

How not to get accepted to YC or Techstars - strebel
http://saint-rebel.com/2011/05/11/how-not-to-get-accepted-to-ycom-or-techstars/

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qq66
Linkbait and strawman. "Why didn’t we apply to what seems like a necessary
program to launch a startup these days?" Even PG would not claim that YC is "a
necessary program to launch a startup."

~~~
pg
It is indeed pretty clever to claim that doing something the majority of
startups do is a bold move and worthy of attention on that account. (I _wish_
the majority of new startups applied to YC, but that is almost certainly not
the case.)

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allanscu
I think this statement is very powerful by itself for YC, TS and all other
accelerators:

"From all apparent sources they have seemed be similarly aligned with founders
after the same things, successful companies. If this trend continues of more
accelerators, and more startups applying to them, and the primary benefit
becomes out of reach of non participating companies, then it would likely have
the opposite effect."

and this...

"It appears though that it is becoming more and more necessary to participate
in these programs and pay the price of admission to gain entrance to the club.
"

So will accelerators become the next Subway Sandwich franchise?

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armored
I'd like to hear more about how you rolled your nice little snowball. Did you
have any VC? You didn't have YC, but you did get support from Gangplank
(gangplankhq.com) right?

~~~
strebel
Entirely bootstraped. We had some personal savings that allowed us to run real
lean and build up revenue slowly without trying to out run burn. We hit a
tipping point about 8 months in where the momentum started to carry us.

We are an orignial anchor of Gangplank, but never utilized any funding but am
thankful for the community support. Gangplank is a great collaborative
workspace, in the early days though there was not the formal mentoring or
incubation to speak of that has become available over the last few months.

