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YC has those things now. At the beginning it didn't have any of these things, and a few really successful startups emerged from those early days even with YC not having guaranteed follow on funding, not having a large network of alumni and not having the reputation.


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Well as someone who has built a (moderately) successful startup without any outside funding or acceleration I have a different perspective on this.

While I do think YC provides a lot of value to their alumni, people can get fixated on the process of raising funds and not building their business. Build a great business making real money and you won’t need funding.


Agreed. I worked for a YC company who's founders went through YC before they even had a company. In fact, they still hadn't landed on one by the time they came out. But they were Stanford and MIT grads, and insanely well-connected.

YC’s value is still in the networking and signaling aspects.

I’ve interviewed and worked with a surprisingly large number of YC founders whose startups didn’t go anywhere. It’s amazing how much weight the YC founder background carriers in tech circles. For the one person I’m most familiar with, their YC startup went nowhere, they didn’t even get a prototype put together, and the team fell apart because they couldn’t get along with each other. Yet just mentioning their YC founder background or putting it in a resume (or Twitter bio) grants them instant credibility and a huge reputation boost. It’s fascinating to watch.

On the other hand, the VCs I’m still in touch with seem well aware of how this game is played. They still have a lot of respect for the top founders and companies coming out of YC, but it’s also understood that YC is kind of a numbers game these days and just getting accepted to YC (or other top accelerators) doesn’t mean much on its own.


Depends whether you count YC as a startup. It is in some ways, isn't in others.

For starters, back in the day, YC was mostly seen as a place anyone could get funding and build a great company whether or not they had a great network. Nowadays, it seems more and more like having that network is the primary thing that gets you in YC.

(Not a criticism, and I can see the merits of that choice. But, when I talk to my friends about YC that usually comes up.)


I think part of YC:s success is that you take applications online. One doesn't need a lot of networking and pitching skills to get into YC, just a great team, ambition and some kind of idea. That means you get startups that other investors will never see.

Do you have stats on that? Based on my anecdata, I don't think YC startups are guaranteed successes at all.

YC is just a small sample of the startup world.

It doesn't mean YC failed, but he does have some bragging rights all the same. The truth is, a lot of startups have been accepted into YC and have achieved far less...

That's sort of a jaded view, I think. There's plenty of YC startups that we never hear anything about.

This is a complete Non sequitur. Yes, all of what you said is correct about a different landscape, but none of that concludes to why YC has to be less prestigious, less exclusive, take many more startups, and make the entire process as impersonable as possible so that they can make the most money from it like a big corporation. YC is just not the same anymore, not in the way you are talking about, in the bad way.

Startups are what the founders make of them. YC is just a stepping stone.

YC isn't the end all and be all of your startup hopes. There's awesome accelerators like TechStars, etc. out there.

That's interesting. Usually it's a given for a new aspiring company. However the whole idea of YC was to give good technical ideas the ability to sustain and grow.

If YC became - because I believe it wasn't - just another company supporting regular businesses, with all business features required, then things are different than some here would assume.


Those are some huge exceptions you list! I think there are more options for startups today than ever before.

I am excited at the idea of getting into YC. But it does scare me a bit for the crowd that thinks you must have YC to get rolling on your startup. Fact is, most greats(be it MS, Apple, Google) all built a somewhat great product before getting any outside help.


I don't think there are many YC startups that can boast a few hundred grand per year in profit, as opposed to revenue or money they raised.

Also: which start-ups didn't apply to YC at all and how well they did.

YC startups aren't significantly different from any other startup at a similar stage.

This comment scares me that YC is desperate for applications now after burning through so many early stage founders for years. Has YC peaked?
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