

Ask HN: Did YC accept anyone without an idea this round? - cedricd


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balsam
I wager that PG won't even reply to this one, unless to prove me wrong. It
seems like one of those things that might not scale.

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spoiledtechie
You hit the nail on that head. Perfect.

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barredo
Anyone knows how the the team without an idea is doing?

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sbuccini
I recently spoke with someone who was accepted to the S12 batch without an
idea. He's currently pivoted from what he was working on during that session,
but is about to launch a new product. Sorry to be vague on the details, but I
feel that if he wanted people to know what he was up to, then he would post
here himself.

~~~
barredo
Thanks a lot! I'm super interested in the outcome of these teams

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pg
One group, I think.

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rdl
It would also be interesting if they publish team size distribution vs.
previous years, since many of the S12 problems seemed to have been team
related. Would this mean more single-founder teams, or more teams with a
founder with controlling interest, or more teams with brothers (like Stripe),
...?

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3327
that would be interesting. My app got rejected was with my brother + best
friend. very skilled engineer and designer willing to leave their jobs at a
certain top tier search firm!

~~~
rdl
I wonder what the psychology is for founding teams.

Clearly, at one point on the spectrum, it's people who meet a second before
the application purely for the purpose of working on the application to fake
their way into YC.

At the other end on the spectrum, people who have known each other for all
their lives (say, twin brothers).

The former might on paper have great credentials (if I were going to pick a
"fake" cofounder, I'd pick someone who has already built something similar,
has a lot of accomplishments, etc., all things being equal. And, to a small
extent, being able to convince someone like that to join your team kind of
means something.

The latter would potentially join your startup even if he didn't believe in
the idea, or have any real competence, etc., just out of familial obligation.
But maybe siblings had a lot of similar experiences and both got interested in
and involved with a certain tech early on.

It's even more complex with spouses. Say I'm a great musician, and I spend all
my time with musicians, and really respect musicians and music. It's entirely
likely my choice of spouse would be another incredibly talented musician. But,
it's also likely that if people are married for other reasons, one might want
to do a startup and then pull along a less-qualified spouse.

I think the sweet spot is somewhere beyond "met for just this project", at
least if it hasn't been going for a long time, but "met for professional
reasons", not purely social or familial ones. But it's probably a pretty flat
region after that, where individual variations matter a lot more.

~~~
argumentum
I think the psychology of co-founding a startup is so drastically different
than any other social interaction that it's hard to predict what will happen
if the team hasn't worked for a while together.

We were 3 good friends "without an idea" in the summer batch. One I'd known my
entire life (literally we met as babies). The other I knew for 6 months, but
was a friend of the former for over 7 years.

Very good credentials amongst us, and we had fun together just talking about
ideas, playing tennis, golf etc. But ultimately when it came down to being "in
the trenches" there were aspects of each other's personalities, decision-
making style, work ethic, commitment etc that led to us being one of the teams
that acrimoniously split up.

None of us likes any of us anymore, sadly.

