
My experience at a YC startup - techiedudeblog
http://techiedudeblog.tumblr.com/
======
badclient
_Go for post Series-A. VCs have already done the vetting for you._

Seems like you thought the same about YC: that they'd do the vetting for you.
And yet you're set on making the same mistake again by relying on someone else
to do the vetting.

Almost every start-up is a huge gamble. Naturally, the later stage you join
it, the lower the general risk. In that case, why stop at Series A? If risk is
all you care about(and it sure sounds like it from your post), why not just
join profitable companies that are no longer startups? Much lower risk,
promise.

~~~
jmduke
_why not just join profitable companies that are no longer startups?_

This is important, as people seem to forget that startup is a subset of small
business and not vice versa. There are a lot of incredibly profitable
businesses with head counts less than two dozen that don't optimize for
growth. These are generally companies that have been around for longer than
the majority of startups, which means you sacrifice youth for maturity.

(A lot of them aren't in Silicon Valley.)

~~~
pchristensen
Although companies that aren't growing fast aren't hiring much, so those
opportunities are harder to find.

~~~
hayksaakian
Hit the nail on the head

A big way those companies stay profitable is by NOT hiring people.

~~~
count
Depends on the company? We hire tens of thousands of people a year, and are
ridiculously profitable.

~~~
GregorStocks
Companies which hire tens of thousands of people a year do not, in general,
have less than two dozen employees.

------
smalter
It sounds like the only thing that YC has to do with this post is that it
framed the author's initial perceptions of the company, perhaps in a way that
blinded him/her to the truth: every pre-product market fit startup is a mess
on the inside.

It's a bit counterintuitive, but that's why I actually do the opposite from
most founders who are trying to hire: I tell potential hires everything that's
horrible about our company--all the reasons why we suck, why we'll fail, etc.

It turns out that the candidate that's a good fit really values having that
conversation and relishes the opportunity to think through what the problems
are and how they can help. It's also extremely differentiating from how most
companies hire. I say, if you suck, embrace it.

~~~
dylangs1030
I have to ask: do you find you have a lot of applicants who turn away after
this conversation?

In other words, other factors aside, does this negatively impact your
hire/interview ratio?

~~~
nullspace
It may do that, and when it does it's probably for the better. When you are in
a pre-seed startup, things are not rosy, and you want to make sure that your
potential hire does not hate being a part of it in a few months.

In other words, you want to make sure you hire the kind of person who really
wants to join an early stage startup, in spite of all the risks associated
with it.

------
300bps
Did he delete his tumblr?

MIRROR:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&s...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&sclient=psy-
ab&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Ftechiedudeblog.tumblr.com%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Ftechiedudeblog.tumblr.com%2F&gs_l=hp.3..0l4.2890.4431.0.4632.9.8.0.0.0.0.865.1679.0j1j0j2j6-1.4.0....2...1c.1.24.psy-
ab..5.4.1629.pInnjsxsgso&pbx=1)

~~~
noname123
Man, dude got exposed.

I mean it's easy to extrapolate who the person is, call around, figure out
which recent YC startup is laying off people, figure out which biz-dev person
they let go, which YC startup is raising money via AngelList.

If I was going to do a Yelp-style tell all, I'd definitely shield my identity
much better. Instead of giving away where they are raising money and at what
round they are failing to raise the money at. The nature of my position and
specific's of my work history.

I wish the man's identity remains shrouded lest he becomes the next Mr.X from
American Airlines.

~~~
rfnslyr
Tired of these young and fresh idealist developers. Put your big boy boots on,
do some fucking work, wait a few years, then develop an opinion. Hope he gets
exposed.

------
coffeemug
I don't know the person or the YC company in question, and I realize I'm
nitpicking, but these three things stuck out at me.

 _> I wanted to have a significant impact so I was constantly asking the
founders to work on the long-term vision and culture for the company._

Anybody could waste months and months working on the long-term vision and
culture. In a startup, that's next to useless as _everyone_ should contribute
to the long term vision. It's the day-to-day that's important.

 _> I also told them that VCs invested in talent and not the idea._

VCs invest in traction. "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and
cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies
me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."

 _> The leadership was struggling with the vision of the company. It was
pulled in many directions - sometimes ad-hoc based on customer feedback or
angel advice._

That's what an early startup is -- figuring out product/market fit, largely
based on ad-hoc decision making like this. Picking a vision that just works is
incredibly rare.

I know dozens of YC founders and in my experience they're really good at what
they do, but you can't expect to stumble on Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Evan
Williams by joining a random YC company. There are probably less then a dozen
people of this quality in the entire world, and YC invests in ~60 companies
per batch for god's sakes!

EDIT. And also:

 _> The culture was bad. Engineers were constantly told what to do._

Engineers _should_ be told what to do (but hopefully not how to do it). Being
good at engineering doesn't in any way qualify you for being good at managing
product.

EDIT2:

 _> Then another round of raising Series A started. The “nos" started piling
up. Our last hope said “no" 2 weeks back._

Of course the nos started piling up. Having a few rejections is nothing, we
went through ~60 rejections before raising the first round for our company.

Excellence in the absence of pressure wins you no accolades. How you act when
the house is burning down is what ultimately defines who you are. It's cool if
the guy wanted to leave because this kind of pressure isn't for everyone (and
that's fine), but blaming two measly rejections on others is off-putting. It's
easy to blame failure on others, much harder to take responsibility for it
yourself and help turn a dire situation into a victory.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Being good at engineering doesn't in any way qualify you for being good at
> building products.

Being good at engineering is _exactly_ being good at building products,
whether its civil engineering and the product is a bridge, or software
engineering and the product is an application.

Being good at engineering may not be the same as being good at _deciding what
the product should be_ , but no one should mistake "deciding what the product
should be" with "building the product".

~~~
coffeemug
You're right. I meant to say "being good at engineering doesn't qualify you
for managing product". I fixed that sentence.

~~~
Jormundir
Gahh, this sentiment from product managers drives me nuts. IMO you will never
have the best engineers work for you, because the best are very good at making
product decisions / knowing the business in addition to excellent engineering
skills.

To me this is the single most differentiating philosophy between great product
managers and very mediocre ones.

~~~
mattzito
The statement was:

> "being good at engineering doesn't qualify you for managing product"

Which is demonstrably true. They're two different skillsets. If we reversed
the statement:

> being good at product management doesn't qualify you for engineering

We could also agree on that statement. That doesn't mean that there aren't
engineers who are/could be kickass product managers, and it doesn't mean that
there aren't product managers who could sit down and build the application.

But they're two different roles. Product managers are supposed to identify
problems, design requirements, provide engineering with clear context and
business data to help inform the priority, and then engineering should get to,
_based on that information_ , build the best solution.

------
dvt
This post seems like a half-truth in itself (with a tinge of sour grapes).
Furthermore, there seems to be a lot of self-contradiction. E.g.:

" _The leadership was struggling with the vision of the company. It was pulled
in many directions - sometimes ad-hoc based on customer feedback or angel
advice._ "

and

" _I wanted to have a significant impact so I was constantly asking the
founders to work on the long-term vision and culture for the company. I also
told them that VCs invested in talent and not the idea._ "

Being pulled in many directions at once is characteristic of new companies.
Furthermore, you yourself were pulling it in one direction (it would appear).
So, then, were you also guilty of this ad-hoc influence? I'm not sure what to
take from this apart from "my pulling was good, their pulling was bad."

Also,

" _The culture was bad. Engineers were constantly told what to do._ "

I think that this is pretty status-quo (you're an engineer, not an idea
guy/founder after all). Not only that, but someone needs to hold the reigns. I
couldn't imagine being a founder and not telling engineers what to do. Like
the other HN'er, I need some clarification here. Were you being micromanaged?
(And even _that_ may not be a bad thing..)

Let me make a small aside about _culture_ while I'm at it. I don't really buy
into this "company culture" bullshit. It seems (to me at least) that it's
mostly self-gratifying mental masturbation. Instead of being so obsessed with
"culture" \-- it's mentioned two or three times in the essay -- why not bring
up more substantial issues up? After all, maybe it just wasn't a good fit (but
that has nothing to do with culture). That would be like a girlfriend breaking
up with me because of my "person culture." It's a meaningless platitude that's
thrown around far too much in startup circles.

~~~
spudlyo
"When I hear the word culture, that's when I reach for my revolver." \--Hanns
Johst

I'm often struggle with the whole notion of "company culture" as well, and I
can't help but agree that much of it is bullshit.

I can think of things that are perhaps "software engineering culture" like the
public shaming of folks who have broken the build. At one company I worked at
you had to wear a stinky old Viking helmet if you were a build breaker, at
another you had to buy doughnuts for everyone on the team. There are probably
more examples out there.

~~~
krapp
_At one company I worked at you had to wear a stinky old Viking helmet if you
were a build breaker_

I guess 'shame' is relative... that would only encourage me to break stuff so
I could keep wearing the helmet.

------
kanja
Lying about the numbers is never ok - when you ask people to take on risk for
you it's inexcusable to be anything but transparent about what exactly they're
taking on. The rest of the issues don't really surprise me, but dishonesty is
a doozy.

~~~
techiedudeblog
Agreed! That was my biggest surprise - not lying but half-truths.

~~~
badclient
_I got the sense that VCs were lining up for Series A_

Did they tell you that VCs were lining up for Series A? Because when you just
say "you got the sense", you say little about what they said and more about
how you perceived whatever they said.

~~~
ricardobeat
They might have said "we are looking into raising a Series A in the following
months" or "Guy X is in contact with some of the top VCs in the valley", "we
have a lot of interest from VCs", "we are in talks with xxx", etc. None is an
affirmative, but they paint a clear scenario in your head.

~~~
prawn
And quite possible that none of those statements were untrue, either?

------
josh2600
This is a risk evaluation failure.

When you join a startup, when you think of startup statistics, you should
think that the company you're joining has a 90% chance of failing and
returning less than $0 (ergo wasting your time in addition to a lack of
financial return). With this in mind, joining a startup is not for the faint
of heart, and it's also not for those who exemplify hubris.

YCombinator is signal. Investing is signal. Intelligent cofounders are signal.
They are not surefire guarantees of a great return on investment. ___Nothing
really ever guarantees a return on investment._ __

It seems like basic vetting of a startup just didn 't happen. Everyone has a
linkedin, is it too much to ask that you do some googling to figure out the
accomplishments of the people you're about to invest 10 years with? Yes, when
you join a startup you should imagine what doing 10 years with that company
could be like. If you can't see yourself there in 2 years, don't even bother
(90th percentile advice).

Look. I'm all about Venture Capitalism, but you have to ask yourself. If
there's no possible way that this business could do what they're trying to do
without VC money and they're still on a seed stage, what is your risk? I would
argue that your risk is almost incalculable (which is also true of your
reward). When you trade security for potential, you can gain or lose liability
in exchange for risk. Joining a YC startup is only marginally less likely to
fail than joining a regular startup.

In short, every startup is a huge gamble and you have to play the game with
that in mind. Your experience at a YC startup is no different than countless
friends I've had over the years. Go and talk to anyone who has lived in the
Valley for more than 10 years, we all know people exactly like you.

What happens from here on in matters greatly. Will you let the experience
cannibalize your ambition or reinforce your drive? You don't need to join a
startup to change the world, and you shouldn't let a failure like this destroy
your dreams. If anything you've learned a ton of what not to do next time.

In short, be brave, be foolish and do. I applaud the writeup and hope that it
becomes fuel for future endeavor.

~~~
nonchalance
"The numbers that were shared were not entirely true. It was kind of half-
truth and part of the marketing pitch to VCs."

Do you consider that a due diligence failure on the employee's part or a
misunderstanding regarding the general nature of numbers?

~~~
greghinch
If the startup is going to outright lie to anyone not on the inside, then
there's not much you can do. But the onus is definitely on the prospective
employee to press them for the facts, and recognize people for being shifty.
The author is justifiably upset about the outcome, but hopefully this can be a
learning experience and move on.

I have to say, as much as YC has a great rep, I was kind of shocked when I
heard the sizes of their classes in recent years. When I participated in
another accelerator last year, our class had 10 teams, and that seemed like a
fairly good size in terms of the folks running program being able to keep on
top of the startups involved. I have to imagine when you are running classes
of 80 teams (though they temporarily scaled back recently to more like 50, it
sounds like they are going to grow the number per session again soon), not
only are some going to be duds, but some are going to be outright scammers.

------
jmtame
Seems like a pretty common early stage startup to me--they look like sure
shots from the outside, but internally everything seems like it's imploding. I
remember joining my first startup back in 2007, and even after it received
funding by some of the best names in SV, it felt exactly like what you
described.

If you're looking to join a startup and expect the same experience as a large
company, I don't know if you'll find it. It doesn't excuse bad behavior. The
CEO at that startup I mentioned was pretty bad (at the time; I'm sure he's
better now because he has moved on to bigger and better things) and got fired
by the investors a few months after I left.

Early stage startups are probably not going to feel much like a normal job,
based on what my friends tell me it's like (Google: you can work 30 minutes
during the day and you're basically done).

------
dylangs1030
I'm assuming the author posted this. Thanks for doing so! I love to see inside
perspectives on startups, _especially_ Y-Combinator startups.

The tech industry has this bad habit of hero-worship and name dropping (well,
I guess it's probably every industry). I think it's good to see that the
entire process is not as glamorous as it seems, and that just being associated
with a huge pool of talent/success/prestige does not guarantee _your own_
success or future prestige.

Kudos on the experience and the lesson learned, good luck in finding a job :)

------
fistofjohnwayne
Interesting that so many people are saying, "startups are risky, end of
story." What pops out for me is this: "The numbers that were shared were not
entirely true. It was kind of half-truth and part of the marketing pitch to
VCs."

Just because a company hasn't found product-market fit doesn't mean it's okay
to lie when recruiting.

------
jonnathanson
Why delete the article? More to the point, why post the article here and then
delete it? If you're going to blog, and especially if you're going to share
your article about YC on a place like HN, then you should be prepared for
whatever feedback you receive.

I'm well aware someone has posted a mirror to the original article, and I've
read it. I'm just sort of baffled by the deletion in the first place. The
article made it to the front page, so clearly a decent number of people liked
it. A lot of others didn't, hence, the flurry of critical comments. Either
way, the article generated a big response. Was that not the intent?

------
rdl
As a YC founder, I'm really sorry you had such a bad experience with other YC
startups.

I don't think your experience is generally true of YC companies, though. They
vary in so many ways, including those unrelated to success.

The biggest problem seems to be communication. None of the things you
discovered were inherently enough to make them toxic -- but not learning those
things sooner was bad. (I suspect even the best company would have a hard time
raising an A in certain markets).

The "VCs doing vetting for you" with a Series A has a big cost -- if you're
otherwise the same and going into the same job, you get a _lot_ less equity,
and on much less favorable terms, after an A. Assuming you're in a position to
take the risk, being one of the first employees is ideal, or being an employee
in a later stage company which is already knocking it out of the park (if I
had to get a job today, I'd be looking at employee 1-5, or going to a place
like Tesla or Apple or CloudFlare or whatever, where success is already
apparent, and the team is obviously already awesome.) And, manifestly, VCs
fund shitty companies at Series A (and later!), too, so it's not even great
vetting.

Once you "satisfice" on hard location, cash, and stability requirements
(which, for many people, especially those who want to startups themselves, can
be pretty easily met), probably picking for "how awesome are the founders and
how much do they like me" is probably the next thing to optimize for. "How
much responsibility and room to grow/learn will I personally have", too. Then
just make sure "if the company is super successful, I will be super successful
too", and then focus on maximizing the odds of the company being super
successful.

------
minimaxir
_The culture was bad. Engineers were constantly told what to do._

I'm not sure I understand this point. Were the founders micromanaging?

~~~
badclient
Also, define _micromanaging_.

~~~
ricardobeat
OT, your username makes this comment hilarious.

------
WestCoastJustin
I would be amazed if this was not the norm!

A _cozy job at a top-tier tech company_ != _start-up life_ (YC or otherwise).
Larger companies have a culture, well define pathways for information to flow,
you get acclimatized to this, etc. Startups typically have none of these, it
is like a culture shock, imaging moving to a different country.

ps. no comment on the numbers bit.

------
sriramk
I have questions about the OP's motivation for writing this but more on that
later.

The real fault lies with both parties for not setting expectations. A lot of
the requests from the founders seem very reasonable; I fully expect them to be
telling their friends about this bad hire who never executed on the details
for them. Neither of you seem to have done the hard work up front of conveying
what you needed and expected from the other side. I can see the other side of
the data points you show - weekly revenue need not be the right thing for the
company, startups need detail often more often than execution and guess what,
VCs do care about the actual idea. It also sounds like you were surprised by
the risk profile of an early stage startup (and your notion of VC vetting
might be in for a harsh reality check).

What I don't understand is this post itself - you seem to blame YC for what
seems to be a typical startup experience (not raising funding is the median
outcome and even folks like AirBnb struggled with this for a long, long time).
I'm wondering whether the way you've constructed this post with an anonymous
post on a blog, the callouts to their funding situation, etc is meant to hurt
the company's future prospects by making them identifiable (and maybe take a
swipe at YC too). I hope that's not the case here.

~~~
oblique63
> _you seem to blame YC for what seems to be a typical startup experience_

Why are so many here thinking this? I didn't even remotely interpret this post
like that. If anything, the post seemed to overwhelmingly present your _exact_
same point here: that even a YC startup _is_ in fact, just another startup. He
seemed to be more concerned with giving people realistic expectations (like
you are) than trying to discredit any of the entities involved.

What I don't understand is why people are so quick to attribute malice to
this. Clearly there was a communication breakdown, I'm just not entirely sure
where... the post felt pretty simple/clear/genuine to me.

~~~
livepreview
If the author's point was in fact that "even a YC startup is in fact, just
another startup," then he shouldn't have mentioned YC because in the context
of the now-deleted blog post it can only serve to narrow down the candidate
list of companies that the post was in reference to. That is somewhat
malicious, given the sentiments expressed.

If that wasn't "overwhelmingly" the point he was trying to make, and he was in
fact trying to imply that YC startups have an inherently better chance of
success than "just another startup," then your comment is moot.

Malicious or not, telling the world over the Internet about bad experiences
you had with co-workers probably isn't a great idea in the long run. Hash it
out with them directly, or learn a personal lesson and move on.

~~~
oblique63
> _it can only serve to narrow down the candidate list of companies that the
> post was in reference to. That is somewhat malicious, given the sentiments
> expressed._

This seems like an awfully cynical view to take. YC has accepted quite a few
startups in its lifetime (564 to be exact [1]), and he mentioned no other
specificities aside from that. He _could_ have titled it "My experience at an
incubated/accelerated startup", but then there wouldn't be much of an anchor
back to reality to drive it into people's heads that: 'hey, this does happen,
and it could happen to you'. Not to mention that any of the other 'large'
accelerators probably still pale in comparison to YC's startup numbers. Either
way, trying to anchor a helpful point into reality does not seem like good
evidence for maliciousness. Trying to frame another person's legitimate
attempt at helping others as malicious feels more malicious.

> _If that wasn 't "overwhelmingly" the point he was trying to make, and he
> was in fact trying to imply that YC startups have an inherently better
> chance of success than "just another startup," then your comment is moot._

No, because that's a given. The post was talking about cultural aspects, and I
in-turn was talking about cultural aspects. And thus here you are (either
intentionally, or unintentionally) arguing that there is some deep correlation
between a company's specific set of cultural decisions and a company's
success. Personally, I'm not entirely convinced that's the case.

> _Malicious or not, telling the world over the Internet about bad experiences
> you had with co-workers probably isn 't a great idea in the long run. Hash
> it out with them directly, or learn a personal lesson and move on._

I agree that being a bad sport and gossiping over the internet is in poor
taste, but telling someone to bottle up their insights when it seems like
they're trying to help other people avoid the same mistakes is just
counterproductive. We live in a society and we should help eachother out.
Depriving the community of potentially useful insights out of fear that you'll
run into the ~0.1% (1/564 * 100) chance of accidentally gossiping about
somebody is just not productive for anybody.

[1] [http://www.cloudave.com/29767/y-combinators-startup-
math-2/](http://www.cloudave.com/29767/y-combinators-startup-math-2/)
(Granted, the number of remaining _active_ startups is definitely less, but it
is still a large number.)

------
dustingetz
"The quality of the people were much lower vs my previous company"

#1 reason to not join an early stage startup. either found one yourself, or go
learn from a place that pays top dollar for actual experts so you can learn
how to be one.

------
newnewnew
Like it or not, this is an extremely common startup story. You have heard that
90% of startups fail, right? Each failed startup goes through some kind of
phase like this.

Borderline dishonesty is also common. Every startup is trying to pitch itself
in the best light possible, and they all got a hockey stick graph sitting
around somewhere no matter how poorly they're doing.

------
joelrunyon
> YC doesn’t necessarily mean sure shot success. Paul Graham is a human and
> bound to make mistakes.

It sounds like he made the poor assumption that YC = Success = Millions for
everyone involved.

------
Plough_Jogger
New Link:
[http://www.mydogear.com/articles/5201723ff1a81d1b38c0b47f](http://www.mydogear.com/articles/5201723ff1a81d1b38c0b47f)

Edit: Just read the post, here is a tl;dr:

I thought joining a YC backed start-up would lead to easy and guaranteed
riches. Boy was I wrong.

------
argumentum
This reads like a hit piece on "YC Startups". I'm not saying it was intended
to be so, but it sounds like one. Why?

    
    
      1. Where is the evidence that any of this is true?
      2. You could have named the company in question and given them a chance to respond.. 
      3. Instead your claim aims to hurt the reputation of hundreds of YC startups.
    

_Of course_ YC startups could fail, whether in raising money or making
something people who want. _ANY_ startup could fail. A YC startup may be less
likely to fail, but YC doesn't _ensure_ success .. for that matter neither
does being a post series-a (webvan, color labs etc) or even being a public
company (zynga for example).

------
AYBABTME
Can't seem to access the page, a cached version:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:techie...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:techiedudeblog.tumblr.com)

------
siong1987
Most(probably all) early startups are in chaos.

Growth solves all problems. If the startup mentioned in the post had a
healthy/steady growth, no one would have complained and the OP would still
have stayed with the startup.

If you are looking to join a startup, join one that with explosive growth.
"Get on a rocket ship.", Eric Schmidt to Sheryl Sandberg[1], early Google.

1: [http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandbergs-full-hbs-
spe...](http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandbergs-full-hbs-speech-get-
on-a-rocketship-whenever-you-get-the-chance-2012-5)

~~~
govindkabra31
he noted in his article, that he checked for that.. startup was growing 100%
mom, he was told.

------
badclient
You never told us the other side of the story. Sure, the other side could, but
what do _you_ think the other side would say about you? And why should we
believe you over them beyond taking your word?

~~~
hvs
That seems like a standard that is not really applied to any other post on HN.
Why should it apply in this case?

~~~
badclient
Most other posts on HN don't involve such degree of mudslinging. When they do,
I think you'll find similar questions being asked.

~~~
jmcgough
I don't really think is is mudslinging. He purposely left out the company's
name, and YC as a whole won't be hurt by this - there have been enough YC
successes that I'm sure everyone here would consider a YC startup to be better
than the average startup.

This is just one engineer warning people that you should still take a solid
look at a company before you hop on board, even if it is a YC startup.

------
govindkabra31
Here is the original text of the article, since it has been taken down now.

My experience at a YC startup

This story needs to be told. I am an engineer turned business guy who recently
left a cozy job at a top-tier tech company and joined a YC start-up. Needless
to say I took a huge pay cut and a big risk. I talked extensively to one of
the co-founders and he/she did an amazing job of selling me the opportunity. I
got the sense that VCs were lining up for Series A (it was still early stage)
and the company had amazing growth curve (numbers like growing 100% Mom etc.).
Once i joined the startup, to my horror, I discovered a few things:

    
    
        The company tried to raise Series A earlier and failed. 
        The numbers that were shared were not entirely true. It was kind of half-truth and part of the marketing pitch to VCs.
        The leadership was struggling with the vision of the company. It was pulled in many directions - sometimes ad-hoc based on customer feedback or angel advice.
        The culture was bad. Engineers were constantly told what to do. 
        The quality of the people were much lower vs my previous company.
    

One of the first things I did was steer the company in the right direction
from a strategy perspective. I constantly butted head with one of the founders
but my strategies were clearly impacting the revenue numbers. For example one
of the tactics doubled the weekly revenue. I wanted to have a significant
impact so I was constantly asking the founders to work on the long-term vision
and culture for the company. I also told them that VCs invested in talent and
not the idea.

Then another round of raising Series A started. The “nos" started piling up.
Our last hope said “no" 2 weeks back. And then I was asked to leave last week
(though I was already planning to leave). I think they got what they needed
out of me and now the first person to go would be the business guy (along with
some other engineers and business folks). Actually the team is paying for the
incompetence of the founding team.

I would add the disclaimer that my experience may not be reflective of every
single YC startup. But I don’t want you to make the same mistake so this is my
piece of advice before you join an early-stage startup:

    
    
        YC doesn’t necessarily mean sure shot success. Paul Graham is a human and bound to make mistakes.
        Talk to as many team members as possible before joining. Try to gauge culture by visiting the office quite often. 
        Preferably join a startup where you know the people.
        If you don’t know the people, work part-time for some time before making a decision.
        Ignore marketing pitches by founders.
        Go for post Series-A. VCs have already done the vetting for you.
    

I just heard they are planning to raise more money via AngelList or
FundersClub (not listed yet). If you are an individual investor, do your due
diligence before investing via AngelList or FundersClub - don’t invest
blindly.

------
auctiontheory
While your advice at the end is good, what precedes it comes across as "I am
perfect and always right, and these guys were a bunch of dishonest
incompetents."

I have a hard time believing that view. At the very least, you did not do a
good job of evaluating your future employer, and once in there, you did not do
a good job of influencing them to follow your lead (without pissing them off).

------
dm8
> The leadership was struggling with the vision of the company. It was pulled
> in many directions - sometimes ad-hoc based on customer feedback or angel
> advice.

I wouldn't call it vision problem. Vision is generally very high level. When
it comes to actual implementation you need to dig 100 ft deeper into the
problem.

Moreover, isn't it the case with most of the early stage startups that are yet
to hit product market fit? I run my own startup and I get constant feedback
form all the stakeholders. Of course, my team makes decisions based on the
feedback and insights. But we are constantly evolving as a company and
decision making is very quick.

In fact, from my interactions and readings even successful companies were like
that. For example Google -

"Key decisions made in the cafeteria line while a founder is loading his plate
with baked organic tofu"[1]

[1] Early Google Employee experience:
[http://xooglers.blogspot.com/2011/04/so-different-yet-so-
ali...](http://xooglers.blogspot.com/2011/04/so-different-yet-so-alike.html)

------
ig1
He misses a key point: References

You should speak to former coworkers, friends, customers and investors before
joining an early stage startup. Don't ask the company for references, but
rather use your own network to find these people via mutual contacts and talk
to them about the founders and the company.

------
mariusz331
There are "doomed" companies in every batch, which is okay. Startup investing
is a numbers game.

This is a great time for the company the OP is talking about to reflect on
possible mistakes they've made. I take what the OP says with grain of salt,
but no startup is perfect. This is the time to think about the culture they
created and how they can improve it to stay alive.

Most of the time, it just takes an honest conversation with the team. Lock
yourselves in a room and have an open talk about what's going on. Let no
feeling go unspoken. Don't make any excuses- just focus on how you guys can be
better in the future and make every effort to do that.

------
npalli
If you paraphrase most arguments here, we would end up with a conclusion that
a YC-startup is no different from a random startup. There is huge struggle
getting product/market fit, things are constantly in motion, rejection by VC's
etc. Somehow that doesn't seem right. I'm sure the YC founders would negotiate
pretty good terms for themselves (compared to a random startup) just because
they are a YC startup. For people who feel the OP is naive etc., what exactly
should he have expected (net delta) because it is a YC startup?

------
chasing
Due diligence. You'd do it if you were investing money. You should do it if
your going to invest your time. Especially if you're taking a big pay cut. In
which case you're investing both your time and your money.

At least four of the five problems listed near the beginning of the article
could've been discovered without leaving the cushy job.

------
justplay
the up link of article :
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Atechi...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Atechiedudeblog.tumblr.com&oq=cache%3Atechiedudeblog.tumblr.com&aqs=chrome.0.69i57j69i58.10380j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

------
wudf
>YC doesn’t necessarily mean sure shot success. Paul Graham is a human and
bound to make mistakes. I may be wrong, but I don't think YC aims to only fund
companies that will "succeed." Each venture is an exploration into a space. I
think "mistake" is a bit presumptuous.

------
himal
Not found! The page have been deleted.

------
proexploit
Off topic, but is there a name for that type of pattern in the header? It
looks familiar.

------
jonnycombust
Startups are hard and falling apart on the inside. This isn't news.

Also, being post Series-A will in NO WAY eliminate many of the issues he talks
about (struggling vision, etc).

Seems like this guy should stick to the corporate world..

------
advertising
Literally read this post and clicked to see what other posts were in his/her
blog and it's no longer up.

~~~
advertising
I guess the story doesn't "need to be told"

~~~
Plough_Jogger
Does anyone have a link or chached?

~~~
govindkabra31
I had an open tab, just posted the text on this comment.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6170145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6170145)

------
mh-
getting a 404 on this story now.

here's a readability-google-cache version I preserved:
[https://www.readability.com/articles/zdsdagi](https://www.readability.com/articles/zdsdagi)
(click _readability_ )

edit: oops, looks like someone beat me to this by a couple hours.

------
scottydelta
The only agreeable part is "The culture was bad. Engineers were constantly
told what to do."

------
mkuhn
Article can still be found here:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Ftechiedudeblog.tumblr.com%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Ftechiedudeblog.tumblr.com%2F&aqs=chrome.0.69i57j69i58.1831j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

\---

My experience at a YC startup

=============================

This story needs to be told. I am an engineer turned business guy who recently
left a cozy job at a top-tier tech company and joined a YC start-up. Needless
to say I took a huge pay cut and a big risk. I talked extensively to one of
the co-founders and he/she did an amazing job of selling me the opportunity. I
got the sense that VCs were lining up for Series A (it was still early stage)
and the company had amazing growth curve (numbers like growing 100% Mom etc.).
Once i joined the startup, to my horror, I discovered a few things:

\- The company tried to raise Series A earlier and failed.

\- The numbers that were shared were not entirely true. It was kind of half-
truth and part of the marketing pitch to VCs.

\- The leadership was struggling with the vision of the company. It was pulled
in many directions - sometimes ad-hoc based on customer feedback or angel
advice.

\- The culture was bad. Engineers were constantly told what to do.

\- The quality of the people were much lower vs my previous company.

One of the first things I did was steer the company in the right direction
from a strategy perspective. I constantly butted head with one of the founders
but my strategies were clearly impacting the revenue numbers. For example one
of the tactics doubled the weekly revenue. I wanted to have a significant
impact so I was constantly asking the founders to work on the long-term vision
and culture for the company. I also told them that VCs invested in talent and
not the idea.

Then another round of raising Series A started. The “nos" started piling up.
Our last hope said “no" 2 weeks back. And then I was asked to leave last week
(though I was already planning to leave). I think they got what they needed
out of me and now the first person to go would be the business guy (along with
some other engineers and business folks). Actually the team is paying for the
incompetence of the founding team.

I would add the disclaimer that my experience may not be reflective of every
single YC startup. But I don’t want you to make the same mistake so this is my
piece of advice before you join an early-stage startup:

\- YC doesn’t necessarily mean sure shot success. Paul Graham is a human and
bound to make mistakes.

\- Talk to as many team members as possible before joining.

\- Try to gauge culture by visiting the office quite often.

\- Preferably join a startup where you know the people.

\- If you don’t know the people, work part-time for some time before making a
decision.

\- Ignore marketing pitches by founders.

\- Go for post Series-A. VCs have already done the vetting for you.

I just heard they are planning to raise more money via AngelList or
FundersClub (not listed yet). If you are an individual investor, do your due
diligence before investing via AngelList or FundersClub - don’t invest
blindly.

------
livestyle
My first impression after reading it was it's a FAKE.

------
andrewlynch
Is the link down?

------
mattwritescode
For those of you trying the link and unable to find it I have copied the
content from the post:

My experience at a YC startup

This story needs to be told. I am an engineer turned business guy who recently
left a cozy job at a top-tier tech company and joined a YC start-up. Needless
to say I took a huge pay cut and a big risk. I talked extensively to one of
the co-founders and he/she did an amazing job of selling me the opportunity. I
got the sense that VCs were lining up for Series A (it was still early stage)
and the company had amazing growth curve (numbers like growing 100% Mom etc.).
Once i joined the startup, to my horror, I discovered a few things:

* The company tried to raise Series A earlier and failed.

* The numbers that were shared were not entirely true. It was kind of half-truth and part of the marketing pitch to VCs.

* The leadership was struggling with the vision of the company. It was pulled in many directions - sometimes ad-hoc based on customer feedback or angel advice.

* The culture was bad. Engineers were constantly told what to do.

* The quality of the people were much lower vs my previous company.

One of the first things I did was steer the company in the right direction
from a strategy perspective. I constantly butted head with one of the founders
but my strategies were clearly impacting the revenue numbers. For example one
of the tactics doubled the weekly revenue. I wanted to have a significant
impact so I was constantly asking the founders to work on the long-term vision
and culture for the company. I also told them that VCs invested in talent and
not the idea.

Then another round of raising Series A started. The “nos" started piling up.
Our last hope said “no" 2 weeks back. And then I was asked to leave last week
(though I was already planning to leave). I think they got what they needed
out of me and now the first person to go would be the business guy (along with
some other engineers and business folks). Actually the team is paying for the
incompetence of the founding team.

I would add the disclaimer that my experience may not be reflective of every
single YC startup. But I don’t want you to make the same mistake so this is my
piece of advice before you join an early-stage startup:

* YC doesn’t necessarily mean sure shot success. Paul Graham is a human and bound to make mistakes.

* Talk to as many team members as possible before joining. Try to gauge culture by visiting the office quite often.

* Preferably join a startup where you know the people.

* If you don’t know the people, work part-time for some time before making a decision.

* Ignore marketing pitches by founders.

* Go for post Series-A. VCs have already done the vetting for you.

I just heard they are planning to raise more money via AngelList or
FundersClub (not listed yet). If you are an individual investor, do your due
diligence before investing via AngelList or FundersClub - don’t invest
blindly.

------
andrewcooke
anyone got a cache?

~~~
andyidsinga
here :
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://techiedudeblog.tumblr.com/)

------
michaelochurch
The VC-funded startup scene is full of frauds: fake startups, fake technology
(manual work being sold as high-power machine learning), and promises made
with no intention of keeping them. It's a shark's world, not for the faint of
heart, and not a good place if you're a bad judge of character (unless you're
prepared to learn, painfully, in that arena).

I've worked in finance and in the startup world. Ethics in the startup world
are a lot worse. Finance has more reach (see 2008) but the people who will
completely fuck someone over just to make a nickel are just not as common.
Even if you get politically unlucky in finance or otherwise end up being laid
off, you'll still get a severance and a decent reference. They'll send you off
in a decent way. On the other hand, I've seen startup CEOs ruin peoples'
reputations just to do it.

OP's complaints have nothing to do with the company being YC, and certainly
nothing to do with it being pre-A. The most unethical people I met in the
startup scene were the management team of a well-established post-D startup in
New York. (The CEO is from an extremely wealthy family and pulls connections
to raise money in spite of his own incompetence and the mediocrity of the
leadership; otherwise, the company wouldn't exist, but you knew that.) These
people have used extortion to settle severance disputes, hired multiple people
into the same exact leadership role as an explicitly intentional recruiting
tactic, and were so dishonest with investors that they're known for it in New
York, which might be why the Series E seems to be a struggle for them. _That_
is in a company that has passed VC vetting four times.

 _YC doesn’t necessarily mean sure shot success. Paul Graham is a human and
bound to make mistakes._

Well, fucking duh. No one is a perfect judge of character. No one. You have to
make decisions on people based on extremely minimal information that has more
to do with someone's charm and social skill than anything deeper. You only
know if someone's a good person when they're really tested; you don't see that
in a few hours of superficial interaction. On the other hand, if you're not
willing to bet on people based on almost no real information, you can't make
any deals at all and that's generally considered worse.

 _Go for post Series-A. VCs have already done the vetting for you._

They're not going to be any better than YC was. Judging character is just
fundamentally a hard problem. Look at the Stanford Prison Experiment. A change
of context turned normal people into monsters.

Most of these startups do not match the ideal we have of Google's early days:
technical to the core, well-managed, etc. The bad news is that about 75% of
these VC-funded startups still fail (but you knew that). The ugly news is that
_at least_ that percentage _deserve_ to fail. Sorry, man.

So, OP drew a dud. It happens. I've drawn two and I'm still alive.

------
kirillzubovsky
Get a grip on yourself!

1) This could have been your experience at ANY startup and YC has nothing to
do with this (you are just trolling their name).

2) You said you steered the company in the right direction? That's just a
matter of perspective.

3) "The first person to go would be the business guy" \- maybe they thought
that a whiny child, that you are, was impacting their focus and productivity.

~~~
nonchalance
1) ... YC has nothing to do with this

Like it or not, YC signals some sort of vetting (by PG, at the very least).
It's a _good_ thing for YC if people give YC companies the benefit of the
doubt (it would be worse if people expected the worse or, even worse, decided
not to work for those companies)

2) steered the company ... a matter of perspective.

He made it clear that it was from a strategy perspective: "steer the company
in the right direction from a strategy perspective." And based on how he
explained it, I suspect PG would agree.

3) they thought that a whiny child, that you are

There's really no need to sling ad-hominems. Not all startups are perfect.
Many have issues, especially cultural issues. To deny it only reflects poorly
on you.

The issues that the author presents is consistent with stories I've heard from
others. It's not that people are bad, but when push comes to shove startup
founders are willing to do what it takes to succeed.

~~~
argumentum
You didn't respond to a _single one_ of the criticisms made.

1\. YC startups, on average, are more likely to succeed all other things
considered, thus the perception. But YC itself can't guarantee success, are
you claiming they should?

2\. "Based on how he explained it" .. therein lies the problem. He hasn't
given any evidence or provided the company a chance to respond. So
effectively, he's targeting the reputation of YC rather than a specific
company.

3\. The problem isn't that the author is claiming "all" startups have issues,
but that he is attributing these issues to YC Startups in particular. Even if
this particular story were true, which we have no way of knowing, it seems
like a bizarre attempt at _schadenfreude_ against YC.

~~~
techiedudeblog
It should be pretty obvious from the post that I am a huge YC fan (and I added
a disclaimer in the post in case you missed it).

You misjudged the intention of the post. Read the last few paragraphs.

~~~
argumentum
I did read it, but it _states the obvious_ (that YC startups are well,
startups).

Name the company, let them respond to your allegations. That would be fair ..

