
The Y Combinator Experience - coffeemug
http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/yc.html
======
edw519
I had a friend in college (I'll call Rob) who would shoot hoops, play golf, or
play table tennis with anyone at any time. But he would never play anything
else. He wouldn't play touch football, softball, bridge, or even shoot a game
of pool. I could never understand it until I finally figured it out: he
wouldn't play anything unless he knew that he would win. How sad, I thought.

I just realized (to my horror) that years later, I am just like him. I don't
push boundaries like I used to. I don't call on that extra customer, volunteer
for that project, or apply to programs like yc if I think there is any chance
I won't win. There's always a reason: the software is missing too much, the
demo sucks, there are 14 other things that have to be done first,... You get
the picture.

I never thought of this as "fear of failure". I just got so used to succeeding
in everything I did that I didn't want to do anything else where I didn't
succeed. I became Rob without even realizing it.

I've got to change this stinkin' thinkin'. A good failure would probably do me
good. Or maybe I should just try something I would have never imagined a month
ago.

Thanks OP, for the perspective.

~~~
JoelSutherland
In my experience it is often the _opposite_ trait that is a problem. Hackers
don't want to do something they have already figured out -- they crave the
novel.

Solving a problem a second time is much more profitable. A big part of
business is focusing on your strengths, rather than your weaknesses. Find out
what you do _best_ and market the hell out of it. No product is perfect.

~~~
andreyf
_Solving a problem a second time is much more profitable_

This is compatible with the OP's point - hackers often look for _novel
solutions_ , not necessarily novel problems.

But the terminology here is very uncertain - problems and solutions interact
in very complex ways: the "assembly line" solution solved the "horse shit all
over the roads" problem. Google Wave might end up solving the problems which
ORM's and databases are solving - that of storing and synchronizing data
structures across machines.

------
idlewords
This entrepreneurship as self-improvement trope is getting downright weird.

~~~
jeromec
I think it makes sense when viewed another way. Only a select few, about 3% of
this country are wealthy, even though one can create their own wealth here. I
think the reason is two-fold. First, it's remarkably rare for a person to
actually act on their ambitions. Next, when you consider that the default for
startups is failure (as PG wrote), and that even smart people fail, it seems
to indicate there is something more the people with self-made success have. If
all were not born with these valuable qualities, some likely gained them
through conscious self-improvement.

~~~
jimbokun
"Only a select few, about 3% of this country are wealthy"

Isn't that a tautology?

~~~
Nwallins
i.e. that the wealthy are only relatively so, and as such are defined as the
rightward long tail of the income distribution, and thus are few (by
definition).

------
nuweborder
I learned a long time ago to simply not care what my family and friends think,
or how they judge me. After all, none them are entrepreneurs, have studied
business, are programmers or hackers, or even understand anything about the
startup culture in any sense. So why subject myself to the criticism of a
bunch of amateurs? I’m looking to be critiqued by pros like Paul Graham and
the YC team. I’m looking to be subject to criticism from those whom have been
there, know what they are doing, and can offer me constructive feedback to
improve my idea. It would be like going to my barber because I’m having chest
pains. Not a bright move. Since all my barber could do, would be to shape me
up and make me look good for my next doctor's appointment.

------
herdrick
Good post. Of course each experience is different, but I'd like to point out
that Jessica's business acumen and experience are key, too.

------
projectileboy
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I also really enjoyed your early postings
on Lisp and functional programming; at the time, they helped me stay the
course towards learning Lisp.

------
ananthrk
Slava (author) echoing similar sentiments earlier in HN

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=781727>

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jacquesm
If I get the essence of it right YC offers personal counseling to overcome the
fear of failure, and if you don't get in you'll have to overcome that fear
somehow on your own ?

If this is in response to an earlier discussion on HN what it is exactly that
an incubator does for the entrepreneurs that sign up with them then I hope
that this is not typical.

An entrepreneur that does not fear failure still has to be born I think,
almost all successful people are at some level worried about not succeeding.

You transcend that fear by becoming excellent at what you do and by giving it
your 100%. And if you fail, you try again, this time with more experience.
Rinse, repeat until you get it right. Almost everybody fails a couple of times
before they get it right, the exceptions merely confirm the rule.

And you should get a team of advisors around you, people that you can trust
completely, _before_ you start negotiating with any VC or incubator.

After all, you are emotionally involved, you may not see things too clearly
and outside advisors can keep your feet on the ground. You will make a better
deal that way.

The VC is on the _other_ side of the table during the negotiations phase.

~~~
gruseom
_If I get the essence of it right YC offers personal counseling to overcome
the fear of failure_

YC offers product and company advice, not "personal counseling". So no, you
don't have the essence of it right.

~~~
jacquesm
> Y Combinator transforms this force from a weight on your shoulders that
> keeps you down, to a powerful rocket that propels you to the sky.

~~~
gruseom
Your point escapes me. All the OP is saying is that getting into YC made it
easier to override his initial fear of failure, after which the process took
on a life of its own. The subject of the sentence you quoted is not "The YC
partners personally" but "The experience of YC" (cf. the title of the post).

~~~
jacquesm
I think we are at the edge of my language skills here.

To me it sounds like someone that has just had some kind of epiphany.

If a dutch person would say:

"Y combinator verandert deze kracht van een gewicht op je schouders dat je
naar beneden haalt tot een krachtige raket die je de lucht in schiet"

We'd think they might need help. Or at a minimum that they should stop smoking
that stuff ;)

~~~
gruseom
It never occurred to me that this might be a language problem, but I do find
it somehow hilarious to imagine a Dutch person saying that (assuming you've
translated the sentence literally). This makes me wonder how, shall we say,
zany we must generally appear to the Dutch. It also makes me wonder how many
other such misunderstandings are lurking under the surface with continental
Europeans who appear (damn you) to have native-speaker-level command of
English.

~~~
jacquesm
I do my best, but there isn't a week that I don't put my foot in my mouth in
some form or other.

For instance the 'zany' in the text above I had to look up, and even after
looking up it doesn't make much sense to me.

1) a subordinate clown or acrobat in old comedies who mimics ludicrously the
tricks of the principal

2) a slavish follower

3) one who acts the buffoon to amuse others

None of the three are a preferred candidate when I do a simple substitution.

~~~
gruseom
Zany just means wacky. It's an older word (deriving, I just learned, from
commedia dell'arte). I was looking (jokingly) for a euphemism to approximate
your implicit category of this-person-is-either-crazy-or-smoking-something.

~~~
jacquesm
Ok, thanks!

------
pclark
I really _loved_ the chapter titled "Transforming the fear of failure".

------
zackattack
The part I liked was how he pitched to 12 people and then fixed his product to
overcome all these objections. But it sort of goes against how Steve Blank
prescribes the process of Customer Development.. oh well.

~~~
jacquesm
Agreed that part is excellent. Whatever you do, do not give up too quickly.

