

A suggestion: what if YC opens the database of summer 08 applications? - shawndrost

A suggestion: what if YC opens the database of summer 08 applications to the public after selecting the interviewees?<p>Upsides:<p>-Applicants get a minimal-effort chance at other funding sources<p>-YC gets goodwill<p>-Could become de facto seed funding protocol, bringing YC more press and applicants<p>-Foundling YC-like organizations get a free applicant base, and prosper.  More startups get funded, tech progress accelerates, utopia, etc<p>Downsides:<p>-YC must implement system and host data, or delegate<p>-Could become de facto seed funding protocol, bringing YC more press and applicants<p>-YC-like organizations prosper: YC faces competition<p>Preemptive rebuttals:<p>-It's opt-in: privacy and secrecy concerns are left to the applicants<p>-Simple captcha keeps mass spamming at a minimum<p>What do you think?
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skmurphy
What is the problem you are trying to solve?

If other investors get to look after YC has selected, why should they wait
(from their point of view).

If other investors are looking at the applicants in parallel, what does YC get
in exchange for the deal flow? They are not making investments at a size where
syndication and reciprocal deal flow would be useful, and it's not clear any
other organization would bring them a deal flow that would match their
profile.

It's one thing to apply to YC because of their unique approach, I don't think
they become any more attractive as a "gateway" to other possible investors. In
part because most other investors are going to have different strengths,
different criteria, and a much different investment strategy and engagement
model.

YC might support a "franchise model" based on location if they could qualify
other investment teams that could take advantage of their model. But a lot of
the attraction may have less to with methodology and process and more to do
with the specific expertise and connections of YC's founders.

~~~
shawndrost
"What is the problem you are trying to solve?" -- Every seed-level investor
must build an applicant pool. Every company seeking seed funding must apply to
many investors. This is massively inefficient, and functionally, I suspect
this means that most potential seed-level investors and seed-level funding
attempts fizzle, or select bad matches.

I am proposing that YC open the application database after they've made their
selections. (They don't want their applicants poached, so I wouldn't suggest
they do it earlier.) This costs YC little: they've already passed on the
deals. It cannot hurt other seed firms, and might prove useful to some.

"I don't think they become any more attractive as a "gateway" to other
possible investors" -- that seems to be the dominant response here. As a
potential applicant, I disagree: I don't think the application is worth
keeping secret, and I think other seed/angel investors might take a look if
they suddenly had access to a big bunch of applications, and I'd be happy to
get an email from one of them that was particularly interested in my project.

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Leon
Would no one else be worried of the potential for bad VC's to abuse fresh
startups and their probable inexperienced founders that apply to YC? I mean,
not every one here knows how to handle investors, I'm guessing there are a lot
of fresh college students. Wouldn't there be a good chance of these VC's just
offering money in one hand and taking all of the company in the other? While
it is still possible that any of us could be taken for a ride, it's entirely
different when you've put yourself out in the public and have no real idea
what you're doing.

I just want to say that there would be a potential for abuse, and do you
really want the bad feelings of young entrepreneurs scammed from the YC site?

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ivankirigin
Publicly declaring an idea starts the clock ticking on patents in the US. You
have 1 year to file.

International patents are worse: in public at all == immediately no patent.

For that reason alone, this is a bad idea. People opting in might have no idea
they can't get a patent by making it open.

People should just start a blog about their idea if they want it public

~~~
johnrob
Your comment makes sense to me. However, it also contradicts the notion that
ideas are pretty much worthless (it's all about the execution). Are they
really worthless, or are we just saying they are worthless?

~~~
ivankirigin
Implementation will make or break a company, certainly. But if you have no
lock at all on your IP, you won't be able to get VCs to get interested as
easily. They care about things like that. Why make it harder to get VCs
interested?

Note that "ideas are worthless" is usually brought up in context of private
discussion, not public disclosure. Private discussions don't start the clock
ticking.

They DO affect trade secrets, as far as I know. If you tell someone your
secret sauce, and they aren't under NDA, then your claim to a secret is
lessened.

I am not a lawyer.

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jakewolf
No barrier to apply - If you want your application/idea in public just blog
about it and stick up a demo.

The rest of us will selectively and privately apply to programs we really want
to be a part of.

~~~
shawndrost
"just blog about it" -- (copy/paste) blogs aren't centralized. Foundling YC-
like orgs can't access them in any scalable way.

Similarly, applications and ideas/demos aren't identical: even when you can
extract an application from an idea/demo, the process doesn't scale.

Selective and private application is not exclusive with this idea.

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alek
Why integrate this in YC instead of making a separate site for that? A
bookmarklet will submit the app. form to the new site instead of YC and you
are done.

~~~
shawndrost
A separate domain would work fine, but as I've said elsewhere, YC is uniquely
situated to make a system like this actually work. Without them, there's a big
chicken-and-egg problem: no applicants means no funders means...

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Tichy
publicpitch.com is still available...

~~~
shawndrost
Yes, a separate domain would definitely work. This idea needs the data and
possibly an endorsement from YC to work, but it doesn't need to be hosted by
YC. I'd be happy to implement the platform if that was the best option.

~~~
Tichy
Why the YC endorsement? I thought people could just pitch their venture if
they feel so. What would YC gain from forcing applicants to publish their
ideas?

~~~
shawndrost
YC has a huge and specific audience, which makes it uniquely able to
popularize a standard seed funding system. Notably, they will write emails to
all rejected applicants, and they probably receive tens of inquiries per week
from YC-like ventures asking for help.

I didn't intend to suggest that YC force anyone to do anything.

