

Analyzing Y Combinator - ig1
http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2009/12/analyzing-y-combinator.html

======
pg
"80 - Active (25 having received further investment rounds)"

The internal contradiction here should have set off some alarms. Are the other
55 supposed to have made it to profitability without raising any further
money?

According to our records, 89 of 144 startups we funded up to this summer are
still alive, for some definition of alive. When startups die, they usually die
gradually, so it's hard to say when a startup is actually dead.

Some other mistakes I noticed: Nearly all cycles have the wrong number of
startups. The furthest off is W07, which he lists has having had 15 startups
but actually had 12. There have been two mergers, not one (Ninite is also a
merger). YouOS didn't die; it morphed into Project Wedding, which was
acquired. 8aweek didn't die either; that's now SocialBrowse. Nambii and
pocketfungames are the same company, as were Boso and Auctomatic. Chatterous,
iJigg, and Ididwork are all still alive. There's at least one startup listed
as active that has been acquired, but it may not be public knowledge.

I've never heard of Innovation Fuels.

It doesn't seem fair to accuse us of "lack of transparency." Every startup
launches publicly when they're ready, after which we list them on our site. It
wouldn't be appropriate to list them before they've launched (or more
precisely, it would launch them). We're usually not supposed to disclose when
they raise additional funding or get acquired. And we're not always sure till
long after the fact when they die.

~~~
ig1
I'm the original author. I'll make corrections to the article later today but
in response:

1) I marked a startup as closed if it's publicly declared as closed, if the
founders now list their employer as someone else (on linkedin, HN, etc) or if
there's been no activity in the six months. In the case where it seemed
ambiguous I've marked it as unknown.

2) I'll need to check my notes, Innovation fuels I checked several sources
which named it as a YC company as it seemed weird as it falls outside YC's
normal investment categories. Removed now.

3) YouOs / WebShaka I should have spotted as WebShaka is listed as the creator
of project wedding in several places. Boso / Auctomatic I was aware that the
founding teams were the same, but thought they were two separately funded YC
startups as several news articles referred to them as such.

4) Chatterous blog hasn't been updated since March, their front page has a
2008 copyright, and their "featured groups" on the homepage seem both static
and dead. IJigg and ididwork I marked as dead as because their public blogs
(blog.ijigg.com and www.ididwork.com/blog/) are returning technical errors
which suggest abandonment.

5) Transparency-wise, it's understandable you don't chose to disclose outside
investment/acquisitions. However the later generally become public sooner or
later anyway. The list of YC's FAQ page doesn't seem to be complete (including
the ones commented out in the source code), presumably because you remove ones
which have closed ?. Also there's no disclosure in terms of how many companies
YC funds but fail to launch.

But thanks for the feedback, one of the reasons for early disclosure of this
list is so that I can get feedback and remove mistakes from the list.

~~~
ErrantX
Well as a user of Chatterous; yeh it is still alive if "running" translates to
"alive".

If your taking "not updated" to mean "dead" your probably right; we were
waiting to see how they would monetize and nothing seems to have appeared...
so "in limbo" is probably a better bet.

~~~
tibbon
I personally know of several startups that are running in "zombie mode" right
now in the Boston area. Their website is still up, but everyone's been laid
off, development on the product has stopped, and the only reason its still up
is because they pre-paid for hosting for a year or so.

Waiting for someone to write a blog on "zombie mode".

~~~
davi
Good idea. One way to mix it up might be to use a simile with different
implications: how about "dauer mode"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dauer_larva>

------
nudist
Neat list, but just keep in mind that many of these (20-40%?) are inaccurate.
Many startups listed as active have actually failed, but they kept their site
up.

Also, a vast majority of the acquisitions shown here were for talent. They
generally involve very little actual money and in many cases could be
considered company failures.

Still, I'm happy for the successes. But in startupland there are many magic
tricks to make things look better than they are.

~~~
veemjeem
I'm sure for every round of YC, there are a few companies that don't even make
it to launch. The ones that don't launch are not even listed.

~~~
ig1
I've got most of the companies that failed to launch, plus we know how many
companies YC has funded in total so we can deduce how many never launched but
aren't listed either.

------
arasakik
Wait, what? Chatterous is most definitely not closed.

More info: [http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/14/chatterous-raises-angel-
fu...](http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/14/chatterous-raises-angel-funding-to-
integrate-email-instant-messaging-and-sms/)

~~~
natrius
Can you blame him? That article is over a year old. The copyright date on
chatterous.com is 2008. I don't understand how that kind of oversight could
last for a year on an actively developed product.

~~~
mattmaroon
Possibly because it is completely and totally irrelevant. You'd think half the
startups on the web were closed if you went by copyright dates. It's one of
those things you put there, then forget you ever put it there, and neither you
nor anyone else ever even notices it.

And it doesn't matter. Farm Town said for months (and still probably does to
this day) "Notify me when myr crops are ready." They misspelled a two letter
word. Didn't stop them from getting 30m users. I'm guessing Chatterous's out
of date copyright won't hold them back either.

~~~
chris100
By the way, technically if the text of your home page has not changed since
you wrote it in 2008, it would be illegal for you to claim a copyright year of
2009.

Why? Because the date serves a purpose: so that people can know when your
copyright expires and your content falls into the public domain. If you move
up the date incorrectly, you are cheating the rest of the world.

As you can imagine, we are not that eager to copy your home page for free 75
years from now, but the law doesn't care.

~~~
forensic
I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.

"Copyright notice was required under the 1976 Copyright Act. _This requirement
was eliminated_ when the United States adhered to the Berne Convention,
effective March 1, 1989." (First Hit on Google, 2009, p.1)

~~~
dpifke
The copyright notice is unnecessary, but the grandparent is absolutely correct
on how it works. The year is date of first publication. See
<http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ03.pdf>.

------
FreeRadical
I think there's too much arguement over active and inactive in this thread
when the real discussion should be around the rates of return versus
traditional angel investors.

------
callmeed
13 acquisitions out of 145 companies. Almost l0%. Seems decent considering
that 145 number includes some that are < 1 year old.

------
Kliment
I like the idea of doing an analysis like this, however deficient the data. It
makes people think about it.

That said, why not have a status line next to each startup in the list on the
YC page, that fetches updates from the startup website? Limit it to n
characters and show the text and update time. This will also provide an
automatic measure of when they last showed signs of life.

------
wensing
Now just imagine if we had a post-mortem on every one that said 'closed'.

------
eru
What are the reasons that the `official' information is kind of closed?

~~~
wensing
OT, but why did you use a backtick for your 'quotes'? Is that an OS or
keyboard thing, or a personal preference, or what? I've never been able to
determine the rhyme or reason on that.

~~~
kd5bjo
In TeX, backticks are used for open quotes, and straight ones are used for
close quotes. That's where I picked up the habit originally.

~~~
eru
Yes, I am TeX-damaged. A friend of mine even tends to use \"u for an umlaut.

------
tdavis
I'm amazed at how good TicketStumbler is at keeping off all YC-related lists!
You can add another "Active/Accidental Stealth" to S08 if you like ;)

~~~
ig1
d'oh. Don't know how I missed that one, added it now.

------
manish
I did not understand how 2.6x of 15K will be 650K, can someone please explain

~~~
Tuna-Fish
2.6 * 15K = 39K, however, as yc only takes a 6% stake, The total value of the
companies have to be 39K/0.06 = 650K for yc to make the line.

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pxlpshr
In my mind -- who gives a damn. Either ycom is for you or it isn't.

You know what's important about it? Ycom gives young people with ideas but no
track record an opportunity to prove themselves. Outside of SV, it's very
difficult for most young entrep. working in technology to find
people/ecosphere, much less investors, who can relate...

If you think ycom's "rate of failure" is a jeopardy to your idea... you're
likely drinking wayyyyy to much of your own kool-aid. You're not an
entrepreneur if you're focused on failure.

~~~
pxlpshr
quite shocked this was down-voted to the ground. i wish people would express
themselves outside of pressing a button. maybe it was just me but i thought
the tone of the blog post was negative, or perhaps it was just because he
opened by stating ycom lacked transparency and it came off accusatory.

furthermore, i understand the importance of performance metrics but I always
felt like ycom's purpose was more altruistic than just being about the return.
(i'm a realist, i understand bills need to be paid and money to reinvest, but
yeah...)

~~~
ig1
Partly I was playing devil's advocate, I think YC do a great job overall
(although I do think a little more transparency on failures would be good for
everyone), but it is a criticism I've heard repeatedly.

As I do point out in my conclusion YC do look like they do much better than
angel investors and provide real "extra value".

------
pchristensen
Looks like you have to add an acquisition: AppJet/Etherpad -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=977015>

------
uuilly
I had forgotten all about "Web Shaka" (YouOs). Far and away the most classic
name for a company. I hope they are doing well wherever they went.

~~~
thomaspaine
One of the co-founders went on to co-found thesixtyone (YC W09)

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breck
What's really cool is that 18% of YC founders are now millionaires.

~~~
jack7890
Is this true? Evidence?

~~~
zackattack
It's not true. He's just not very smart. He thinks that receiving funding
makes you a millionaire.

~~~
breck
Actually, I don't think that, I was just being a wise ass (so your comment is
deserved :) ).

