

Ask HN: Do any alumni think YC was not worth it? - nsted


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rdl
There are absolutely people for whom _doing a startup_ wasn't worth it, both
in retrospect, and based on the best information available to them at the
time; some in YC.

I don't think YC itself was a bad choice for any of the startups I can think
of; there were some cofounder disputes where one of the cofounders added
negative value.

There were zombie companies, especially from after the START Fund was $150k
(W11, S11, W12, S12) where teams which should have died stayed around due to
YC; it might have been better in retrospect if they hadn't done YC and thus
had the money to stay in hateful zombie mode.

I could potentially imagine a situation where a company would benefit from YC
but would benefit more from it 6mo later, so e.g. doing YC W11 was a mistake
and they should have done YC S11 instead; now I think some people are allowed
to defer to the next demo day, which solves a lot of that.

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Robby2012
Why wouldn't it be worth it? I mean, it only lasts 3 months, you get $17,000
and you get access to an incredible network of contacts plus very good
feedback. How can't it be worth it?

