> 1. Product advice: Paul Graham is one of the most astute product advisers i know.
I am sure this is true, but how many product advisers do you know?
When I look at that last batch of acceptees... I am very surprised at some who made the cut. I'm not sold on YC's judgement. I think they may hit a few home runs just due to taking a lot of swings rather than due to an ability to identify the good pitches, and get lucky that a couple hundred fair pitches are proffered every time. Which leads into the next point...
> Pg and co get so many applications and have so little time to read them that you should expect that the YC partners don’t have any idea what you do
...Which means you're giving ownership to people who don't care enough about what you do in particular to spend time on it; this is a big mismatch if you've spent a lot of time on your project, so their approach is more aligned with people who come in with ideas sans code. They have dozens of other start-ups to deal with, not to mention all the time some of them spend on this site.
So the main value in YC seems to be demo day -- getting a stage to present to a large number of moneyed interests at once, plus the news coverage, so you either get the real investment dollars you need or get acquired.
All the information you get is pretty much replaceable -- you can find it other places -- but YC takes the write-protect tab off the floppy so instead of just you being stuck in read-only mode you can write out information that is seen by people you want to see it.
At least that's what it appears their primary value is to me.
you're giving ownership to people who don't care enough about what you do in particular to spend time on it
At the interview stage all we've seen is an application form with 120-word answers, and maybe a demo. And we're interviewing 50-60 groups over 3 days. It's not that surprising that we don't know in great detail what each plans to do. But once we accept a group, we spend a lot of time talking about the product with them-- literally down to the shapes of buttons.
And this is true with groups that have already launched just as much as those that haven't. In any startup, most development happens after launch. Every (good) startup is sans ideas 6 months in, compared to what they'll eventually do.
To point 1: YC backs teams not ideas. Smart early stage investors back teams.
To point 2: AT Interview stage, from one application form how familiar do you expect someone to be once you've read 500 forms. This is a pretty selfish viewpoint. Once you get into YC and get to know everyone YC (in particular Jessica) works extremely hard for you and care about what you do.
Some companies like rescuetime and heroku were well past the idea stage when they did YC. So your comments are a bit of an overgeneralisation.
All of these are good points but the reality is something else. you can take whatever yc says on its face value or simply look at the types of companies they take and the common theme in them as well as the types of persons.
they both have a certain feel to them. call it web 2.0 web 3.0 :) or just look at the graphics or the language and yes sometimes features too. "Share the love" / "concert-savvy friend" just an example. There are other bits and pieces too. You could say that this is the general trend, what attracts yc, and so on. of course. that would be the value of their vision. I don't have any arguments about that at all. And it's a good think that they can see it. but my argument is that this is the theme of yc.
Another thing I've noticed is how features that have been around for a long time (web time), are slightly "modified" (most times more simplified, either for the good reason of simplification, or simply because of lack of technical experience, or in the worst case because of bad copying) many examples of this. but since you brought up dropbox, the first thing brings to my mind is box.net. again I'm not saying anything bad about it. I'm sure its better since I know about box.net and their not that great anyway. but my point is that there are not that many selections that are either new innovative products or an old idea that you could say wow this is how it should be implemented. say Google for example. And, they have common theme to them. no not from the perspective of the consumer or what the products are.
I really don't know about how yc views things but the theme of yc is clear. alteast to some degree. either because that's simply the result of their total work and it just produces this, or intention by design to move in this direction or both.
if you go to many vc's site and look under their portfolio many times you can find a common theme in their select.
> AT Interview stage, from one application form how familiar do you expect someone to be once you've read 500 forms
If they're flying you in for an interview you're no longer in the pool of 500 forms. If they are asking questions that make it clear they aren't paying attention to the information you've already given them it just goes to show that your grandiose plans are fairly inconsequential to them and they're only tossing their spare change at you.
> Some companies like rescuetime and heroku were well past the idea stage
Companies that have a lot done already are the ones that are going to run into the mismatch I talked about. Here's this great thing you made; now you're giving ownership to people who don't feel about it the same way. There's not a lot of investment of money, time, or emotion on the part of YC. So it seems to me that the exchange is equity for exposure -- basically you've started off your marketing budget at the 6% that YC takes.
I don't think it's fair to assume that YC considers the plans of the teams it accepts to be inconsequential.
And to the statement 'now you're giving ownership to people who don't feel about it the same way.' - differing viewpoints about your idea is not a bad thing.
Finally, to reduce YC's value-add to 'marketing budget' is incorrect. Do you think that VC's attend demo day because of YC's marketing?
The mistaken assumption shows in the use of the past tense. The fact that a product's launched doesn't mean it's done. In most startups, most of the work happens after launch.
The mistaken assumption is reading things into the statement that aren't there. I'm simply talking about having done something concrete and functional rather than only having a proposal. You're leaping to conclusions by projecting some kind of finality onto that.
I'm amazed at the people who continually doubt the value of YC. Why not just ask those founders who have been part of YC - nearly all of them will tell you being in YC was invaluable. Isn't that all the proof that is needed?
Asking participants is not a great way to judge an activity's value, due to our natural biases. The study mentioned below comes to mind. That said, I suspect the value is high.
They "care" when they accept you. Before that, not so much. These are problems people have with all VC, not just YC. I agree. If you're serious, bootstrap.
Anyone can bootstrap but once you are done do you have an audience with people who if they invest in your product? If not then you have to make a web app that is going to generate an income for you and your co-founders.
Listen to what Graham himself says: if you have customers, nobody cares what your pedigree is. Most successful companies don't come through YC. Most funding sources --- top tier VC included --- don't come with real PR benefits. YC does. But it's not proven that you need it.
I am not sure how that is funny. After web applications started dropping like flys about 2000 I decided that I could build my own that would be just as good but without millions in venture capital.
What are you talking about, applications or companies?
If by "bootstrap" you mean "build an app in your spare time while holding down a full-time job in IT at Wells Fargo", you win the argument.
If by "bootstrap" you mean "build a company without funding", implying making payroll, I think you're nuts. It's at the very least incredibly scary to bootstrap a company.
Building the application, gaining paying users, building a company from that money.
The opposite is to get the money first, create a company, then build an application.
I would prefer the last one, but getting the money up front is really difficult for most people. Not because there idea but there connections. YC builds the connections, helps build the idea, and then puts it all together. So while YC is great, there will always be a greater number of people wanting in then there is room. So it is back to Plan A.
I don't agree, YC doesn't accept a sure thing most of the time they like to gamble and hit the next 'big thing'.
There is one exception in the companies they have taken on but all the rest were not established and only a few looked like a sure thing (auction manager, photo editor, comments manager).
Oh no! You have to make money ??
Well getting investment and perpetuating inflated valuations until someone stupid buys the company sounds a much better idea.
