

A not-so-obvious reason to apply to YC - matoe
http://yvonne.posthaven.com/a-not-so-obvious-reason-to-apply-to-yc

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jasode
>YC is at its core a group of great people.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I actually thought that was _the obvious_ reason
to most applicants.

A $120k investment from YC doesn't provide that much runway. That kind of
money doesn't give much wiggle room for founders to splurge on luxuries like
Aeron chairs and fancy cappuccino machines. That amount is to allow a small
team to live in near-poverty in the SF Bay area for ~6 months and maybe also
buy some tech necessities like AWS EC2 time. Basically, provide some breathing
room for founders to not worry about rent and put the focus on building their
idea. What other reason to work 60+ hours a week in modest conditions unless
it was the networking and interaction?

~~~
bendyBus
I would suspect that this is non-obvious to people who view YC as a
structured, semi-guaranteed route to success, the way many people view a
degree from a prestigious university. I know many people who are 'interested'
in startups and crave some kind of validation that they are a real
entrepreneur before sinking their teeth in. My university even offers a 1 year
diploma in entrepreneurship. Madness! As though formal training will help you
make the hard decisions you face as a founder.

~~~
Kalium
> As though formal training will help you make the hard decisions you face as
> a founder.

Formal training means a way to structure your thoughts and assess risks. Don't
dismiss it out of hand.

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bendyBus
Point taken. Education is of course a valuable thing - but a year's worth of
instruction on entrepreneurship after you've already got a degree?

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smokinn
Why not? If someone has a degree in something technical I could imagine
following a curriculum consisting partly of corporate finance management,
fundraising, HR and other corporate issues for a year could be valuable,
especially if they offer night classes or something like that so that you can
still be working on your main idea.

Most college new grads are not exactly CEO material from the get-go.

~~~
bendyBus
I would assert that a recent graduate who wants to be an entrepreneur is
mostly doing themselves a disservice by studying those things. It focuses your
thoughts on how to run a business rather than how to solve a problem or turn
an industry on its head.

Sure, many of those things could come in handy in the future - but there are
far more difficult things which you also have to learn "as you go".

~~~
smokinn
Entrepreneurship isn't limited to VC-funded moonshots.

Lots of people just want to be their own boss and run a viable business.

~~~
skrish
Great point.

Interestingly, I see several tech startups of this nature started by folks
having a deep understanding of a specific business problem due to their prior
work experience tend to create such startups.

As a service provider for small businesses, I see many amazing bootstrapped
services & products come up around the world, that serves a very specific need
for a small subset of customers. These viable businesses tend to make enough
for the needs of 2-3 folks for a long time. I have a strong inclination
towards finding many of them as a service provider because they just tend to
be some of the best customers with great ROI.

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jedberg
Knowing all the people mentioned in this post, I don't doubt a single one of
these stories. Every one of those people is selfless and eager to help.

Jessica has done an amazing job of instilling a culture at YC that selects for
people who are friendly and eager to help others.

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will_brown
A not-so-obvious excerpt I took away is this...

>Before joining YC, I had been working on my startup for 6 months and a few of
my customers were YC companies.

I think most people are aware that the _startup market_ is quickly growing,
and it is not what the author suggested by any means, but I think entire
startups can be created to cater to the startup market...in fact YC is
probably so large that a startup could probably succeed by catering solely to
YC startups. For example, I applied to YC once with an incorporation/legal
service idea, with the thought that even serving as a Delaware Registered
Agent (~$100/year) and filing the Delaware annual compliance documents (~$100)
on behalf of the YC companies - a captured market - would generate
~$100k/year, which is probably peanuts from a investors point of view, but a
solid life style business that has the potential to cater to ever Delaware
C-Corp startup.

Its kind of like the 49er days and the old saying: "In a gold rush, some
entrepreneurs dig for gold, and some sell shovels."

~~~
cj
Funny enough, there's a YC-funded company that does exactly that:
[https://www.clerky.com](https://www.clerky.com)

The list of customers on their homepage is mostly YC companies.

~~~
will_brown
I was aware of clerky, but in all honesty I thought they were not operating
any longer. Having clicked the link you posted, I am very impressed with the
changes they have made in web design and product presentation/description.

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mrmch
Very cool of Yvonne to share about her pivot, not many founders (yc or not)
are open about that.

The core message is so true. YC partners (and the founder community) is
incredibly genuine, very eager to help out. This scales past being a "small
company" as well -- the Collisons are some of the most approachable founders
ever.

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ThrustVectoring
I attended a workshop hosted by the Center for Applied Rationality, and the
most valuable part of that was getting more social contact with the kind of
people who are into that sort of thing.

Like, spending four days and $4000 to have a dozen short conversations with
Anna Salamon is probably a good buy. It's rather hard to evaluate, since
you're getting things that are difficult to buy with money.

I don't have any experience with YC, but I imagine that it's a similar sort of
deal - especially since I've heard that they focus on community-building.

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nashashmi
Nurturing relationships while struggling to master a subject or anything else
for that matter is the main reason for going to any school in the world.

The key here though is the struggling aspect. If a school does not make you
struggle to the point where you look for connections, I doubt then there is a
point to the school itself.

Further, every major founder of every major startup has always looked back at
the single biggest reason to their success are the relationships they
acquired, nurtured, and mastered.

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jhong
once upon a time, all of silicon valley basically operated like this.

