

Are you in a Techstars/Y Combinator dilemma? - further08

Are you a YC finalist who got accepted into Techstars and find yourself in a position to make a decision before the 25./26./27.?
Feel like TS is trying to skim away YC finalists?
If so, we'd like to talk to you.<p>further08 at gmail
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pg
We'd like to talk to you too. Though we're a bit busy preparing for startup
school today, we're happy to talk to anyone who feels like they're having
undue pressure applied to them. We may be able to help.

~~~
9oliYQjP
I'm a few years older than YC's audience. But for those of you contemplating
this decision, hear me out. My few years out in the real world are more
valuable than you think.

First, approach choosing between startup schools much the way you approached
choosing between universities (or colleges... I'm Canadian). When I was
choosing a university to attend, I had a choice between the top computer
science school in Canada, the University of Waterloo and the top rated overall
school in Canada -- a misnomer as this was simply determined by a well-read
publication in Canada, Maclean's -- the University of Toronto. The U of T's
program was not bad; far from it. The curriculum, insofar as I could tell,
mimicked Waterloo's. I was accepted into both co-op programs, though Waterloo
had the edge here as it seemed to have the better reputation. Socially, I had
a girlfriend and going to the U of T would mean I could continue a
relationship with her (being a dumb teenager geek I gave much more importance
to this factor than I should have). Financially, I pretty much would have to
work my way through university. My parents are not well-off and while they had
saved up some money to get me through 1st year, subsequent ones were
financially up-in-the-air. When the U of T gave me a generous first-year
scholarship and Waterloo didn't -- I had messed up Algebra and had earned an
average score on Waterloo's math contest -- my decision was essentially made.
Both schools, in my check-point analysis were neck-and-neck. Academically
speaking they were both good, although Waterloo was probably better for my
subject. In terms of co-op, Waterloo was better but U of T was not far behind
either. So, knowing that I was essentially settling for second-place, I went
to U of T.

That turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. I don't regret a lot of
mistakes I have made, but this decision is one. You see, the difference
between first place and second place, while it might appear to be miniscule,
is actually immense. Don't get me wrong. I was very much correct in my
analysis. Academically, I was learning the same stuff that my friends over at
Waterloo were. We were both kept busy working on projects, learning the same
algorithms, and pulling our hair out over the tough math courses. For a while,
I was quite happy with my decision. But there was an unsettling feeling. I
didn't seem to have as many interesting peers for one. I was hard pressed to
find somebody that was genuinely interested in programming or computing
theory. I gave up asking people why they had chosen to study CS because I was
tired of hearing "because that's where the jobs were" (we're talking just
before the dot com bubble burst folks). I was further disappointed when it
came time to do my co-op term. My co-op facilitator just didn't seem to get
it. I had been courted by a startup (of 7 Waterloo grads ironically) and I
wanted to work there. But she wanted me to go work at a "major company" like
IBM and actually laughed at me when I said I'd already signed the papers in
January with this startup to work for them in May. The big problem was that I
had found this position on my own, not via the school. They had agreements
with a bunch of companies, but mostly B players like IBM and ones that I just
was not interested in. Waterloo had skimmed the better companies like
Microsoft (back then guys!) and RIM for its students and left the U of T to
settle for seconds.

So, my peers didn't seem to be as focussed on CS as the ones my friends told
me about at Waterloo, and my co-op experience had turned out to be second-
rate. The reality of my decision was beginning to set in. But what really
convinced me I had made a catastrophic mistake was what happened one day after
being really impressed with a 2nd year computer architecture (i.e. let's all
learn assembler) lecture. While everybody dashed out of the lecture as soon as
it was done having been bored silly, I rushed to the front and caught the prof
while he was shutting down his laptop. "This is really interesting, the only
problem is I can't actually program anything on my computer with it because,
well, it's in imaginary ISA. I've heard x86 is ugly but can you recommend me
some good x86 tutorials?". I had anticipated that he might say "Not off the
top of my head, but I'll email you some good book titles/websites" or "uggh
x86, why not learn PowerPC it is so much more elegant". I had NOT anticipated
what he actually responded with, which was "Sorry, I don't know x86...actually
the ISA in the textbook is the only one I'm fluent in". I was absolutely
shocked. The only ISA he was familiar with was an imaginary one that served no
practical purposes. Gutted, I left. You see, those are the sort of professors
that can get along perfectly well at a 2nd place school.

Ok, so if you're still reading, you're probably wondering what the moral of
the story is. Well, first off, ignore financials. Those ended up being the
least of my problems. They'll be the least of your problems too. The most
important things you can get out of startup school are:

-being introduced to the most interesting and intriguing peers

-having access to top-notch business opportunities

-and being mentored by passionate people

Being in my mid-20s I can call this one from the gut. You need to go with the
original startup school, the #1. It's the only one that will get you all 3 of
those. Sure, you will meet interesting people at other startup schools, but
not THE most interesting ones, the cream of the crop. Similarly, you're just
not going to have access to as good of a business opportunity in a tier 2
startup school (e.g., just pickup Founders at Work and look at all those
RECOGNIZABLE leaders). And finally, you're just not going to have access to as
passionate a set of mentors as you would have with YC. Again, proof of this is
in the pudding: Founders at Work, PG's essays, this website (for crying out
loud, another school used a freaking blogger hosted solution for their site
and ripped off YC's application form). Just trust me guys. Don't let my
mistake be in vain :-) There is nothing worse than wondering where you could
have been if you had been able to maximize your potential by running with the
lead pack. Miniscule differences are magnified over time, so don't settle.

~~~
rockstar9
mid 20's? i don't think you are too old for the YC audience :)

~~~
paul9290
LoL yeah Im in my early 30s and doesn't stop me from applying to these great
opportunities!

32, single, no kids... startup is life!

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aneesh
Who are you? I'm not doubting your intentions, but it seems strange to solicit
this information without mentioning at all who you are.

~~~
aneesh
It's telling that further08 hasn't responded. It's even more telling that
further08's account on News.YC was created just minutes before making this
post.

~~~
pg
They seem to be legit, actually. After reading
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=167497> I got paranoid and grepped in the
logs for the IP address. This is from genuine founders.

------
wheels
While I've defended folks emulating YC in the last few threads, I do have to
say that this is rather disingenuous -- not because I don't think that
business-wise that it's fair game, but because since variations on the YC
theme are so new there's a huge amount of space for differentiation.

For instance, the Seattle guys seem to be doing something pretty different and
I think that's wonderful. They want people in Seattle and they want them to
stay there. It seems that they're more interested in building a community than
giving startups a jump-start.

YC, really is pretty narrow in scope. You could change the amount of money,
the time, the industry focus (YC seems pretty media-ish-web focused), the
country ... and I think you could _still_ snap up a good chunk of smart
startups with the core of the YC philosophy.

I recently read _Blue Ocean Strategy_ \-- the crux of the book is to find a
way to redefine your market and dominate your segment, rather than ending up
in a race to the bottom. In other words, don't play to win: change the rules.

~~~
jamiequint
I think something like YC for films would be really cool, obviously it would
have to be more than 20k but I bet some great work would come out of it. The
hardest part would be finding a forward-looking person in that industry to
start it.

~~~
brezina
totally jamie, i've been thinking about how to push business innovation into
film. let's do it after xobni and snaptalent.

~~~
mhartl
Sign me up, too. :-) I was in LA long enough to get to know a few people in
"the Industry". (Hard at work on Insoshi for now, though.)

------
SwellJoe
They've done this with previous groups of founders.

Luckily, the choice right now isn't too hard. TechStars hasn't yet proven they
can provide significantly better outcomes for their startups...they might, but
they haven't done it yet. YC has definitely proven they provide better
outcomes, and Silicon Valley and Boston are both better places to start a tech
company than Colorado (though Boulder is lovely--too cold for me, but many
folks like it). Of course, having neither backing you is probably an even
worse likely outcome...so maybe it's not such an easy choice, after all.

But, if you make it to the interview with YC your odds of getting in are quite
high (greater than 30%, certainly, and probably closer to 50%).

------
zaidf
It's is pretty cool that pg is willing to listen to you guys.

We were in a similar position. Fortunately, when I told my family I'd have to
move to Colorado of all the places I got weird looks.

Boston and YC went better with everyone.

------
pchristensen
Funny, no replies by further08 to the comments here.

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icey
Sounds kind of shady to me.

~~~
Tichy
Perhaps it is a secret reporter from valleywag who is preparing a scathing
article about the fight between YC and TS, looking for a few victimized
startups they can quote out of context.

------
redorb
I think there is a "equity of 1st offering" here, which ever selected you
first should have at least a small advantage over the other; simply because
they 'believed first'.

~~~
icky
Why do you think this should be the case?

~~~
redorb
goes back to my own moral system, probably a weakness.

------
mrtron
I have many tough decisions to make before the 27th.

I do feel like TS may be trying to take YC finalists!

What would you like to talk to me regarding?

