
It's harder to get into YC if you’ve been through another accelerator - wasd
http://blog.ycombinator.com/getting-into-y-combinator
======
trevmckendrick
This still confuses me.

The expectation that a company should be "accelerated" reflects more on the
accelerator than the company.

(A cynical person would say that this philosophy is merely to incentivize
companies to apply to only YC. I don't think that's the case and take Sam at
his word.)

But if the company is indeed the independent variable, then e.g. AirBnb and
Dropbox succeeded because they were great companies, not because they went
through YC.

How do you claim on one hand that YC can materially improve your company, and
on the other judge the _company_ for not being improved after going through
another accelerator?

~~~
danieltillett
My guess is the companies that have been through other accelerators have
improved polish that makes it harder for YC to pick the truely better
companies.

The more cynical view would be founders going through multiple accelerators
are more focused on appearance and "playing the startup game" than actually
building a real business.

~~~
mej10
I don't think that is cynical. :)

Cargo culting seems very prevalent in the current startup culture --
especially in those that are "playing startup".

These founders see all of these external things that startups do and assume
they must be necessary for success -- or that they will at least will help
cover up any problems they have.

Unfortunately this is just like carving wood into the shape of a radio and
expecting it to work. It might look the same but it has none of the things
that make it a radio. You can even attach a real antenna to it, but it is
still just a block of wood.

~~~
danieltillett
Maybe you are just more cynical than me :)

Actually I think cargo cult thinking is more of a problem at the
accelerator/angel/VC level than at the startup level. We have all these
funders copying the YC model and relatively few trying to do things
differently. We need much more diversity in funding and acceleration models.
All roads might lead to rome, but we don’t all need to travel there on the
same bus.

------
baldajan
I do love YC and what they've done to the startup world, but at the risk of
sounding like a YC hater, the initial part of the post seems like bad advice
(boiled down to: if you want to be in YC don't join another accelerator before
hand). The second portion in which to evaluate an accelerator is great advice.

But some startup founders may want to get into YC, as it is the best. Yet,
they may hesitate to join a strong accelerator that can give them a few more
months of runway and advice they desperately need, because of this post.
Startup founders may take years to figure out the right direction for the co.,
as the market size or solution may not be obvious at first. And I feel as
though this post, and YCs thinking discourages that and discourages
competition.

But from what I've seen externally, some startups that go through (a bad)
accelerator, don't accelerate, can come out multi-million dollar cos. Based
solely on founders persistence on solving the problem.

~~~
sama
We're all for companies doing what they need to do to survive.

However, we've seen an increasing number of accelerators getting startups to
join them by saying "we can help you get into YC", and then subsequently
hurting the company with bad advice or onerous terms.

Companies should never do an accelerator to help them get into YC. Companies
should do an accelerator if they need the money to survive or think that they
resources of the accelerator will help them be more successful.

~~~
baldajan
I 100% agree with that message, but I didn't feel your post conveyed that. My
impressions of the post was a broad painting that all other accelerators are
bad, even though I know that's not your intent.

I think a lesser emphasis on getting into YC and making the post more of "how
to judge an accelerator" would have been better.

~~~
sama
Fair point; I updated the post.

------
staunch
YC only helps ~3% of the startups that request help and now they're
discouraging people from seeking help elsewhere.

There's gotta be a better way of handling this.

~~~
paul
I agree. This is part of the reason that we are making more of our advice
freely available online (e.g.
[http://startupclass.samaltman.com/](http://startupclass.samaltman.com/) and
[http://playbook.samaltman.com/](http://playbook.samaltman.com/)).

The problem with a bad accelerator is that they can actually harm your company
with bad advice and unnecessary distractions.

~~~
danieltillett
Paul when you are building a startup are there any necessary distractions (HN
excluded).

You really should name and shame the bad accelerators. I know no one likes to
be negative, but if there are accelerators out there messing up companies and
leading founders astray then it would be best to make this information public.
You will take some heat for doing this, but you guys should be able to handle
it.

~~~
paul
There are hundreds of accelerators with more appearing all of the time (plus
significant management turnover in many of the programs). Evaluating them all
would be a full-time job for several people. I'd rather put that effort into
finding more ways to help more startups.

~~~
danieltillett
I would hope the fact that a problem is hard is not a reason to not do it :)

More seriously, it depends on how serious the bad accelerator problem is and
you guys are one of the few that have the data on this. If it is a minor
problem then I agree there are better ways to help, but if it is a major
problem then it needs to be addressed.

~~~
tptacek
Wouldn't it be super weird for the leading accelerator to start formally
rating its competitors? There's a difference between having good data and
being in a position to help people by publishing it.

~~~
jholman
Wouldn't it be super weird for the leading experts in <professional field> to
start formally rating their competitors, i.e. other more-junior professionals
in that field?

Y'know, the way it's done by all professions worthy of the name?

No, it would not be weird at all, and more importantly, it'd be good for
consumers of that industry.

~~~
tptacek
What's an example of a profession where the leading firm publishes ratings of
all its competitors?

~~~
jholman
I cannot think of an example exactly like that. But in many professions,
senior members are the ones who certify junior members. Law, medicine, all the
reputable parts of finance.

I mean, to make my actual argument, instead of just alluding to it, it seems
to me that:

1) it's good for consumers of an industry to have ratings of the providers in
that industry

2) I can think of three sources for such ratings: crowd-sourced ex-customer
ratings, ratings by a purported expert-at-rating, ratings by peers. I think
these each have their merits.

3) If ratings-by-peers is indeed useful, then in a given industry, it has to
start somewhere.

------
colinsidoti
This is interesting.

I wonder what you feel companies should do in the event of a strong pivot:
reincorporate or retain their cap table?

Based solely on this post, it seems beneficial to reincorporate in order to
retain an undiluted cap table.

However, that seems contradictory to YC's thesis of investing in teams instead
of ideas. If a team's first idea isn't successful, I imagine YC would want to
retain its stake in whatever their new venture is.

Also - is there any chance you've previously used pre-accelerators as a
positive indication? "Letting up" on your standard assessment of a team simply
because they had gone through a pre-accelerator could also explain this trend.

~~~
sama
My thinking has changed on this. I think investors shouldn't get a free option
on every idea a founder ever has; after a few pivots and rounds I think a
clean start is often a good idea.

~~~
tomasien
There's a lotta grumbles about Sam and YC taking this stance at VCs these
days. FWIW I think it's about right but SO hard to judge.

------
paul
A simple way of thinking about this is that acceleration only helps if you are
pointed in the right direction!

One of the common problems with many accelerator programs is that they are run
by people who are not themselves experienced founders. Not surprisingly, their
advice is often counterproductive.

~~~
tptacek
For example...?

(I 100% believe you)

~~~
paul
Most common is just wasting their time with low-ROI things such as meeting
with a large number of low-value mentors. We try to keep startups focused on
talking to customers and building product.

A crazy one I remember was telling a pre-product startup that they needed to
focus on defining their brand.

------
tomasien
FWIW if anyone is evaluating doing a Techstars program, I'm more than happy to
talk about my experience or help you find someone from the program you're
considering - just reach out!

tommy at alloy dot co

~~~
santiagobasulto
Good guy here ^

Maybe you could write about it?

~~~
tomasien
Plan on it! There are definitely some nuances to TS specifically that it is
very appropriate to discuss on an individualized basis. I've had friends go
through all the major and a few minor accelerators now, so I think I have a
pretty good view on it and am always happy to discuss. It's a huge decision!

TL;DR on TS for us it was a homerun, I don't believe it is for everybody. I
believe there are times it a particular TS program is a better situation for a
company than YC, but that there are MORE situations where it is better to do
YC if you can. That's my 2 cents.

------
taytus
Hummm.... we have customers, we have revenue, we are working with some amazing
brands (7-Eleven, pizza hut, Chili's) we have access to more than 500k
candidates, we applied to YC and we didn't made even the interview...

I'm starting to think that it was because we did participate in other
accelerator before, and that doesn't make much sense to me.

~~~
benatkin
Those brands are big, and had a very strong upward trajectory at one time, but
are they amazing? They remind me of _sugar water_. Especially 7/11\.
[https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2813-do-you-want-to-sell-
suga...](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2813-do-you-want-to-sell-sugar-water-
for)

------
AVTizzle
Heh, I feel like this is a _direct_ shot at 500:

(Fairly so. They seem to offer a blurry line on what they consider "portfolio"
sometimes, not going out of their way to differentiate accelerator vs later
stage investments)

>>(it’s important to distinguish between companies that went through the
accelerator and cases where the investment firm made a small late-stage
investment in the company)

~~~
_sentient
Also a shot at Techstars, who have been known to lump in late-stage fund
investments with their accelerator returns. Writing a tiny check into Uber's
B-round has nothing to do with their accelerator program, for example, and
it's disingenuous when they conflate the two.

I should mention that they have been doing a better job distinguishing this
lately.

~~~
jedc
Actually, David Cohen wrote a check in Uber's angel round -
[http://davidgcohen.com/2014/07/14/the-ponys-lucky-
horseshoe/](http://davidgcohen.com/2014/07/14/the-ponys-lucky-horseshoe/)

And the list of Techstars companies shows _only_ the stats of companies that
went through a Techstars accelerator -
[http://www.techstars.com/companies/](http://www.techstars.com/companies/)
Non-accelerator company investments (Uber, Twilio, etc) only appear on the
Techstars fund page - [http://www.techstars.com/venture-capital-
fund/](http://www.techstars.com/venture-capital-fund/)

Disclosure - I work for Techstars

~~~
_sentient
Ah, thanks for clarifying what round that was, and kudos to David! Like I
said, you guys have been doing a better job distinguishing between your
accelerator and venture portfolio, although that hasn't always been the case.

In a similar vein, what are your thoughts on Techstars calling themselves "the
#1 startup accelerator in the world" and claiming "the best results" for their
program? Given that YC's performance is roughly ~12X yours, this does seem to
be somewhat of a misstatement. That is, unless you're claiming to be #1 for
some arbitrary metric that isn't actually the benchmark for your industry
(which to be clear, is the market cap of the companies you fund).

I think Techstars is clearly a great program, but stuff like that just strikes
me as disingenuous. :)

~~~
jedc
I personally (speaking for myself) never cared for "the #1 startup
accelerator" wording, and now that Techstars has built a small marketing team
you'll have noticed that we talk about Techstars a lot differently -
[http://www.techstars.com/](http://www.techstars.com/) :)

BTW, the #1 thing came from the first ranking of accelerators back in 2011 -
[http://tech.co/top-15-us-startup-accelerators-
ranked-2011-05](http://tech.co/top-15-us-startup-accelerators-ranked-2011-05)
(I believe they used a mixture of financial results and founder ratings, but
I'm not sure.)

Yep, YC companies have raised a lot more money and have a higher total
valuation, but YC also has a two-year head start! Based on any reasonable
metric, Techstars has better results than any other accelerator -
[http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators](http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators)

PS - my favorite story about how Techstars directly helped to change the
course of one company is here - [http://www.wired.com/2015/12/how-
bb-8a-rolling-robot-in-a-ga...](http://www.wired.com/2015/12/how-
bb-8a-rolling-robot-in-a-galaxy-far-far-awaychanged-everything-for-sphero/)

------
rachellaw
It seems to unfairly penalize startups who've pivoted since after the
accelerator.

We've been to one. It was early stage, and within our geography. When we spoke
to YC/500startups in 2013, it was all about having traction or earning revenue
and breaking even. We didn't have that. We were academia dropouts with some
patents and an idea.

Going through the 1st accelerator helped us because we didn't even know how to
put together a pitch deck. We've since pivoted because ideas change, become
more focused and polished. Our idea, business model and pitch is completely
different.

YC would not have accepted us in 2013, someone else did. Now if we want to
apply to YC post-pivot, we get penalized? That seems incredibly unfair.

~~~
nostrademons
Why not shutter the pre-pivot startup and apply as a fresh startup to YC? If
the idea, business model, and pitch are completely different, is it actually
the same company?

~~~
rachellaw
We've already taken investment pre-pivot from angels, screwing investors over
to be a 'fresh startup' seems to be a type of fraud.

It's different pitch, but a natural and logical progression. Most of the time
ideas need refining, especially with user feedback. It doesn't make sense to
start with a new company since the technology that powers is still the same.

~~~
ScottBurson
Sam's relevant comment upthread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10941276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10941276)

So I guess it can be a judgment call. In your case it sounds like you're doing
the right thing, though.

~~~
rachellaw
one of the things that really struck me when fundraising:

"...that 25k he just gave you, could've gone to his kids' college fund or
investing in blue chip stocks instead. It's amazing that you can raise money
at all."

Angels give less money than VCs, some angels give low amounts (15-25k)
especially in an early seed round. They're doing it for _you_. Screwing them
over for more equity or YC makes you a shitty irresponsible human being and
imho, should be considered a type of fraud.

Honestly I'm surprised at Sam's stance. Unless it's really justifiable, this
seems like bad advice.

~~~
biot
On the flip side, an investor puts money into funding an idea which they
(ought to) know has a 90% chance of not working out. I don't see anything
morally or ethically wrong with saying "I/we gave it our best, but the idea
didn't pan out" and returning any leftover funds, if any, before completely
flushing that idea (discarding all assets associated with it), putting your
thinking cap on, and looking for the next opportunity. I generally don't see a
problem with starting over if you're going from an "Uber for Drones" idea to a
"Custom CNC Furniture" idea, for example.

Of course, that's a completely different scenario from simply evolving the
idea in a different direction but still keeping the core; in that case, I
agree with your point of view. For example, I do see a problem if you're going
from a "Custom CNC Furniture" idea to a "Custom CNC Cycling Parts" idea. It
would be pretty shady to screw over your initial investors in that scenario.
It also might be actionable by the original investors if you reuse any assets
you developed using their funds.

------
santiagobasulto
> we like funding very early-stage companies

Is this still true? Aren't you supposed to show good traction in order to have
a good chance to get into YC?

------
p4wnc6
I wonder if there is any kind of selection effect in this. YC attracts a lot
of attention and helps steer opinions about what are attractive investment
opportunities. If YC (for whatever reason) tends not to like companies that
pass through multiple accelerators, maybe that has a side effect of making
other people also not like them (just because YC doesn't) and eventually to
build up some biases or (potentially unjustified) extra skepticism about them,
and over time it means a more difficult funding landscape once you've attended
multiple accelerators, regardless of the quality of the company.

The post says that YC's reasoning is that _conditioned on knowledge that the
company attended multiple accelerators, YC expects to see more significant
progress._ I think this eliminates any usefulness of doing a randomized
experiment on YC applications, where the property of previous accelerator
attendance is hidden and we just observe whether YC would accept them or not
(meaning, their fundamentals are good enough to be accepted). Instead, YC is
saying that fundamentals that look good enough to be accepted are actually not
good enough if you've been through an accelerator.

On one hand I understand what they are saying, but on the other hand I also
think that however an application comes to be sitting in front of your
eyeballs shouldn't necessarily matter. It seems odd to me that the criteria
for entry would be path dependent and the goalposts could move back or forth
depending not on what the current state of your company is, but on how it
arrived at that current state.

Please note this is not a criticism. I am not a successful start-up
accelerator. Just observations about this seeming counter-intuitive to me.

------
sachinag
I just turned down a program yesterday because of this concern. They were
surprised to hear it, but good to have this post out there to back me up on
it.

~~~
danieltillett
Given that YC has less than a 3% acceptance rate is it wise to turn down a
program because it might affect your chance of getting into YC?

~~~
sokoloff
It depends on how "even" you think that 3% is distributed. If you believe that
90% of teams that apply have a 0.0001% chance, 10% have a 30-ish% chance, and
you have good reason to think you're in the 10% case, probably.

I don't know if that's the exact math, but it's probably a lot closer to that
than to evenly distributed.

~~~
danieltillett
This is true, but unfortunately few founders know what pool they are in.

My guess is it is like VC funding where all the VCs want to fund companies
that don’t need the funds - the companies that don’t need to be in YC are the
ones they want to choose.

------
danieltillett
Sam is there a common theme underlying the poorer track record of companies
that have been through other accelerators (brakes in this case)?

~~~
fraserharris
The obvious explanation is that companies that truly accelerated raised VC,
removing the need for added acceleration.

~~~
danieltillett
I can think of half a dozen plausible reasons for this effect, but only YC has
the data.

------
junto
> A smaller issue is the extra dilution on the cap table

Let's be honest here. This is the primary issue not the "smaller issue"?

Let's call a spade a spade. Or have I missed the joke?

~~~
WhitneyLand
I don't see any reason not to take what was said at face value. There's no
reason to automatically pass on what seems to be a great opportunity just
because you're not first in line. The reason to pass is that the data supports
a lower success rate.

~~~
junto
It just seems backward to me. I understand that YC are in the business of
jump-starting startups with potential. A handful of those startups might
succeed. Their entire business model seems to focus on the returns from that
small handful of successes. If I were them, my primary reason for taking these
companies onboard and helping them to succeed, is purely to see a profit at
the end of the line.

Hence, dilution is very bad. That would be my primary issue.I just don't
understand why it was stated as a minor side point to the whole discussion.
Surely it is absolutely important?

~~~
lmm
The dilution isn't normally that severe. A 900x return at a 7% success rate
would be better than a 1000x return at a 5% success rate.

------
zeeshanm
IMHO, accelerators early on in your startup life are to give you marketing
boost to get customers when nobody gives a shit about you. More than anything.
These days you can get a product ready with little or no money. As for advice,
there is so much written out there if you just spend some time reading,
thinking and doing things you can accelerate your startup growth.

If you are going to go through accelerator, why not go with the one that
carries the most social capital.

------
rdl
I hope the taint attains to the company, not to the founders. (I think that's
how it works).

------
sharemywin
Curious if there are other signals you can talk about? Working on the business
part-time only because of job? having a young family? Age? Most of SV seems to
feel if your over 40 and aren't at least VP of something your mediocre.
ambitiousness of the idea versus being able to show progress? How about paying
a contractor to do some sales versus finding a co-founder? in this case I'm
technical but have a full-time job so don't have the time to talk to
customers.

------
rl3
> _You don’t need to “prepare” to apply to YC in any way._

While you don't need to, I would think the chances of being accepted are
considerably better if you are prepared. Especially if you have factors
working against you that YC doesn't like.

Obviously joining an accelerator prior to YC doesn't count as preparation
(more like making your startup radioactive), but it does seem prudent to have
a solid YC application while being ready to nail the interviews if it gets
that far.

------
sunnypies
what is the purpose of ycombinator in layman's terms? Serious answers please.

~~~
JarvisSong
It's a rare entry point into the world of venture capital, a world that, for
decades, was completely dominated by the old-boy network.

~~~
jonathankoren
"was"?

------
tlrobinson
I'd be curious to see counter examples to this. Is anyone aware of YC
companies that previously went through a different accelerator?

Even more interesting would be companies that were rejected by YC but went
through a different accelerator, either before or after applying to YC.

------
Xyik
Interesting that they have enough data, since I doubt even 1000 companies have
gone through YC and counting the few hundred that have, probably only a small
fraction of them have exited or died.

------
rocky1138
From TFA: "exploding offer"

What's an exploding offer?

~~~
cookiecaper
Exploding offers are an exploitation tactic intended to pressure you to commit
to doing what the offering party wants ASAP, or else what you want will go
away. It's OK for something like a firesale at your favorite retailer, but
definitely not good on a more intimate scale, like a job or investment. If
they actually want you, they'll let you take your time regardless of what
their offer says, and an exploding offer is a big signal that you probably
don't really want to work with them.

------
nthacker
As an unrelated question - what are some of the other well known accelerators,
that are at par (or better) than YC?

------
xcelq
Why is this a bad thing even if it were the case?

------
conanbatt
Looks like YC is sending a signal of dominance to other accelerators.

Classy.

