

A YC Clone in India - aneesh
http://www.ciieindia.org/?page_id=93

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davidw
> We don't want you to go to your accommodation before 12 midnight - so we
> provide you mattresses near your workspace for resting. There's anyways a
> security guard outside your work-area - so you don't get to leave the office
> before 12 midnight and you don't get to sleep in the office. Attendance
> happens at 9:30 am every morning. Sundays are off if you have met your
> weekly goals!

Uh... nice try but no cigar, guys.

~~~
umjames
Wow. If I want that kind of treatment, I'll keep my current day job in IT.

Seriously, would this sort of arrangement be acceptable for most people in
India? I don't think anyone could put up with that, but for so long.

~~~
ashu
(I am from India.) No, I think that's just bizarre.

As a people, we aren't as much averse to structure as US people are, but this
is taking things a bit too far. And I honestly hope that these people are only
kidding when they talk about all these "we will watch you" kind of things.

~~~
theoutlander
I think the problem is that we are notorious for slacking off!

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kunalupadhyay
Apologies for having done a bad cloning. I represent CIIE - group which is
doing the iAccelerator. We definitely can't match what YC has done. We are
still open to ideas and would love to get your advise and restructure the
program.

However, we would like you guys to understand the Indian innovation scenario
before any suggestions. In a space where there is limited innovation
happening, very few university start-ups happening, very few "IT-expert
students" creating anything world-class or anywhere closer (other than doing
some outsourced software services) - we feel this is a step to try something
new to push people into starting-up an innovative company.

Our aim is to change the statistics of number of kids starting up out of
college. And believe us, if we can't make a huge difference and end up
creating 3 start-ups out of this process - we would have succeeded.

For those who understand this space better, we would love to have your
feedbacks and how we can use this model better.

Apologies PG and YC fans (believe me I am one of them), we are just trying to
bring some disruption in our innovation system. Look forward to your inputs.

Best, Kunal

~~~
rms
The main criticism was that you enforce draconian working standards. In YC,
people work hard because they want to. You say you have a guard to prevent
people from leaving. It sounds bizarre.

~~~
kunalupadhyay
Yes, I understand. We were actually kidding. But I guess the message wasn't
put across in the right manner. Have changed the text anyways.

I thought people would understand that we can't be so cruel and must have been
kidding. Apologies for the assumption. Yes, we do provide people mattress next
to their workplace - give them the luxury of resting as and when they want. We
are trying to be as friendly as possible. Thanks for your feedback. It's not
gonna be a jail believe me.

~~~
plinkplonk
"I guess the message wasn't put across in the right manner. Have changed the
text anyways."

As of one minute ago the "changed" text reads,

"We don't want you to go to your accommodation before 12 midnight - so we
provide you mattresses near your workspace for resting (well, we've got
limited resources - can't provide you AC accommodation - so thats the least we
can do to ensure that you beat the summers in Ahmedabad). There's anyways a
security guard outside your work-area - so you don't get to leave the office
before 12 midnight and you don't get to sleep in the office. Attendance
happens at 9:30 am every morning. Sundays are off if you have met your weekly
goals! (we got to be kidding on this!!)

End results are more important to us !! "

we don't want you to leave before midnight - check

you don't get to sleep in the office - check

attendance happens at 09.30 - check

Sundays are off if you have met your weekly goals - check

Is the "(we got to be kidding on this!!)" supposed to indicate that all the
above is just you guys trying to be funny?

Just a suggestion from one of the much despised Indian "hackers" who can't
think of a business plan without the IIM-A grads chipping in ;-).

When you are writing about how your process works, just say what you mean.
Don't try to be funny. Writing humour calls for exceptional skill in writing.
All this description manages to do is make you sound like lunatics. (Note : I
said "sound like". I don't say that you ARE crazy).

Just say " we'll pay each founder 200 $ (or 8000 rupees) per month and give
you non AC accomodation and an office with PC s and internet connectivity".

See? It's that easy.

And your whole "YC clone" theme is a bit of a non starter. YC works because as
someone pointed out earlier on this blog, It is promoted by PG (and others)
who "walked the talk". One of the reasons YC can't be cloned easily is that
unless you have people of roughly equal caliber backing it up it makes no
sense. People don't join YC's program for the money.

A mental experiment.

Think of what YC would sound like if it was promoted by a bunch of people with
no credentials in either business or programming. Err... we are MBA _students_
and we'll pay you 200 $ a month and make you go through hell (at the least you
have to listen to our "humour" ;-) ) and give you ... ummm ... an internet
connection. In return you will work your hearts out and try to create a killer
startup.

Yeah that makes sense ;-)

Anyone who can hack can get (with ZERO experience) a 1500 $ / month job in
Bangalore with no trouble at all. A couple of month's savings will give them
more money than you guys can (and they can work whenever they feel like, with
no security guards ;-) ). So what exactly is your value add? Pairing with an
mba student?

This is not to discourage you from attempting to "incubate innovativeness" .
Your deal just doesn't make any sense. But don't let me stop you. If you can
get a world class product out of the door in three months with this deal
structure , more power to you. We'll wait 90 days and see. (won't we? ;-) ).

Finally,

"give them the luxury of resting as and when they want"

resting when you are tired is not a "luxury" which you "give". It is a basic
human right.

~~~
checkout
Read some of your posts Mr. ABCD. When was the last that you visited India?
Ever tried starting up here? You aren't probably the best person to comment.

You seem to be a good for nothing migrant who can't appreciate a novel attempt
to promote startups in India. More so, you must be one of those guys who
couldn't make it to Google, couldn't make it to IIMs and now massages your ego
criticizing everything good that happens in your motherland. Ridiculous !!

We are a bunch of IIT CS grads all set to apply to this program at IIMA and
take our ideas to fruition. Look forward to more of your criticism anyways.
That's what you are good at?.

~~~
msfthater
Hey,

would you please take your sophomoric personal attacks elsewhere. Good luck
with the IIMA program.

------
plinkplonk
(I am Indian and I have friends in the IIMs).

Scarily enough these guys are _serious_. They think they are actually doing
something "cool". The whole idea seems to be that "real hackers" (note the
quotes) would feel "challenged" by such an environment and buy into it. After
all why else would they want to attend a google interview? (ignoring the fact
that Google India is no where near as cool - in terms of work done or quality
of people hired - as Google California).

In short this is just managers living in their own fantasy world. No real
hacker would take these guys seriously.

~~~
checkout
Read some of your posts. You seem to be a good for nothing migrant who can't
appreciate a novel attempt to promote startups in India. More so, you must be
one of those guys who couldn't make it to Google, couldn't make it to IIMs and
now massages your ego criticizing everything good that happens in your
motherland. Ridiculous !!

We are a bunch of IIT CS grads all set to apply to this program at IIMA and
take our ideas to fruition. Look forward to your more of your criticism once
we are successful.

~~~
sachindev
control dude...lets not make it personal...plinkplonk does have a point but he
cannot understand our requirements...it seems iima does....see you at iima
hopefully...:)

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msft_hater
What are these people. 8K rupees a month = $200. Security guard - are you
kidding me ?

the culture in india is risk averse. i grew up there, went to undergrad there
and then come to an engineering school here. i had no trouble getting job
offers, but declined them so I can do a startup, and my mom still feels so
insecure that she asks me to take up a job with microsoft every time i talk to
her.

~~~
theoutlander
Why do you hate MSFT? It makes sense to pursue your dream! What does that have
to do with taking a job at MSFT vs any other company?

~~~
msft_hater
microsoft represents the old guard, the place where nobody gets fired and no
superstar survives; the 'mediocre'.

it represents security, 'the known'

~~~
aniketh
i guess that is how it is. a lot of people trade the joy of work for job
security.

~~~
theoutlander
I think it is the company as a whole and the benefits that they provide make
ppl very comfortable with where they are. Plus, a lot of them don't won't to
take chances like us!

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tuukkah
Although they want to be a YC clone, it seems they haven't read their PG to
understand the point of YC.

"We provide RescueTime (www.rescuetime.com) and 8aweek (www.8aweek.com) on
your systems to keep an eye on what you are doing."

"We provide each one of you (individually) with a stipend of Rs 8k p.m."

"Microsoft would be the Technology and Mentorship Partners for the
iAccelerator Program."

~~~
theoutlander
Seriously, I hope they are kidding with the rescuetime thing! Have they given
birth to a new form of slavery??

~~~
kunalupadhyay
Including Rescuetime and 8aweek in our content for promotion of the program
was our attempt to highlight successful YC innovations. Believe me in India
very few people (including VCs) know about YC - we'd hope more people get to
know about YC. Not the clones, but the original YC.

~~~
plinkplonk
"Including Rescuetime and 8aweek in our content for promotion of the program
was our attempt to highlight successful YC innovations" - (A)

Hmm. The original sentence was

"We provide RescueTime (www.rescuetime.com) and 8aweek (www.8aweek.com) on
your systems to keep an eye on what you are doing." (B)

How are the applicants supposed to infer A from B ? Is this another attempt at
"humor on the internet"?

~~~
checkout
Proves my point. Failed to crack CAT uh? Trying another attempt at inference
problems - alas! For someone who doesn't know what rescuetime is - he would
have Googled and figured out that its a product from YC. I didn't know about
YC till I came across this program in India.

------
pg
Wow, the first YC clone to actually admit they're one. An encouraging sign of
honesty; I voted them up.

~~~
ajju
Since they actually name yc, it is my opinion that you should write a post
about how their adaptation of it is (horribly) wrong. In addition to
everything that is morally wrong with their rules, they make little business
sense. If you don't trust the founders to manage their own time how can you
trust them to be major share-holders and leaders of the company you are
investing in?

~~~
pg
Oops, didn't mean to seem to be endorsing them. In fact I haven't read the
site.

------
prakash
I think the most important couple of things a YC Clone needs is strong
mentorship from someone who's been there, done that and a strong hacker
community. Both of which seem to be missing at a cursory glance, and from the
way they have worded it, seems like a prison of sorts :-)

~~~
ptm
MBA schools in India seem to be taking a lead in incubation.

Of course, you are not likely to find hackers, mentors (in a startup sense),
or entrepreneurs there.

~~~
sachindev
yes for sure....a lot of techies do end up doing their MBAs but rarely follow
the tech-path post that...interestingly thou i've been reading about iim grads
doing tech start-ups (not to mention the biggest successes of indian web 1.0
ventures - rediff, naukri n makemytrip were iim grad ventures and not
iitians)....incubation is beginning to happen in India even at engineering
colleges...i am from an NIT (comparable to some of the better IITs) and
they've taken a leaf from IIMs to implement the placement holiday...i dont
have to take the risk of not finding a good job in case my start-up fails...my
college lets me sit in the placements over next 3 years

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zaidf
Attendance at 9:30am? LOL.

I love my birth country but some things we just gotta learn, like trusting
entrepreneurs to work when they like(DOH).

~~~
theoutlander
I agree! Seems more like a scout camp :D ... sundays off if you are on
schedule?? It's a startup....you're never done!

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ajju
For a second I was afraid (and happy) that they beat me to this. Then I looked
at the details. Its a scary hybrid of archaic school rules and a lack of
repsect for latent business abilities of hackers with the yc concept.

I hope someone beats me to it because my plan is to first start a startup,
learn how to do it right, make money to invest and THEN instantiate an object
of a subclass of yc.

~~~
ashu
Right on! You've got some competitors :)

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morbidkk
RescueTime/8aweek why? Let founders manage what they want to do.

Am I applying to bschool or job; just checkout the application form.

project plan;milestones,timelines: Are we getting MS Project and free Manager
there?

I would teach something to security guard and let him do some interestring
work rather than keeping watch on us.

I hope it turns out well. I wish PG starts YC India chapter.

~~~
sachindev
who is pg?....will be gud to have a yc in india

~~~
ptm
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham>

------
byrneseyeview
"What better than Microsoft, for valuable insights on IT to our enthusiastic
Participants"

...

~~~
theoutlander
Must be April fools?

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startingup
It is foolish to make any very general statements about "India" (just as it
would be to make very general statements about "America"). Too large an entity
to make generalizations.

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okeumeni
No doubt that YC is a great idea, I don’t think it is in anyway an
'internship' or 'sabbatical' . Am I missing something here?

~~~
checkout
Hmmm, maybe. But it does provide we students a similar platform for launching
our innovative ideas into the market.

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ideas101
i'm extremely delighted to know this ... BRAVO !

Now i'm waiting for waiting for a clone in Canada ...

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theoutlander
_puke_

~~~
theoutlander
Oh come on...enough with the negative points :( ... I just hate the idea of
third grade programs! YC is one of a kind and it should stay that way!!

~~~
aneesh
Yeah, you shouldn't be able to downmod below -1. That's enough to send the
signal. Otherwise people will just keep downmodding and go in for the kill.

I heartily disagree about you wanting YC to stay one of a kind though. The
beauty of our capitalist society is that if anyone wants to try to do it
better, they can give it a shot. It's to YC's credit that so many people want
to copy it. And I think they welcome that.

