Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 129 posts

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#91

Post by larrys »

Meekro wrote: post #88
scobar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most probably aren't just envious. However, those who wrote negative comments weren't afraid to announce seemingly definitive conclusions without enough data to justify their assurance. Keep in mind that the author and his cofounder were interviewed by YC partners and all of the cofounders. While their selection system has flaws, most probably agree that it's one of the best that exists right now. Perhaps they saw st…

For some of the negative comments, the data actively contradicts their conclusion. Many here seem to think that only an idiot would "invest in a 21 year old with a half-baked business plan." The people posting that have probably made less from whatever they're doing, than PG/YC have from their 21 year old founders.

"The people posting that have probably made less from whatever they're doing, than PG/YC have from their 21 year old founders."

So it's all about money then, right? Well if you want to take that to the logical extreme then you would take advice from, say, Larry Ellison or Carl Icahn (over PG) because they have much more money than PG does (at this point in time at least). My point is you have to be very careful about putting people up on a pedestal (which is what happens at HN so often) and thinking that their advice ranks over someone who, by the standards of this community appears to be "less successful".

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#92

Post by mb_72 »

This post seems to neatly encapsulate a lot of what I feel is wrong with the entire start-up / accelerator scene. I've always felt that capable people with a good idea will succeed 99% of the time anyway - and if that team in particular doesn't succeed, then another group will, and hence no net loss to humanity of the 'idea'.

OTOH, this kind of process seems to rescue half-baked ideas, or throw money at people that can perhaps program but can't actually run a business, or glorifies killing yourself working for hope of a huge payday. Perhaps I'm in the minority, and perhaps it's because I'm old (44) and 'get-off-my-lawny' ... but I am so not down with this kind of approach to making money.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#93

Post by larrys »

HorizonXP wrote: post #6

What a great story. Charlie is very brave for telling this, and it's something that more people need to hear. Getting into YC is not an achievement. Even if you get in, you're not special. You still have to bust your ass like everyone else trying to build a company. Not getting into YC isn't a big deal either, because you're still not special. Stories like Charlie's should help others highlight this fact. He said tha…

"PG's advice to Charlie about focusing on an idea they're passionate about, and an idea that they could see themselves working on for the next 5 years is sound."

Except for one thing. Passion about something is not something that you wake up in the morning, think about a bit, and then go pursue it.

You won't find a single story in legacy business history of someone who started a wildly successful business because they woke up one morning and thought "I want to start a business". It happened the other way they were going about their business and noticed a need or had an inspiration or idea and then decided to pursue making it a business. Only exception is now in the current day and age we have so many people doing so many things with ease of entry some people are able to pull this off it seems.

In the case of YC or other incubators we now have people who are attempting to just "come up with an idea and fill a need" and while some are succeeding it's not the way businesses have started ever before. Generally. And the process of finding something takes time as well and there is much serendipity involved (and that doesn't operate according to a schedule either).

Now it is possible to "think up" a business but that process can take years. In the case of my first business I had the inspiration one day while in college, pursued it out of college and then thought of a better idea which is the one I actually did. The process took time and there was no particular deadline. That idea worked and I sold the company (9 years later).

The 2nd business on the other hand took me 4 years or 5 years to come up with an appropriate "inspiration" as I investigated various possibilities (flying around to trade shows). There was no deadline that I was working under ("demo day"). Just whenever I found something I would do it. And I finally did and it worked out as well.

My point is, I don't think you can say to someone "focus on an idea you are passionate about" and they go off and "think" and come back with "yeah we want to do X we are passionate about it".

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#95

Post by jfb »

charlierguo wrote: post #49

Hey everyone! Author here. First off, thanks for reading! To be honest, I really didn't expect to get this much attention. This is a story that I've wanted to share with friends and family for a long time, and was thoroughly surprised when it was picked up by Backchannel (and then posted here). Regarding some of the points made here, I (mostly) agree. Getting into YC or raising money is not success. Changing your ide…

As a fellow YC non-success story (with a different narrative), I really enjoyed this piece. I took different lessons out of my time in YC, but I endorse this:

  I also want to note (in case anyone was wondering) that my experience 
  hasn't diminished my opinion of YC at all. PG's advice was spot on, 
  and YC remains an amazing program for founders.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#96

Post by smurph »

Am I the only one who thinks it's insane that someone can go from an undergrad CS degree to a failed startup and then directly into (presumably well paid) consulting gigs? I'd be pretty wary of a consultant who's only work experience was starting their own company and failing.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#97

Post by bsdpython »

mediaright wrote: post #57

..."professional hoop-jumper" ...He means being a kid? There's a self-importance and arrogance to all of this that really comes through from this type of rhetor. I think the imposter syndrome might not be that much of a syndrome in the case of far too many startup teams sadly.

When I read that line - "nearly two decades as a professional hoop-jumper" - I pictured in my head a guy in his early 40s. Professional means you get paid for your work. Hoop-jumper is a strange way to describe your education.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#98

Post by jsonchen »

pjlegato wrote: post #69
sparkzilla wrote: post #41

The article makes it clear that the YC interview selection process is deeply flawed. Leaving out the idea that they were selected because they told a story about the sound of biting a bottle, surely at the interview stage, if the entrepreneurs do not know what the company is making, or the business looks weak the interviewer should just say no. It's not enough to say "here are two bright people that can pivot". Brigh…

It's probably true that the YC interview process is deeply flawed, but OTOH there is no known better way to select worthy investments yet. Good startup business ideas are not only rare but also impossible to identify a priori. The only way to tell whether a business idea is good or not is to actually try it out in the market and see what happens. (This doesn't mean that any crazy idea is good, but it does mean that s…

Honestly I think that YC is opting to make fewer risks these days, not more. The days where you can get funding without traction are numbered, and with it go the real crazy idea startups like AirBnb, Stripe, and Twitch.tv.

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#99

Post by drumdance »

femto113 wrote: post #23
andrelayer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only part you're missing is that PG has said many times in the past that they invest mostly in the team and that many teams that go through YC end up changing their idea slightly or completely. So the beginning of this situation doesn't seem very unusual, just that they never actually figured it out.

I can accept this rationale for investing in teams over ideas, but when did "pivoting" go from meaning "a modest change in direction" (e.g. switching the target market for your SASS product from consumers to enterprise, or making what was initially a secondary feature a primary one) to "start over from scratch with an entirely unrelated idea"? Seems like another term is needed--"flailing" perhaps?

pg called Soylent "the biggest pivot in YC history"

"Affordable wireless networks" somehow became a food company.

http://blog.soylent.me/post/51007573199/the-biggest-pivot-in...

Re: How I Crashed and Burned in Y Combinator

#100

Post by bsdpython »

phkahler wrote: post #40
Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #33

Does YC ever accept business / growth people or just "tech"? I ask that in seriousness, as my take - in my very limited time as a startup founder & employee - has consistently been that many startups fail due in part to an obvious lack of business sense and skills. I'm regularly surprised by the sheer amount of startups out there, many of which are funded, with coders and designers who have no damn clue how to sell.…

YC is supposed to help with things like that. They teach techies the business side of things and I would imagine they'd say "you need to hire someone to do sales" if that's what they needed. In this case they said from the start something like "we're concerned about your product idea" which was their primary problem. I suppose having someone with sales smarts may have helped them figure it out, since their idea was t…

If you have to hire someone to sell to your first customers then you might have a problem
Post reply on HN