicants to think about whether to apply, and hopefully keep the pile a manageable size for the people reading it.

Might be interesting, but the odds are the wrong way to think about this. Our wins come from the margins and we're looking for people to beat the odds. Most of the time we are surprised what ends up becoming big. The numbers reveal that it's hard, but startups were ALWAYS hard. It's still the hardest thing I've ever done and most founders say the same. As far as YC is concerned, we don't want people to try to make th…

respect

Re: YC Stats

#93

Post by myblake »

roymurdock wrote: post #88
sama wrote: post #63

Also, please do not take this as encouragement to start an accelerator. Accelerators on the whole are a terrible business, and we try to be up front about that with everyone who comes to us for advice.

If the accelerator business on the whole is terrible, what sets Y Combinator apart and makes it a good company in a bad market - earning at 10% annual returns, 30% IRR as noted further up in the thread? Is it YC's human resources, position in the market, branding, some combination?

It's got to be the position in the market at this point (though probably started out as human capital to get to that point). They're seeing most of the good deals for early stage companies because they're so far ahead anyone else in the space, which is obviously in your best interest in something where the best deals are several orders of magnitude better than a merely good deal and the average case is failure.

Re: YC Stats

#94

Post by pc »

lawstudent2 wrote: post #91
sydneyliu wrote: post #13

Sam also just tweeted that 300 YC companies are no longer around. Amazing how much transparent they are and how great YC is at picking and training. So many really crazy ideas that most would think are insane and YC is able to find the ones that make sense and help them. Seems like that's a bit less than 1/3 of all YC companies Tweet is here: https://twitter.com/sama/status/636586179970752512

This is also rather misleading - because 300 have been shut down, 904 have been funded, which includes 107 in the last batch, which can be discounted entirely from these stats. This gives us 300/797 have shut down, or a percentage of about 38%. What I'd like to know is the value, at exit, of the companies that have exited or gone public. Because I can guarantee you that the "valuation" of $65B+ is a totally meaningle…

> Because I can guarantee you that the "valuation" of $65B+ is a totally meaningless number. This includes every single company that had a huge, unsustainable up round which will almost certainly be devalued based on future financings or exits.

"Meaningless" is hyperbolic. How much would you pay for a share of Airbnb? More than nothing, I assume. I think one can conclude something from consummated, informed responses to this question.

Re: YC Stats

#95

Post by jkw »

pbreit wrote: post #87
jkw wrote: post #79

Which companies are the 8 that are worth >= $1 billion?

AirBnB, Dropbox, Stripe, Twitch, Zenefits, Instacart, Docker, Machine Zone. Not sure about the last one. Quora? Mixpanel? Edit: oops, that's 8 without Quora & Mixpanel. Machine Zone was surprising. Hadn't even heard of it.

Looks like you've listed 8

Re: YC Stats

#96

Post by denismars »

lordnacho wrote: post #10

Since applications are opening tomorrow, it would be interesting to have a breakdown of interviews/acceptances based on various criteria: sole founder, has revenue, has user, etc... It would allow prospective applicants to think about whether to apply, and hopefully keep the pile a manageable size for the people reading it.

Agree with Kevin, this might encourage the wrong way of thinking when applying for YC.

Average people, that do average things, generally think in terms of the odds "what's my chance of this, or that.." when deciding about things.

Extraordinary people don't care about their chances, they do things because they are determined or obsessed about whatever it is they are doing, and stop at nothing to make it happen. These are the types of people that go on to build great companies and are the types of people YC generally looks for in the applications.

So if you're the type of person that doesn't care about the stats: you should definitely apply!

Re: YC Stats

#97

Post by lawstudent2 »

pc wrote: post #94
lawstudent2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also rather misleading - because 300 have been shut down, 904 have been funded, which includes 107 in the last batch, which can be discounted entirely from these stats. This gives us 300/797 have shut down, or a percentage of about 38%. What I'd like to know is the value, at exit, of the companies that have exited or gone public. Because I can guarantee you that the "valuation" of $65B+ is a totally meaningle…

> Because I can guarantee you that the "valuation" of $65B+ is a totally meaningless number. This includes every single company that had a huge, unsustainable up round which will almost certainly be devalued based on future financings or exits. "Meaningless" is hyperbolic. How much would you pay for a share of Airbnb? More than nothing, I assume. I think one can conclude something from consummated, informed responses…

No - I stand by that as a literal use.

Does 65B represent the actual money value that people will pay for the shares of 100% of the ~600 currently existing YC companies?

Does it tell us the average value? The mean? Standard deviation? Quintile distributions? P/E? Is that number just based on valuations from funding rounds? Projections?

It is literally meaningless. It is not verifiable. The standards that are used to calculate it are not explained. There is no explanation to how it relates to the companies in the portfolio.

I'm a bear by nature. I think that the current batch of SaaS unicorns have an unsustainable valuation, and I think this unverified number feeds into that.

Re: YC Stats

#98

Post by kumarm »

(Since no one is pointing out Elephant in the room, I will do that).

YC has been around for 10 years. Average age of a company from First Investment to IPO in 2014 is less than 10 years (http://lifescivc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Time-From-VC... Source 1.)

Personally, I believe startups excel when odds were stacks against us (forced to innovate and make founders strong and tested). I think YC or any incubator has a structure that shields companies from facing challenges initially.

I don't think Incubators are proven to be a great Idea yet ( if you are someone with industry experience rather than a fresh graduate).

1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucebooth/2015/02/24/tortoise-h...

Re: YC Stats

#99

Post by csomar »

lawstudent2 wrote: post #91
sydneyliu wrote: post #13

Sam also just tweeted that 300 YC companies are no longer around. Amazing how much transparent they are and how great YC is at picking and training. So many really crazy ideas that most would think are insane and YC is able to find the ones that make sense and help them. Seems like that's a bit less than 1/3 of all YC companies Tweet is here: https://twitter.com/sama/status/636586179970752512

This is also rather misleading - because 300 have been shut down, 904 have been funded, which includes 107 in the last batch, which can be discounted entirely from these stats. This gives us 300/797 have shut down, or a percentage of about 38%. What I'd like to know is the value, at exit, of the companies that have exited or gone public. Because I can guarantee you that the "valuation" of $65B+ is a totally meaningle…

>> Although these are very imperfect indicators of success, here they are.

There you got your response at the beginning of the post. It seems that you are attacking for the sake of attacking? Sam is providing these data because people asked for them.

Re: YC Stats

#100

Post by 001sky »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #70
jnevelson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Need to take dilution into account here. If we assume a (optimistic?) 1% stake, that's $650M. YC recently (1-2 years ago?) started giving 120k. Before that, it was 10-20k. So let's say half of what you said is the total investment = 65M. That's a 10X return. I actually was expecting higher. Am I missing something in my numbers?

that's probably roughly right. But why did you expect higher? they are generating somewhere around 20-30% IRR. That seems massive in the current low yield low return environment

20-30% irr is not very high given the risk involved. a lower risk portfolio that is leveraged can give you this return quite easily (in a mechanical sense). in that case you have or take a low-risk low return investment and add risk and return by adding say 10x leverage to a 3% return.

In this case, the more relevant number is $$ in and $$ out. and also the optionality to continue the business going forward. That is what seperates the two cases out, and arguably make the one quite distinct from the latter.

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