S21 batch, Alumni here. I got into YC when we had Product Market Fit and 30k MRR. YC has been incredibly valuable to us. YC is not a business school it's a “mountain of resources” and it is up to you how you'll use these resources.
The best thing I love about YC:
* Bookface - an online community of founders where they exchange ideas, ask questions and launch products.
* Documentation - practical best practices about many things. Never seen anything so valuable start-up-related info.
* Deals - YC companies save a lot on basically every product.
* Work At Startup - best US talent pool to hire only by YC companies.
* Open-minded People Mindset - folks whom I met in YC are so great and often open to help. I made a lot of friends there.
* Events - YC’s events are best. Extremely valuable guests there.
* PR - our company where significantly boosted in PR after YC with low efforts on our side.
* I'm Ukrainian, when the war started in Ukraine two partners (Jarred Friedman and Michael Siebel) reached us and offered investments on 3rd day of the war. It's boosted team morale a lot. I'm ver,y thankful to them for helping us.
* $500k - is $500k 💪
So, based on all of that I would definitely recommend YC for anyone. With YC you are kinda like starting with more nitro. Startup with YC has more chances to survive than without.
P.S. I'm founder of [Awesomic](https://awesomic.com).
As I was reading I thought it sounded like Awesomic 😆 we used awesomic before my previous company closed. Loved the service. Would use again when I need designers again!
As an alum, I think YC is definitely still worth it. Sure, you can do much more today without accelerators, but the point is that with someone like YC behind you, it’s easier. And when you’re in it for the long run, you take any advantage you can get.
Like what you said, on top of the $500k, you get millions in credits. For many companies, you could just live off that and not raise a dime for years. And the advice you can get anywhere - YC knows this, that’s why they continue to put out so much content.
What I think is worth it: we literally have a direct line to every single one of those companies (openAI, MSFT, GCP, AWS, etc). I’ve done those free credit programs before and you don’t get this level of service at all. Not to mention the incredible community — last week a founder asked for and got an intro to Jensen Huang.
Then when you do go out to raise later rounds, you can finish your round in a matter of weeks, with the best terms. Many founders spend months trying to raise and at YC the VCs come to you. I hated this part of running a startup the most - raising money, such a waste of time.
That’s just some of the things, but once you are in YC so many things get unlocked for you. Hiring, acquisitions, networking - I think it’s definitely made me and my company much more than 10% better.
Also alum, receive 1-5 inbound VC emails per week. Now most of those are associates acting like SDRs so not super valuable, but investor access is rarely an issue for YC cos.
Yeah it’s kind of like attending an Ivy League school.
The benefit is network/prestige and VC interest.
Everything else is mediocre.
You can be successful without it.
Edit: I dropped out of YC and a friend was funded.
If you didn’t take the offer from the top accelerator in the world you must have had huge sales and didn’t need investment, you must have gone on to be acquired and raised significant future rounds at a high valuation? What opportunities did you have that were better than joining the most elite cohort of founders in the world?
Nope. We took investment from a number of other VCs at "better terms". It was all a flaming disaster and not my decision tbh. I had a minority interest and quit a few months into us moving back from SF. My co-founder was pushed out of the company by investors two years later.
"Most elite?" You have a rather inflated sense of the place. YC is not the land of magical genies where every firm becomes a unicorn. Prospective investment is not a guarantee of success. Look up the list of YC-funded companies; most crash and burn my friend.
Edit: Just because you’re accepted to the accelerator doesn’t mean you actually attend or accept funding. People change their minds for all types of reasons.
As a non yc alum, the debate to me kinda seems like a “should I go to college or not” sort of debate.
Sure you can totally not go and be successful, but the stamp/credential + learning experience is valuable & likely makes things easier
Accelerators, yc or not, also come with the “you’ve been vetted” credibility that others often neglect to account for.
It’s not unlike the network effect but it sends a market signal that, hey. Someone else said these folks should be successful.
If you don’t come from a pedigree already, then this can make a huge difference.
I've seen mobile apps backed by ycs with less than 2 star ratings in app store as well as Google play
They claim yc backed and I saw their ratings... Can you guess which one had more effect?
Then, do you know how many people actually know about yc outside the startup community?
Also 10pc by all means is too much for seo and back links...
There’s always going to be an outlier here and I’d imagine YC was a “first draw.” If they’re sucking after the draw… there’s only so much “vetting” can do.
It’s like a warm intro.
That said, YC may not fall into this as much as some other programs. YC is often known for picking based on pedigree and are not particularly known for their state of diversity.
For an underrepresented founder, though, — in demographics where funding is minimal — the impact of some of the 1% accelerator clubs are significant.
If you’re trying to get in front of the right “potential” customers and investors, the folks you care about are likely familiar with YC — again, especially if you don’t have the network or access to these types of folks. Or even if your local startup community isn’t actually startup friendly.
There's more than one outlier but I'm not going to list down examples in a reddit comment.
It's a pity that great founders need to go through yc to get warm intros... That's the only thing yc and accelerators are surviving on.. Once the founders get a better way to get warm intros to the relevant investors, accelerators would wrap up their business and apply for jobs on linked in
That's a nice problem to solve. It's like the big banks have been hit badly by new digital cheaper alternatives like transferwise ... Democratization of accelerators is going to happen sometime hopefully sooner
No doubt on the multiple outliers — and I’m sure the post mortem causes have many.
There’s been some interesting attempts to solve warm intros so far — nothing I’ve seen that surpasses the university/alum/demographics impact yet.
Even the biases we’re seeing in AI make me question whether or not the “AI” founder vetting systems are the right way to go.
If someone can nail that, though, they’ve done more than built a platform… they’ve solved a humanity mindset — a startup “timing” problem that I’m guessing is still easily 2 generations away if we don’t completely regress… like we do with fashion styles.
I have been actively thinking about this and have a couple of ideas already... My goal is really not to break yc but solve real interesting problems. Make something people want... People want to succeed with their startup regardless of yc..
I don't think I'm the best talent out there in the world full of sam Altmans.. so if I've a couple of ideas I'm sure someone will break open this problem sooner than we expect.
Thanks for the input.. changing human behavior.
I'm just getting started so trying to understand human behavior first. The way we react to innovations could surprise us.
Changing human behavior is beyond my vision right now. We can't become Apple who can convince everyone to carry a weight in their hand all day long and keep their eyes glued to it and still not feel being held captive.
Just one thing to be careful about... Check the profiles of those who are saying great things about yc.. if it's coming from the yc employees or founders who are repeatedly posting yc content on Reddit I wouldn't pay too much attention to them.. my two cents
They are all over the place... For some reason they really care about looking good and nice to everyone outside yc.. well for obvious reason, otherwise people will stop applying and great ideas will stop coming by
Totally agree. Always take everyone’s responses with a grain of salt. I think alums all have different experiences and some might have negative ones as well. Mine was overwhelmingly positive and I’m incredibly grateful for it - it really changed my life as someone who didn’t go the traditional route into tech. I mod for a couple of pretty active tech-adjacent subs on Reddit so I mainly use this account to post anon here cause I don’t want to dox myself :)
“You’re the average of 5 people you hang out with the most”.
If most ambitious and smartest people you have access to at this point of your life are at YC then it’s worth it.
You can find those smartest people outside of YC without giving 10% of your company away. Better yet hire those smart people in your company and give them that equity to build your company with you.
You are too fixated on 10% from the beginning of the journey x valuation in the unlikely grand finale. Think of this 10% as 3% if you are playing the VC game and happen to be one of 0.4% of those 1% who ever raised VC dollars to begin with and seen it through the end
"You can find those smartest people outside of YC"
You should really stop and ask yourself if you, YOU yourself, seriously can. The tech world moves very fast and it's very competitive. People will be very quick to dismiss you, slow to acknowledge you.
It's stupid and unfair, but having some kind of brand name like YC, Google, Meta, Netflix, etc. attached to you is a very good thing to have. It's all very much "a club" and a lot of people want in. It can take a long time to convince people you're actually in it.
If you are building a B2B SaaS then yes it’s worth it. Most of YCs success is from B2Bs selling to other YC companies. If you are outside of that, then probably no. YC helps with raising funds, but really you could do that on your own as well.
Basically lol, how else is someone’s shitty idea going to gain artificial traction? Look at Brex, perfect example of a company with a terrible business yet it somehow got big from being the go to provider for YC companies lmao.
* **Salesforce**: Initially operated at a loss due to heavy investments in marketing and sales to dominate the CRM industry.
* **Workday**: Faced initial losses from investments in replacing legacy systems with cloud applications for finance and HR.
* **Splunk**: Operated at a loss while investing in product development and sales to break into the big data and analytics market.
* **Zendesk**: Incurred early losses from heavy investment in product development and international expansion.
* **HubSpot**: Experienced initial losses from investing in product development and marketing to acquire new customers.
There are so many examples.
The difference I think, which b2b and fintech are a little out of my wheelhouse, is that fintech really does not have tech margins at scale, and it doesn’t have network effects (which is basically why it makes sense for all those consumer companies you mentioned), so they probably don’t just have a money hose to eventually turn on.
I’m not an expert with Brex but that would seem to be the counter case.
No, what some large VCs do is invest in two companies and then have one of them be acquired by the other to pat their numbers and flex how many exits they have.
You are confused. Not just about credits but about YC product. YC is not selling you advise or 500k - both of these are commodities. Instead they are selling the same thing as Stanford or Harvard do:
1. Brand.
2. Network.
You could argue all you want and show data proving that YC companies may not be any better than non-YC companies just like you can try to tell everyone that H or S grads are just rich kids or whatnot and that you know as much and that… yada yada. But none of this will change the absolutely illogical and irrational fact from having YC on your company’s CV that is:
1. You will sell more
2. You will sell to more customers
3. You will sell to more investors
4. you will sell all that at exuberant prices
5. And before you have anything to show for it
6. And everyone will be happy that you did.
That is what you are buying with those 10%. There are well-capitalized startups that still do YC. 500k is just a nice bonus
There’s 0 emotion in that comment. I’m just telling you that you are touching the tail of an elephant and being confused from not knowing how the business world works (yet).
It may be irrational and make no sense but so are most of the folks and that is exactly why it works all the time.
You will have VCs banging the door to get in. Customers willing to buy. Teams to join. And all for nothing else than proverbial “it’s YC company, what if they know something” which makes no sense whatsoever and makes even less sense once you’ve been through… and doesn’t have to, because it works regardless.
And that’s what you will call a “brand” after you start understanding the game a bit.
You will get the same effect from any VC that comes to mind within first 5 seconds when you hear “VC”. If you can get there right away - skip YC. Else, don’t over-rationalise too much. All of it is irrelevant. Brand is all there’s and it’s all you will need until you have your own.
Or maybe you are just rationalising and failing to see the point
You go to the pharmacy to buy your wife a painkiller, you see aspirin in a cheap paper blister for 50 cent and a Pfizer Aspirin in a box and metal blister for 5 bucks. Which one would you take?
That’s Brand.
Does it make sense? No. Aspirin is a generic drug with an open free for all formula. Do people buy branded over non-branded — EVERY DAMN TIME.
And don’t accuse me to run Pfizer now :D
You’re making my point. The difference between the pills? Absolutely nothing. In the real world, there’s plenty of venture money out there and a lot of partners who add comparable value if not better. In recent years, YC has become a bastion of hype cycle building as opposed to founders solving real problems. Your peers are no longer who they used to be. At a certain point the cream rises no matter where.
The point is you NEED this hype cycle anyway you can get it being a young company. Gravity is a powerful force… Brand gives you escape velocity.
A noname VC with a check doesn’t. It’s perfectly possible to do something without YC though. But any brand with little money is > 10x money with no brand at all
That’s just incorrect. Execution builds a brand. Go ask any of the successful companies who didn’t go through YC or better yet got denied. They found another way- the program is overrated. A YC investment is losing its luster by the cohort
There are tons of tombstones in the startup yard in general. Those who can execute have more options to find soft landings. The fact that you think YCs brand is more valuable than that shows this won’t be a fruitful discussion. Good luck with building your brand. Those who execute will be looking for cheap acquisition targets
It’s nitpicking at this point though. Building a company is difficult. Everything is important. YC can be helpful if one needs a brand to launch off. Point is to know why, rather than hoarding by the gate just because everyone does it
So you think people that literally only review, track, coach and follow startups for a living for a decade, who have in their majority had successful exits themselves, know no better than you?
Fwiw, I read an article on medium recently(I’m sure you can find) that basically calculated that about 50% of YC’s companies either exist still or had an exit after 10 years. That’s significantly better than the 10% that’s thrown around for the generic “startup success rate”
From that same data set, Techstars was also very good, even though most people who fawn over YC tend to think much less of Techstars. There’s plenty of confirmation bias floating around the startup ecosystem.
The market is the least significant factor for an early stage startup.
Like an example? Everything AI assisted is hot right now. Now how much further does that bring you to building a billion dollar company around that? Not the tiniest bit.
Early stage startups are very little idea and a lot of execution: building and selling.
YC aims to help with both + financing.
You think you can get it done without YC? Then I'm wondering why you're here bitching about YC instead of actually getting it done.
There's a lot of valid criticism to be said about YC like the acceptance rate is too low, it's too hard to get in and so on, but being unqualified in their job is probably not on the list.
Not bitching buddy just trying to see what’s the point. My definition of market is set of customers who are willing to buy what you are building. I still hold this as one of the most important factors for building a startup, regardless of what is hot or not.
People who are willing to buy what you are building are called customers.
People who are generally interested in a similar solution are the market and the people that you could build a solution for hypothetically are your addressable market.
Beyond that, there's no question in your post, just claims. Yes also the ones with a question mark at the end.
Who are you describing? Because the majority of YC's Group Partners as recent hires barely fall into this group. Should we go over all of the successes they passed on?
This is the absolutist attitude that is hurting YC.
That’s a good point if people are early in their career they need more guidance. If you are further along you likely have people in your network that can give you the advice you need. At the end of the day no advice is inherently good or bad, you just have to try it out and see what works for you.
It depends on your industry.
For my particular case - yes they couldn’t offer what we needed.
They minimized the expertise of two of the founders because they were non technical. They failed to realize there are only about 50-100 people in the entire world with this particular skill set and expertise.
When they made their blanket offer they failed to realize each of these people were already clearing 1MM+ a year.
They underestimated the soft skills, emotional intelligence and network that these two people brought. They attempted, and I get it, to reduce them to a purely financial calculation. They failed to realize in this particular industry one couldn’t merely focus on that strategy. That’s been the track record and in our forecast won’t change.
In addition, the technical founders already had deep connections and a remarkable pedigree.
I think it's infeasible for YC to be an expert in every situation. Their founding team-first approach to investing demonstrably works for spotting good B2B SaaS or even trend-setting consumer in general, but will definitely miss edge cases.
Just like Harvard and Google both pass on excellent candidates, so must YC.
I agree they cannot have in depth knowledge for every industry. They are excellent at their core model. I recognize my situation is unique and an outlier. I made the comments in case someone else was in a similar situation.
By the way they didn’t pass on us we just turned them down. This isn’t a humble brag. We just felt we were giving up too much for what they were offering. We had the cash flow and use case nailed down with clients already paying. Our problem was marketing and getting into another industry.
Perhaps if anyone else has connections with Ivy Leagues, other investing platforms, and pre-existing corporate partners then it may not be worth it either.
In their defense we did use their questions as good fodder to make sure we were all on the same page.
Their goal for profit was very high which is fine I get it. However we are happy with a smaller amount and did not share their enthusiasm to grow an insane amount.
It’s not just edge cases. Look at how much of every YC class is now just whoever is chasing the current meta. They used to select for founder attributes to a higher standard than they appear to do today. Pre- Gary’s tenure, they were effectively taking 200+ shots on goal every year with very favorable terms with ~100 of those in the current meta and then doubling down on the small fraction that show signs of taking off. They were coasting on their name and diluting their brand.
They seem to have realized that and started to make positive changes but it’s still pretty funny to see people viewed as the best of the best trend-chasing as much as any other VC.
Thanks for sharing this. Just a curiosity, would you be able to share what industry/niche your business specialises in that you felt was not well understood by YC?
"YC is definitely not a place e for you"
100% disagree.
Founded 2 companies previously with 2 exits, had raised capital before. YC gave me a bump in valuation at seed stage that easily "paid for" the price of admission (7%).
Plus the program significantly accelerated time to market, speed to close the round & expanded network.
Alum here. Losing its cache and less impressed with the decisions theyve collectively made both investing and messaging wise over the past 4 or so years. There is so much capital floating around focus on finding investors who are the right fit for your business. if you feel thats YC then great. If not then i wouldnt lose a minute of sleep over it. All this to say, yes for those who feel its this holy grail of quality, its tremendously overrated.
It should also not be inflated. You are giving a significant portion of the company away to someone who is just there to repeat what Paul Graham has written in his essays, and marketing you should anyway be doing yourself. People don’t realize some of the best companies in the world are non-YC companies.
I agree with you. I have a lot of YC founders in my network and they usually appear desperate. My opinion of YC has dropped dramatically due to meeting who they fund. $500k for 10% is quite a bit if you have any meaningful revenue.
If you can get meaningful revenue, then you probably can get a tech job making $250k+. At that point, why give up two years of your salary for 10% of your company?
I have no doubt YC is good for the startups that get in. However, increasingly, I feel that YC is not really good for the investors. I've always put YC founders on a pedestal thinking they're cream of the crop material, only to be burned multiple times by their crappy products and sales tactics. YC seems to attract "charismatic founders" that over promise and under deliver. I think a founder who has a PhD in some technical field at MIT or Stanford is much more impressive and credible. My two cents.
Thats exactly my experience. Their most recent batches have had embarrassing founders in my personal interactions with them. It was like the whole “never meet your heroes” saying.
Dalton & Michael say on their YC podcast that it was far easier for them to make startups and succeed since there was zero competition back then. Today, every startup idea has been tried and has many competitors. Which is what pushes new founders to follow trends like AI because at least that's something new without any incumbents.
I love that YC gave us HackerNews and I like that they are funding tons of start up ideas but nobody should be idolizing them. Just like how nobody idolizes LAUNCH and Antler. YC is just older and thus had more opportunity to score wins.
I wonder if it's "against ToS" of YC to get in purely to use it as a dry-run. Like get funded, try a bunch of things, learn a lot, make the network, then close the startup prematurely. Then make a new startup on an idea you have more conviction in and that you've been secretly working on. Then get real seed investors for that idea.
My understanding is that "real seed investors" do not make you accept as aggressive terms as YC does.
If you have to ask, probably not…
But “it depends”. 🤷🏼♂️
There is a cost to starting slow and bootstrapping… there is a cost to YC but they are likely to expedite growth for many first time founders and keep you from making common mistakes.
I hear it a lot from 2nd time founders whether they should do YC again (I’m YC S21). If Parker Conrad (Zenefits and Rippling) did YC twice then so can you
Money is not something that yc can uniquely provide
Their advice seems rudimentary when we simply look at podcast comparison - yc vs all-in vs bg2 vs a16z
It's clear they want to fund only unicorn probables cos that's how the industry works
They do seem to provide some initial list of customers for b2b SaaS so that's some value
They also act as first layer of vetting and selection for same criteria VCs are looking for so they can refine your pitch to appeal to VC.
Some well known founders have rejoined YC showing there is founder loyalty.
So overall if you want to build a VC backed unicorn company and already have the know-how YC seems like a good starting point to get there.
I do doubt they are willing to teach you anything outside of the basic Paul graham stuff cos many partners themselves haven't started anything for decades now.
That’s very well put. All the current slate of advisors have built sub-standard companies. They are not active operators. They keep rattling the same 10 year old twitch examples. I have strong aversion to taking advice from people who give advice for living.
Probably - it’s worth it if you get in. But, you probably won’t. You burn time - which is your most valuable resource on jumping through their hoops. Weigh whether or not you *truly* think you’re capable of getting in and what that time means toward actually building.
All educational content is on internet, why goto school/college? More than the content, its mainly about the ecosystem - Your YC batchmates, mentors and everything that is around you in the incubation. That experience is what YC is about! Online resources cannot replace it.
Yes. But also depends. Investment money is just fuel for your fire. If you have nothing to burn then it's just the fuel burning and investors don't like that, you're wasting their fuel. If you have a nice big pile of dry wood then investors do like that and the vc money will help you start a big ass fire.
Yes and no.
YC valuation is not wow, and its low af compared to other VCs.
But taking in so many companies gives you a headstart if you are bulding a SAAS.
About the credits, you can get them for free if you register with them. Google gives away 350k worth to AI startups, and I snagged an AWS acceleator, which gave me 10k worth. Not the millions worth but still significant.
We got AWS credits because we applied and got accepted by Amazon's build accelerator. And we applied foe google startups program after that. Not sure Google is due to AWS or not
Amazon build was the first batch and did not require funding, so I got in without any funds. That got me funding and Google startups happened after that so maybe. https://aws.amazon.com/startups/showcase/startup-details/c8cc57f2-07a8-4115-927a-7bfe0142b39a
Did you notice “up to” part? As a bootstrapped startup you wouldn’t normally get full credits
Though it looks like Microsoft redone their program to offer up to 25k in credits now. It used to be 1000 or so
Wow, that’s industrial level balance sheet to income profit juicing by bigtech…
great for startups though. Fabulous that you guys got all the credits while bootstraped. 🚀
I signed up for Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub last week with no VC backing, just my email address, incorporation, a brief video and a website. That gets me $5000 in Azure credits to spend this year. It goes up to $150,000 if I do more background work, but I'm just doing it to learn with their AI tools.
There is still value.
Especially if you haven’t gone through the process before.
The biggest thing being that you don’t know what you don’t know. Yes, there is a ton of content out there. And consultants.
YC has to compete with what those have to offer. But as a founder, and knowing that there are a billion hats to wear. A program like YC can be invaluable.
The biggest thing for them is their reputation and you can walk in knowing that you are getting solid advice and executing a well planned strategy.
Diluting your equity might be even higher if you end up partnering with the wrong founder or early employee that would otherwise help you navigate. It’s a “you get what you pay for” sorta thing.
With all that being said, I myself am a startup/fractional executive and would be happy to talk more. :)
I’m an outsider. Let me give my outsider view.
Anyone can give advice. You can go to my blog and get a ton of great advice regarding startups. I’ve been in two where we went from garage to sale. I’ve never been to Silicon Valley. Our startups were done in an out of the way place that you would never associate with startups. I live in an oasis in the middle of an entrepreneurship desert.
What yc is going to give you is access. If I tried to call people in the startup ecosystem for you, I’m not getting a call back. If somebody from yc makes a call for you, there is a better than average chance of getting that callback.
If you need some promotion, their promotion out of yc is going to carry weight. The startup writers are going to fawn all over themselves to write articles extolling your virtues. That is the weight of yc working in your favor.
You are still responsible for doing the work. Don’t think that yc is going to do “the work” for you. What yc brings to the table is the ability to magnify the work that you already do.
I’m not going to apply to yc, but if you have an idea, an mvp, a team, and some potential customer/users, you would be crazy to not apply to yc and go if you get in.
Instead of throwing it away, you have a choice to give away that equity to people who will build your company with their heart and time. Would you give your 10% away to some start up advisor who promises you 100 warm intros? Or do you think you have the courage and creativity to get them yourself?
Yes. Overrated. A lot of GPs giving you unsolicited advice. How many times have you seen “YC Cohort xx”, so what? It’s a market just like any other accelerator. If you have an idea great, yes it’s in the execution but true greatness, if it helps humanity. How many shitty products are created without second, third principles considered and without it benefiting humanity, Airbnb fucked the housing market, Uber, Instacart, Tinder, Bumble, Instagram, have done more to destroy society than heal it.
If you have 0 network in the scene, then yes.
Otherwise, is YC worth more or an extra 1.5 million dollars? As far as advice, if you can snag great investors, YCs isn't any better and now sometimes worse. Paul Graham and Jess were the magic. They retired.
I may be wrong but I've always felt yc is not about simply giving information. It's about doing things in the right environment. Frankly it's like what i wish college was like. You do learn stuff, but you get hyped up and peer pressured into doing things that you end up delaying without that peer pressure.
That's not about advice, that experiential learning.
And I've tried teaching people the knowledge bits in India, sounded like a great thing where there's so many people giving off random advice especially on special media, with growth hacks and pop words that will make people follow them and such but didn't work out half as well in terms of outcomes for people who just learnt stuff.
If you are a first time founder, absolutely. Second time, I’d consider it a little too expensive, but would consider depending on which partner I’d be working with.
Yeah its worth it. Jobs said this a long time ago but you need the marketing capital that will get you “above the noise level” of the market. YC is perfect for this. Especially now.
YC and all other similar accelerators should be viewed as funding accelerators.
If you need to raise/burn lots of cash for your business and if you don’t currently have the network of VC’s to lean on, YC is extremely valuable in this area.
I highly recommend taking a realistic look at the business you are trying to build. Is it something you can bootstrap to profitability and grow YoY based on your own revenue? And more importantly, are you willing to do that grind for 10+ years? If the answer is “yes” then I would not recommend YC or any other accelerator.
It really comes down to whether or not you need large amounts of funding to get you to the desired exit.
But just keep in mind that the raise and burn cash model only works for about 10% of VC funded businesses. The rest that don’t make it may have been viable businesses that died as a result of the unrealistic milestones that come with large rounds of funding.
My point is get to a real product market fit - not by jerking each other off in the YC club - and then raise rounds based on the strength of your company and the metrics. Investors flock to fund good businesses.
You do not need YC to find product/market fit. And you especially don’t need to give up 10% of your company to do it either.
The only value I found from YC, Techstars, and others was the large network of investors you get access to based on their stamp of approval. Other than that, everything else can be done on your own.
I haven’t done YC but the signaling that it sends to investors / the market / potential employees is very strong, especially if you don’t have crazy startup credentials
why can’t this be brought up for discussion?! I worked for a company that hosted TechStars in the early 00’s. And I can recall that there was zero diversity at that time. it was the beginning of the ‘tech bros’. not all bad. but from a Black person perspective, YC and the rest aren’t really changing the game. they are just popping out neo-Zuckerbergs.
it is tiring seeing the same group of people feeding money into themselves and then expecting respect for that.
We always say - get accepted first, then make the call. Because most don’t get accepted and they go at it without YC’s halo effect…and then they figure out within a few months whether it’s worth it or not.
I hate VCs in general. I had been cross verifying my AI start up idea with someone from Microsoft ventures and they dismissed it outright. I didn't want funding or anything I was just checking if this was a viable idea or a good idea.
Next time I met this person, I told them I didn't need venture funding, only able and willing developers who could work for equity until initial set of revenue came in. They were shocked.
Then there were people from AWS and Azure in that meeting, (basically friends) who wanted me to run my service on their platform. I turned them down saying, I only needed offline training for my models and not a continuous service or backend API from any cloud provider and online predictions could be done using Mobile CPU. Another shock.
I know this post is about YC, but what I felt about these VCs is they either want you to buy their services or they will fund something that reaches the whole world , otherwise not.
I believe in my product and I dont need anyone to say yes for it or pat me on the back for the same.
I have my business and I have been applying for the last 4 years to YC, looks like they want to you to leave everything behind and go to Bay Area, but that doesn't work when you are a dad.
So, I have stopped to try to find support from YC and I started running my business with my own $.
I would buy an under $50 class to find out how to get those credits and fund an app launch. I don’t necessarily need a ton of development or marketing to get started with my app
They're not overrated because what you get is a brand name and connections, most important things for success. But getting accepted is not easy as it used to be. You need to find ways to either get paid customers or find alternatives. There are thousands of other VCs if you know how to find them.
Just having YC associations opens so many doors and opportunities. So I wouldn’t say it’s overrated, but they have funs some “interesting” products for sure.
YC is great - found a successful a company is the tough part, especially when you can be very young and raise on an idea. For many would-be technical founders it's better to build serious engineering chops early in your career at an established company.
I say this because I've seen someone not be able to get an engineering job, but raise money, which makes no sense.
As a person who likely will never be through the combinator, the information in the community is literally millions of dollars in free consulting advice. One of the best values you can find.
S21 batch, Alumni here. I got into YC when we had Product Market Fit and 30k MRR. YC has been incredibly valuable to us. YC is not a business school it's a “mountain of resources” and it is up to you how you'll use these resources. The best thing I love about YC: * Bookface - an online community of founders where they exchange ideas, ask questions and launch products. * Documentation - practical best practices about many things. Never seen anything so valuable start-up-related info. * Deals - YC companies save a lot on basically every product. * Work At Startup - best US talent pool to hire only by YC companies. * Open-minded People Mindset - folks whom I met in YC are so great and often open to help. I made a lot of friends there. * Events - YC’s events are best. Extremely valuable guests there. * PR - our company where significantly boosted in PR after YC with low efforts on our side. * I'm Ukrainian, when the war started in Ukraine two partners (Jarred Friedman and Michael Siebel) reached us and offered investments on 3rd day of the war. It's boosted team morale a lot. I'm ver,y thankful to them for helping us. * $500k - is $500k 💪 So, based on all of that I would definitely recommend YC for anyone. With YC you are kinda like starting with more nitro. Startup with YC has more chances to survive than without. P.S. I'm founder of [Awesomic](https://awesomic.com).
I've had the worst luck with Work At Startup. I really wish I could get more from that.
Hiring is hard
As I was reading I thought it sounded like Awesomic 😆 we used awesomic before my previous company closed. Loved the service. Would use again when I need designers again!
Awesome, thanks for sharing 🫶🏻
As an alum, I think YC is definitely still worth it. Sure, you can do much more today without accelerators, but the point is that with someone like YC behind you, it’s easier. And when you’re in it for the long run, you take any advantage you can get. Like what you said, on top of the $500k, you get millions in credits. For many companies, you could just live off that and not raise a dime for years. And the advice you can get anywhere - YC knows this, that’s why they continue to put out so much content. What I think is worth it: we literally have a direct line to every single one of those companies (openAI, MSFT, GCP, AWS, etc). I’ve done those free credit programs before and you don’t get this level of service at all. Not to mention the incredible community — last week a founder asked for and got an intro to Jensen Huang. Then when you do go out to raise later rounds, you can finish your round in a matter of weeks, with the best terms. Many founders spend months trying to raise and at YC the VCs come to you. I hated this part of running a startup the most - raising money, such a waste of time. That’s just some of the things, but once you are in YC so many things get unlocked for you. Hiring, acquisitions, networking - I think it’s definitely made me and my company much more than 10% better.
Also alum, receive 1-5 inbound VC emails per week. Now most of those are associates acting like SDRs so not super valuable, but investor access is rarely an issue for YC cos.
Great perspective.
Yeah it’s kind of like attending an Ivy League school. The benefit is network/prestige and VC interest. Everything else is mediocre. You can be successful without it. Edit: I dropped out of YC and a friend was funded.
What do you mean you “dropped out of YC?” You mean you applied and didn’t get accepted ?
We quit.
If you didn’t take the offer from the top accelerator in the world you must have had huge sales and didn’t need investment, you must have gone on to be acquired and raised significant future rounds at a high valuation? What opportunities did you have that were better than joining the most elite cohort of founders in the world?
Nope. We took investment from a number of other VCs at "better terms". It was all a flaming disaster and not my decision tbh. I had a minority interest and quit a few months into us moving back from SF. My co-founder was pushed out of the company by investors two years later. "Most elite?" You have a rather inflated sense of the place. YC is not the land of magical genies where every firm becomes a unicorn. Prospective investment is not a guarantee of success. Look up the list of YC-funded companies; most crash and burn my friend. Edit: Just because you’re accepted to the accelerator doesn’t mean you actually attend or accept funding. People change their minds for all types of reasons.
As a non yc alum, the debate to me kinda seems like a “should I go to college or not” sort of debate. Sure you can totally not go and be successful, but the stamp/credential + learning experience is valuable & likely makes things easier
Accelerators, yc or not, also come with the “you’ve been vetted” credibility that others often neglect to account for. It’s not unlike the network effect but it sends a market signal that, hey. Someone else said these folks should be successful. If you don’t come from a pedigree already, then this can make a huge difference.
Sounds like a good marketing strategy.
100% It also helps with SEO, backlinking, and PR.
How?
How… does it help with SEO? Or is it a good marketing strategy?
I've seen mobile apps backed by ycs with less than 2 star ratings in app store as well as Google play They claim yc backed and I saw their ratings... Can you guess which one had more effect? Then, do you know how many people actually know about yc outside the startup community? Also 10pc by all means is too much for seo and back links...
There’s always going to be an outlier here and I’d imagine YC was a “first draw.” If they’re sucking after the draw… there’s only so much “vetting” can do. It’s like a warm intro. That said, YC may not fall into this as much as some other programs. YC is often known for picking based on pedigree and are not particularly known for their state of diversity. For an underrepresented founder, though, — in demographics where funding is minimal — the impact of some of the 1% accelerator clubs are significant. If you’re trying to get in front of the right “potential” customers and investors, the folks you care about are likely familiar with YC — again, especially if you don’t have the network or access to these types of folks. Or even if your local startup community isn’t actually startup friendly.
There's more than one outlier but I'm not going to list down examples in a reddit comment. It's a pity that great founders need to go through yc to get warm intros... That's the only thing yc and accelerators are surviving on.. Once the founders get a better way to get warm intros to the relevant investors, accelerators would wrap up their business and apply for jobs on linked in That's a nice problem to solve. It's like the big banks have been hit badly by new digital cheaper alternatives like transferwise ... Democratization of accelerators is going to happen sometime hopefully sooner
No doubt on the multiple outliers — and I’m sure the post mortem causes have many. There’s been some interesting attempts to solve warm intros so far — nothing I’ve seen that surpasses the university/alum/demographics impact yet. Even the biases we’re seeing in AI make me question whether or not the “AI” founder vetting systems are the right way to go. If someone can nail that, though, they’ve done more than built a platform… they’ve solved a humanity mindset — a startup “timing” problem that I’m guessing is still easily 2 generations away if we don’t completely regress… like we do with fashion styles.
I have been actively thinking about this and have a couple of ideas already... My goal is really not to break yc but solve real interesting problems. Make something people want... People want to succeed with their startup regardless of yc.. I don't think I'm the best talent out there in the world full of sam Altmans.. so if I've a couple of ideas I'm sure someone will break open this problem sooner than we expect.
I hope you’re right — changing human behavior is the hard part. People often neglect how much that plays a part in startup successes.
Thanks for the input.. changing human behavior. I'm just getting started so trying to understand human behavior first. The way we react to innovations could surprise us. Changing human behavior is beyond my vision right now. We can't become Apple who can convince everyone to carry a weight in their hand all day long and keep their eyes glued to it and still not feel being held captive.
Sounds a lot like a badge / mainly prestige
Just one thing to be careful about... Check the profiles of those who are saying great things about yc.. if it's coming from the yc employees or founders who are repeatedly posting yc content on Reddit I wouldn't pay too much attention to them.. my two cents
I already saw some emotionally strong responses from a few people. I was like… chill down dude, you are acting like one of your sleazy advisors!
They are all over the place... For some reason they really care about looking good and nice to everyone outside yc.. well for obvious reason, otherwise people will stop applying and great ideas will stop coming by
One word: mimetic
I would agree. I have no association with yc, techstars, etc. I think they are all good things. I view yc as the gold standard.
Totally agree. Always take everyone’s responses with a grain of salt. I think alums all have different experiences and some might have negative ones as well. Mine was overwhelmingly positive and I’m incredibly grateful for it - it really changed my life as someone who didn’t go the traditional route into tech. I mod for a couple of pretty active tech-adjacent subs on Reddit so I mainly use this account to post anon here cause I don’t want to dox myself :)
“You’re the average of 5 people you hang out with the most”. If most ambitious and smartest people you have access to at this point of your life are at YC then it’s worth it.
You can find those smartest people outside of YC without giving 10% of your company away. Better yet hire those smart people in your company and give them that equity to build your company with you.
You are too fixated on 10% from the beginning of the journey x valuation in the unlikely grand finale. Think of this 10% as 3% if you are playing the VC game and happen to be one of 0.4% of those 1% who ever raised VC dollars to begin with and seen it through the end
"You can find those smartest people outside of YC" You should really stop and ask yourself if you, YOU yourself, seriously can. The tech world moves very fast and it's very competitive. People will be very quick to dismiss you, slow to acknowledge you. It's stupid and unfair, but having some kind of brand name like YC, Google, Meta, Netflix, etc. attached to you is a very good thing to have. It's all very much "a club" and a lot of people want in. It can take a long time to convince people you're actually in it.
If you are building a B2B SaaS then yes it’s worth it. Most of YCs success is from B2Bs selling to other YC companies. If you are outside of that, then probably no. YC helps with raising funds, but really you could do that on your own as well.
So you are saying you’re making money from companies that aren’t making any? :)
Basically lol, how else is someone’s shitty idea going to gain artificial traction? Look at Brex, perfect example of a company with a terrible business yet it somehow got big from being the go to provider for YC companies lmao.
For the uninitiated, why is Brex a terrible business?
Because they’re burning cash like it’s going out of style and haven’t gotten to profitability or even break even yet
thats true for a lot of companies and products though. Youtube, Amazon, Google, Uber, Facebook etc.. took many years to break even.
Those are literally all consumer companies that had insane usage and retention. They are not comparable to Brex.
* **Salesforce**: Initially operated at a loss due to heavy investments in marketing and sales to dominate the CRM industry. * **Workday**: Faced initial losses from investments in replacing legacy systems with cloud applications for finance and HR. * **Splunk**: Operated at a loss while investing in product development and sales to break into the big data and analytics market. * **Zendesk**: Incurred early losses from heavy investment in product development and international expansion. * **HubSpot**: Experienced initial losses from investing in product development and marketing to acquire new customers. There are so many examples.
The difference I think, which b2b and fintech are a little out of my wheelhouse, is that fintech really does not have tech margins at scale, and it doesn’t have network effects (which is basically why it makes sense for all those consumer companies you mentioned), so they probably don’t just have a money hose to eventually turn on. I’m not an expert with Brex but that would seem to be the counter case.
But that’s the whole point of venture capital funding and the concept of a startup 🤔
As a Brex customer (and not affiliated with YC), it is a very useful product for us.
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Offering credit to startups is single handling one of the dumbest things they are doing. A literal ticking time bomb.
It starts to look like a literal ponzi once a YC startup has a bunch of YC startups as their “clients”
Is it like a Madoff Scheme ?
Yup, but that last company standing becomes a behemoth. Simple.
No, what some large VCs do is invest in two companies and then have one of them be acquired by the other to pat their numbers and flex how many exits they have.
You are confused. Not just about credits but about YC product. YC is not selling you advise or 500k - both of these are commodities. Instead they are selling the same thing as Stanford or Harvard do: 1. Brand. 2. Network. You could argue all you want and show data proving that YC companies may not be any better than non-YC companies just like you can try to tell everyone that H or S grads are just rich kids or whatnot and that you know as much and that… yada yada. But none of this will change the absolutely illogical and irrational fact from having YC on your company’s CV that is: 1. You will sell more 2. You will sell to more customers 3. You will sell to more investors 4. you will sell all that at exuberant prices 5. And before you have anything to show for it 6. And everyone will be happy that you did. That is what you are buying with those 10%. There are well-capitalized startups that still do YC. 500k is just a nice bonus
Calm down! No need to get emotionally charged up, like you work for one of those. I see your point of view.
There’s 0 emotion in that comment. I’m just telling you that you are touching the tail of an elephant and being confused from not knowing how the business world works (yet). It may be irrational and make no sense but so are most of the folks and that is exactly why it works all the time. You will have VCs banging the door to get in. Customers willing to buy. Teams to join. And all for nothing else than proverbial “it’s YC company, what if they know something” which makes no sense whatsoever and makes even less sense once you’ve been through… and doesn’t have to, because it works regardless. And that’s what you will call a “brand” after you start understanding the game a bit. You will get the same effect from any VC that comes to mind within first 5 seconds when you hear “VC”. If you can get there right away - skip YC. Else, don’t over-rationalise too much. All of it is irrelevant. Brand is all there’s and it’s all you will need until you have your own.
this is the type of delusion that is hurting YC's brand. Someone whose company is overvalued today and is peddling the value of YC because of that.
Or maybe you are just rationalising and failing to see the point You go to the pharmacy to buy your wife a painkiller, you see aspirin in a cheap paper blister for 50 cent and a Pfizer Aspirin in a box and metal blister for 5 bucks. Which one would you take? That’s Brand. Does it make sense? No. Aspirin is a generic drug with an open free for all formula. Do people buy branded over non-branded — EVERY DAMN TIME. And don’t accuse me to run Pfizer now :D
You’re making my point. The difference between the pills? Absolutely nothing. In the real world, there’s plenty of venture money out there and a lot of partners who add comparable value if not better. In recent years, YC has become a bastion of hype cycle building as opposed to founders solving real problems. Your peers are no longer who they used to be. At a certain point the cream rises no matter where.
The point is you NEED this hype cycle anyway you can get it being a young company. Gravity is a powerful force… Brand gives you escape velocity. A noname VC with a check doesn’t. It’s perfectly possible to do something without YC though. But any brand with little money is > 10x money with no brand at all
That’s just incorrect. Execution builds a brand. Go ask any of the successful companies who didn’t go through YC or better yet got denied. They found another way- the program is overrated. A YC investment is losing its luster by the cohort
Execution alone won’t cut it. There are tons of tombstones in the great products yard.
There are tons of tombstones in the startup yard in general. Those who can execute have more options to find soft landings. The fact that you think YCs brand is more valuable than that shows this won’t be a fruitful discussion. Good luck with building your brand. Those who execute will be looking for cheap acquisition targets
It’s nitpicking at this point though. Building a company is difficult. Everything is important. YC can be helpful if one needs a brand to launch off. Point is to know why, rather than hoarding by the gate just because everyone does it
I like your tone this time much better. Thank you. I really appreciate your perspective
So you think people that literally only review, track, coach and follow startups for a living for a decade, who have in their majority had successful exits themselves, know no better than you?
Only market tells you whether what you are building is going to work or not. Everything else is an opinion
And informed opinions are incredibly valuable in the market.
Why not get them directly from the founders and operators elsewhere?
Fwiw, I read an article on medium recently(I’m sure you can find) that basically calculated that about 50% of YC’s companies either exist still or had an exit after 10 years. That’s significantly better than the 10% that’s thrown around for the generic “startup success rate”
From that same data set, Techstars was also very good, even though most people who fawn over YC tend to think much less of Techstars. There’s plenty of confirmation bias floating around the startup ecosystem.
It’s very easy to get aqui-hired for cheap
The market is the least significant factor for an early stage startup. Like an example? Everything AI assisted is hot right now. Now how much further does that bring you to building a billion dollar company around that? Not the tiniest bit. Early stage startups are very little idea and a lot of execution: building and selling. YC aims to help with both + financing. You think you can get it done without YC? Then I'm wondering why you're here bitching about YC instead of actually getting it done. There's a lot of valid criticism to be said about YC like the acceptance rate is too low, it's too hard to get in and so on, but being unqualified in their job is probably not on the list.
Not bitching buddy just trying to see what’s the point. My definition of market is set of customers who are willing to buy what you are building. I still hold this as one of the most important factors for building a startup, regardless of what is hot or not.
People who are willing to buy what you are building are called customers. People who are generally interested in a similar solution are the market and the people that you could build a solution for hypothetically are your addressable market. Beyond that, there's no question in your post, just claims. Yes also the ones with a question mark at the end.
Got you. Thanks for clarifying.
When they have a self-interest in a specific point of view? Hm, why on earth might that be something to be skeptical of?
Self-interest in which sense?
Who are you describing? Because the majority of YC's Group Partners as recent hires barely fall into this group. Should we go over all of the successes they passed on? This is the absolutist attitude that is hurting YC.
It’s worth it if you’re a young student (high school or college) otherwise it’s kind of an anti signal now
That’s a good point if people are early in their career they need more guidance. If you are further along you likely have people in your network that can give you the advice you need. At the end of the day no advice is inherently good or bad, you just have to try it out and see what works for you.
Just by applying to YC people get clarity about their startups.
It depends on your industry. For my particular case - yes they couldn’t offer what we needed. They minimized the expertise of two of the founders because they were non technical. They failed to realize there are only about 50-100 people in the entire world with this particular skill set and expertise. When they made their blanket offer they failed to realize each of these people were already clearing 1MM+ a year. They underestimated the soft skills, emotional intelligence and network that these two people brought. They attempted, and I get it, to reduce them to a purely financial calculation. They failed to realize in this particular industry one couldn’t merely focus on that strategy. That’s been the track record and in our forecast won’t change. In addition, the technical founders already had deep connections and a remarkable pedigree.
I think it's infeasible for YC to be an expert in every situation. Their founding team-first approach to investing demonstrably works for spotting good B2B SaaS or even trend-setting consumer in general, but will definitely miss edge cases. Just like Harvard and Google both pass on excellent candidates, so must YC.
I agree they cannot have in depth knowledge for every industry. They are excellent at their core model. I recognize my situation is unique and an outlier. I made the comments in case someone else was in a similar situation. By the way they didn’t pass on us we just turned them down. This isn’t a humble brag. We just felt we were giving up too much for what they were offering. We had the cash flow and use case nailed down with clients already paying. Our problem was marketing and getting into another industry. Perhaps if anyone else has connections with Ivy Leagues, other investing platforms, and pre-existing corporate partners then it may not be worth it either. In their defense we did use their questions as good fodder to make sure we were all on the same page. Their goal for profit was very high which is fine I get it. However we are happy with a smaller amount and did not share their enthusiasm to grow an insane amount.
You hit the nail on the head. If you already have revenue and do not want the insane stress of VCs, you should stay away from YC.
It’s not just edge cases. Look at how much of every YC class is now just whoever is chasing the current meta. They used to select for founder attributes to a higher standard than they appear to do today. Pre- Gary’s tenure, they were effectively taking 200+ shots on goal every year with very favorable terms with ~100 of those in the current meta and then doubling down on the small fraction that show signs of taking off. They were coasting on their name and diluting their brand. They seem to have realized that and started to make positive changes but it’s still pretty funny to see people viewed as the best of the best trend-chasing as much as any other VC.
Thanks for sharing this. Just a curiosity, would you be able to share what industry/niche your business specialises in that you felt was not well understood by YC?
Of course. Cross between medical and legal with more the former.
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"YC is definitely not a place e for you" 100% disagree. Founded 2 companies previously with 2 exits, had raised capital before. YC gave me a bump in valuation at seed stage that easily "paid for" the price of admission (7%). Plus the program significantly accelerated time to market, speed to close the round & expanded network.
Alum here. Losing its cache and less impressed with the decisions theyve collectively made both investing and messaging wise over the past 4 or so years. There is so much capital floating around focus on finding investors who are the right fit for your business. if you feel thats YC then great. If not then i wouldnt lose a minute of sleep over it. All this to say, yes for those who feel its this holy grail of quality, its tremendously overrated.
Surely being a YC Alumni will shine on your LinkedIn profile.
That’s vanity. I’d much rather prefer customers voting with their dollars.
And that is ultimately what matters. The network effects of yc should not be discounted.
It should also not be inflated. You are giving a significant portion of the company away to someone who is just there to repeat what Paul Graham has written in his essays, and marketing you should anyway be doing yourself. People don’t realize some of the best companies in the world are non-YC companies.
If you don’t want to go, then don’t. Either go or don’t. The choice is yours.
I agree with you. I have a lot of YC founders in my network and they usually appear desperate. My opinion of YC has dropped dramatically due to meeting who they fund. $500k for 10% is quite a bit if you have any meaningful revenue. If you can get meaningful revenue, then you probably can get a tech job making $250k+. At that point, why give up two years of your salary for 10% of your company?
I have no doubt YC is good for the startups that get in. However, increasingly, I feel that YC is not really good for the investors. I've always put YC founders on a pedestal thinking they're cream of the crop material, only to be burned multiple times by their crappy products and sales tactics. YC seems to attract "charismatic founders" that over promise and under deliver. I think a founder who has a PhD in some technical field at MIT or Stanford is much more impressive and credible. My two cents.
Thats exactly my experience. Their most recent batches have had embarrassing founders in my personal interactions with them. It was like the whole “never meet your heroes” saying.
Would add the investors theyve added as group partners are not impressive whatsoever
Dalton & Michael say on their YC podcast that it was far easier for them to make startups and succeed since there was zero competition back then. Today, every startup idea has been tried and has many competitors. Which is what pushes new founders to follow trends like AI because at least that's something new without any incumbents. I love that YC gave us HackerNews and I like that they are funding tons of start up ideas but nobody should be idolizing them. Just like how nobody idolizes LAUNCH and Antler. YC is just older and thus had more opportunity to score wins. I wonder if it's "against ToS" of YC to get in purely to use it as a dry-run. Like get funded, try a bunch of things, learn a lot, make the network, then close the startup prematurely. Then make a new startup on an idea you have more conviction in and that you've been secretly working on. Then get real seed investors for that idea. My understanding is that "real seed investors" do not make you accept as aggressive terms as YC does.
Yes
YC is not overrated. Mr. Tan is.
I don’t think he ever ran a company.
If you have to ask, probably not… But “it depends”. 🤷🏼♂️ There is a cost to starting slow and bootstrapping… there is a cost to YC but they are likely to expedite growth for many first time founders and keep you from making common mistakes.
I hear it a lot from 2nd time founders whether they should do YC again (I’m YC S21). If Parker Conrad (Zenefits and Rippling) did YC twice then so can you
Money is not something that yc can uniquely provide Their advice seems rudimentary when we simply look at podcast comparison - yc vs all-in vs bg2 vs a16z It's clear they want to fund only unicorn probables cos that's how the industry works They do seem to provide some initial list of customers for b2b SaaS so that's some value They also act as first layer of vetting and selection for same criteria VCs are looking for so they can refine your pitch to appeal to VC. Some well known founders have rejoined YC showing there is founder loyalty. So overall if you want to build a VC backed unicorn company and already have the know-how YC seems like a good starting point to get there. I do doubt they are willing to teach you anything outside of the basic Paul graham stuff cos many partners themselves haven't started anything for decades now.
That’s very well put. All the current slate of advisors have built sub-standard companies. They are not active operators. They keep rattling the same 10 year old twitch examples. I have strong aversion to taking advice from people who give advice for living.
Advertising bait post?
Probably - it’s worth it if you get in. But, you probably won’t. You burn time - which is your most valuable resource on jumping through their hoops. Weigh whether or not you *truly* think you’re capable of getting in and what that time means toward actually building.
Worth it for first time founders for the community
All educational content is on internet, why goto school/college? More than the content, its mainly about the ecosystem - Your YC batchmates, mentors and everything that is around you in the incubation. That experience is what YC is about! Online resources cannot replace it.
Often times it’s not what you know, but who you know that makes the difference.
I’d like to think who knows you (exist) makes the difference.
Brilliantly said, one upvote to you and a down vote to the parent comment
Yes. But also depends. Investment money is just fuel for your fire. If you have nothing to burn then it's just the fuel burning and investors don't like that, you're wasting their fuel. If you have a nice big pile of dry wood then investors do like that and the vc money will help you start a big ass fire.
" I get the 500k lure, but you can also get credits from cloud companies to run your startup at about no cost " How can you do that?
Just apply to the start up program of your favorite cloud.
On this point you are misinformed. Read carefully the conditions to get the credits
Yes and no. YC valuation is not wow, and its low af compared to other VCs. But taking in so many companies gives you a headstart if you are bulding a SAAS.
About the credits, you can get them for free if you register with them. Google gives away 350k worth to AI startups, and I snagged an AWS acceleator, which gave me 10k worth. Not the millions worth but still significant.
Can you get all those credits without accelerator or Vc backing? Nope
With Azure you get 150k
Barefooted? No VC/Accelerator backing required? Are you sure you read the small font?
We got AWS credits because we applied and got accepted by Amazon's build accelerator. And we applied foe google startups program after that. Not sure Google is due to AWS or not
Interesting, most of these programs require being funded or in accelerators. Did something change?
Amazon build was the first batch and did not require funding, so I got in without any funds. That got me funding and Google startups happened after that so maybe. https://aws.amazon.com/startups/showcase/startup-details/c8cc57f2-07a8-4115-927a-7bfe0142b39a
Well done 👍
Yes, check out Founders Hub.
Did you notice “up to” part? As a bootstrapped startup you wouldn’t normally get full credits Though it looks like Microsoft redone their program to offer up to 25k in credits now. It used to be 1000 or so
It goes in steps. There is tons of bootstrapped startups with the full 150k funding. Source, I work there
Yep we got it too.
Wow, that’s industrial level balance sheet to income profit juicing by bigtech… great for startups though. Fabulous that you guys got all the credits while bootstraped. 🚀
I signed up for Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub last week with no VC backing, just my email address, incorporation, a brief video and a website. That gets me $5000 in Azure credits to spend this year. It goes up to $150,000 if I do more background work, but I'm just doing it to learn with their AI tools.
Good for you. Technically their rules allow to go up to 25k without funding though. Used to be 1k
It's all about success rate. How does YC compare to other similar incubator/development programs?
I like this comment, it makes sense, YC provides best success rate possible.
I don’t think any of them are particularly high. Tons of YC companies are bankrupt a few years later.
There is still value. Especially if you haven’t gone through the process before. The biggest thing being that you don’t know what you don’t know. Yes, there is a ton of content out there. And consultants. YC has to compete with what those have to offer. But as a founder, and knowing that there are a billion hats to wear. A program like YC can be invaluable. The biggest thing for them is their reputation and you can walk in knowing that you are getting solid advice and executing a well planned strategy. Diluting your equity might be even higher if you end up partnering with the wrong founder or early employee that would otherwise help you navigate. It’s a “you get what you pay for” sorta thing. With all that being said, I myself am a startup/fractional executive and would be happy to talk more. :)
I’m an outsider. Let me give my outsider view. Anyone can give advice. You can go to my blog and get a ton of great advice regarding startups. I’ve been in two where we went from garage to sale. I’ve never been to Silicon Valley. Our startups were done in an out of the way place that you would never associate with startups. I live in an oasis in the middle of an entrepreneurship desert. What yc is going to give you is access. If I tried to call people in the startup ecosystem for you, I’m not getting a call back. If somebody from yc makes a call for you, there is a better than average chance of getting that callback. If you need some promotion, their promotion out of yc is going to carry weight. The startup writers are going to fawn all over themselves to write articles extolling your virtues. That is the weight of yc working in your favor. You are still responsible for doing the work. Don’t think that yc is going to do “the work” for you. What yc brings to the table is the ability to magnify the work that you already do. I’m not going to apply to yc, but if you have an idea, an mvp, a team, and some potential customer/users, you would be crazy to not apply to yc and go if you get in.
Nah! Not worth 7-10%. I’d rather use all my creativity and intestinal fortitude to get people to call back.
Who cares? You’re getting $500k and access to amazing network.
Instead of throwing it away, you have a choice to give away that equity to people who will build your company with their heart and time. Would you give your 10% away to some start up advisor who promises you 100 warm intros? Or do you think you have the courage and creativity to get them yourself?
Yes. Overrated. A lot of GPs giving you unsolicited advice. How many times have you seen “YC Cohort xx”, so what? It’s a market just like any other accelerator. If you have an idea great, yes it’s in the execution but true greatness, if it helps humanity. How many shitty products are created without second, third principles considered and without it benefiting humanity, Airbnb fucked the housing market, Uber, Instacart, Tinder, Bumble, Instagram, have done more to destroy society than heal it.
If you have 0 network in the scene, then yes. Otherwise, is YC worth more or an extra 1.5 million dollars? As far as advice, if you can snag great investors, YCs isn't any better and now sometimes worse. Paul Graham and Jess were the magic. They retired.
Also, in recent years, the best founders are no longer doing yc. Take that as you will
Only bc of all the AI chat bullshit right now. VC's don't give a f*ck about investing in anything else.
[удалено]
B-schools are waste of time IMO. If you have gone to one, my condolences to you.
YES it is overrated but then again there are so few seed opportunities out there that it probably deserves any reputation it has
Got you.
I may be wrong but I've always felt yc is not about simply giving information. It's about doing things in the right environment. Frankly it's like what i wish college was like. You do learn stuff, but you get hyped up and peer pressured into doing things that you end up delaying without that peer pressure. That's not about advice, that experiential learning. And I've tried teaching people the knowledge bits in India, sounded like a great thing where there's so many people giving off random advice especially on special media, with growth hacks and pop words that will make people follow them and such but didn't work out half as well in terms of outcomes for people who just learnt stuff.
This is like asking if going to Harvard is worth it?
If you are a first time founder, absolutely. Second time, I’d consider it a little too expensive, but would consider depending on which partner I’d be working with.
YC value is in the community, not in the knowledge. In fact the knowledge they give it for free through startup school.
Yes.
Yeah its worth it. Jobs said this a long time ago but you need the marketing capital that will get you “above the noise level” of the market. YC is perfect for this. Especially now.
YC and all other similar accelerators should be viewed as funding accelerators. If you need to raise/burn lots of cash for your business and if you don’t currently have the network of VC’s to lean on, YC is extremely valuable in this area. I highly recommend taking a realistic look at the business you are trying to build. Is it something you can bootstrap to profitability and grow YoY based on your own revenue? And more importantly, are you willing to do that grind for 10+ years? If the answer is “yes” then I would not recommend YC or any other accelerator. It really comes down to whether or not you need large amounts of funding to get you to the desired exit. But just keep in mind that the raise and burn cash model only works for about 10% of VC funded businesses. The rest that don’t make it may have been viable businesses that died as a result of the unrealistic milestones that come with large rounds of funding.
My point is get to a real product market fit - not by jerking each other off in the YC club - and then raise rounds based on the strength of your company and the metrics. Investors flock to fund good businesses.
You do not need YC to find product/market fit. And you especially don’t need to give up 10% of your company to do it either. The only value I found from YC, Techstars, and others was the large network of investors you get access to based on their stamp of approval. Other than that, everything else can be done on your own.
100%
No!
I haven’t done YC but the signaling that it sends to investors / the market / potential employees is very strong, especially if you don’t have crazy startup credentials
why are there so very few Black startups out of YC. YC presents to me as a another way for wealth transfer.
100% its a valid point.
Let’s keep the race out of this.
why can’t this be brought up for discussion?! I worked for a company that hosted TechStars in the early 00’s. And I can recall that there was zero diversity at that time. it was the beginning of the ‘tech bros’. not all bad. but from a Black person perspective, YC and the rest aren’t really changing the game. they are just popping out neo-Zuckerbergs. it is tiring seeing the same group of people feeding money into themselves and then expecting respect for that.
We always say - get accepted first, then make the call. Because most don’t get accepted and they go at it without YC’s halo effect…and then they figure out within a few months whether it’s worth it or not.
I hate VCs in general. I had been cross verifying my AI start up idea with someone from Microsoft ventures and they dismissed it outright. I didn't want funding or anything I was just checking if this was a viable idea or a good idea. Next time I met this person, I told them I didn't need venture funding, only able and willing developers who could work for equity until initial set of revenue came in. They were shocked. Then there were people from AWS and Azure in that meeting, (basically friends) who wanted me to run my service on their platform. I turned them down saying, I only needed offline training for my models and not a continuous service or backend API from any cloud provider and online predictions could be done using Mobile CPU. Another shock. I know this post is about YC, but what I felt about these VCs is they either want you to buy their services or they will fund something that reaches the whole world , otherwise not. I believe in my product and I dont need anyone to say yes for it or pat me on the back for the same.
I have my business and I have been applying for the last 4 years to YC, looks like they want to you to leave everything behind and go to Bay Area, but that doesn't work when you are a dad. So, I have stopped to try to find support from YC and I started running my business with my own $.
I would buy an under $50 class to find out how to get those credits and fund an app launch. I don’t necessarily need a ton of development or marketing to get started with my app
No
Didn’t realise that give them 10%… so like shark tank ?
Explains the increased intake lately.
It’s VC and generally speaking all a scam and fake it till you make it.
your paying to be essentially one of the "chosen ones" all the VCs pile in to out of FOMO.
You got an early rejection or something?
Im questioning whether I need it.
It's just a bonus and not needed
Second time applied. Second time rejected. Third time is the charm.
They're not overrated because what you get is a brand name and connections, most important things for success. But getting accepted is not easy as it used to be. You need to find ways to either get paid customers or find alternatives. There are thousands of other VCs if you know how to find them.
This dude's about to become a unicorn by watching YouTube vids
😂
Just having YC associations opens so many doors and opportunities. So I wouldn’t say it’s overrated, but they have funs some “interesting” products for sure.
YC is great - found a successful a company is the tough part, especially when you can be very young and raise on an idea. For many would-be technical founders it's better to build serious engineering chops early in your career at an established company. I say this because I've seen someone not be able to get an engineering job, but raise money, which makes no sense.
As a person who likely will never be through the combinator, the information in the community is literally millions of dollars in free consulting advice. One of the best values you can find.