
Reverse YC funding program. PG, what's your thought?    - rokhayakebe
20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-launched-yet mobile startup and I will create the reverse yc program. Instead of funding techies, I will fund marketing and sales geniuses with unique ideas. We will provide them with the technical help they need to turn their vision into a product then they can make millions out of it. Meanwhile if someone has a few thousands in the bank you would run a trial program and get some proposal from non technical founders. For now I am still broke and in debt.   
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menloparkbum
> I will fund marketing and sales geniuses

> We will provide them with the technical help

This is quite common already. Remember all those companies everyone made fun
of in the 1990s, like Pets.com? That is how they came about.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Correct me if I am wrong. But I believe in those situations they would fund
your idea and let you hire techies. Now how can you hire a dev when you do not
know what ajax is? So the program would will provide the best teams and ideas
with technical support. People who know the differnce between php and ruby and
scaling and browser based etc....

~~~
menloparkbum
Typically people with a software idea aren't completely ignorant of technology
and they usually know at least one person who knows the difference between php
and ruby. Are you proposing that you will create programming teams for
completely clueless "business people?" Hasn't the continent of India already
positioned itself pretty well in that space?

~~~
rokhayakebe
Dude have you ever try hiring a developer? It can be really hard for someone
who has never done it. 40 percent of the time they get played and let with
half a website. I work for an Indian firm and everyday we get people who
complain about how some other dev messed up their project and they must launch
soon.

~~~
menloparkbum
Yes, I am responsible for hiring people at my startup. It is really hard for
me to hire people, and I know what I'm doing. With that in mind, what you are
suggesting is impossible.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Partner. "Difficult takes a day, Impossible takes a week." This is how
revolutions are started

~~~
nostrademons
The problem with startup hiring isn't that you need to think harder about it,
it's that it's an inherently low-information situation. The factors that make
a good employee often depend as much on what the startup is doing and how that
squares with the employee's goals rather than any innate personnel factors.

For example, I'm leaving my day job. My reasons for this are complex and I'm
not going to air all of them in a public forum, but they boil down to "It's
not a good fit for me anymore." Thing is, there was no possible way we could
know that when I was hired, because I _was_ a good fit back then. My job
description now is totally different than it was back then - in fact, when I
was working with a coworker to come up with a job advertisement for my
position, I realized that I would not have applied for my position as it
currently exists. I've also grown as a developer - when I took this job, I
thought Java was a decent-if-not-great language, I thought dynamic languages
were unsuitable for real work, I had only passing familiarity with Haskell, I
didn't _really_ know JavaScript (though I listed it on my resume), and I
basically didn't know what I wanted out of my career. I even mentioned during
my interview that "Yeah, I don't know if this is something I _really_ want to
do, but I _can't_ know that until I give it a try - after all, when I took my
last programming job, I didn't know if programming was something I wanted to
do, and that worked out great." Come to think of it, I _still_ don't know what
I want out of my career, I just think that this particular startup I'm working
on is more likely to be it than my current job.

In my experience, the best indicator of job success isn't raw programming
talent, it's how much the programmer _believes_ in the product. That's why
cofounders usually need to be friends before they can work together.
Oftentimes, you'll have to take a leap of faith that you're on the right
track, and you need to trust your cofounder to do that. I don't see how you
can test for that with a third-party service. You can take the absolute best
programmer in the world, stick him in a project he thinks is boring, and he'll
suck at it.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Good point. The issue is easily solved by making developera part of the
program by choosing whcig projcts they would like to work on the most and why

------
pg
The problem is, sales and marketing people generally don't have good ideas for
startups. Because they're not masters of the medium, they don't know what's
possible.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Call me _crazy_ but it feels good to have PG comment. To get back to your
comment, I respectfully disagree. that is like putting a limit to the power of
thought. Think about manufacturing. How many clothing line make millions of
dollars and are highly successful, but the founder can't even use a sewing
machine. Same for moms who make millions because they thought of a crazy fork-
knife combined and hired a manufacturer to make a prototype. Or how many
people own a Italian restaurant and are American and never been to Italy and
don't know how to cook. It all start with _what if_ if I can say that, then I
just need to get up and go find someone to make it. Excuse the typo, suretype
is still at its primitive stage.

~~~
blader
Unless you're a celebrity, how many people have clothing lines can't design
clothes? How many people own restaurants and don't know how to cook?

How many people think designing software is as easy as designing a spork?

~~~
rokhayakebe
Thinking of a unique clothing line isn't that different from thinking of a
unique web app. If you doubt then I suggest you grap a grab a pair of loafers
from cole haan and compare it to one from banana republic. Look at the threads
inside. Look at the cut and drive with it. If you think it is the same then
you are as my friend who cannot understand the differnce between hotmail and
gmail. Designing a jcrew sweater for complicated people like me is as hard as
designing a web app. You are looking at major clothing lines, but maybe you
should digg underground and find brands that are less known. The restaurant
argument is harder to prove. So you got that one. And even if designing a
sweater was easier than building a web app, I can argue that you can
distributing your service is 25 times easier than distributing your sweater.

~~~
blader
Yes, exactly.

You're kind of proving my point here. Designing clothing is hard. Designing
web apps are hard. You need to be good at each to be successful at each. You
won't be good at either if all you have is a "business/marketing genius" with
an idea.

------
bz
If you think engineers can get carried away on tangents, I don't think you
will find much better out of marketing and sales geniuses (whatever this
means). Maybe it's better to save your money and invest in people that are
more grounded instead of those who sling the most buzzwords around.

It's hard to build a nanotechnology social networking viral space play without
engineers.

------
noelchurchill
This is the situation that I'm in. I work in the mortgage industry and I've
identified a problem and solution that I never would have seen otherwise. I
have a solid tech understanding but my skills are not currently good enough to
produce the quality of web app I want.

I don't want to wait too long and I don't know how long my window of
opportunity will be open so I've hired a coder to begin development. However,
if I could have been paired with a coder and a little funding I'm sure things
could have been easier and I might have been able to be to market right about
now.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Thank you

------
blader
This is a great idea, because sales and marketing geniuses are really really
useful when you have don't have a product and don't know how to build one.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Yep and to those who dont believe than you must believe the following "Build
it and they will come". I dont.

~~~
blader
Or maybe you'd have to believe something like "they won't come if you don't
build it."

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brianmckenzie
I apologize if someone has already mentioned this, but it seems to me that
what you're proposing is to provide seed funding for marketing companies. By
marketing companies, I mean companies that place product quality second to the
marketing apparatus.

I have worked for several such companies, and at one time I was Information
Coordinator for the American Marketing Association, so I've been exposed to a
lot of marketing 'genius'. One thing I noticed time and time again in all
these places is the prevalence of 'internal marketing'. When stripped of
trendy buzzwords and platitudes about 'empowerment', internal marketing is a
De facto ideology which stipulates that marketing is the primary driving force
in every organization. It places product quality, customer value, and strategy
in a distant secondary position.

The problem with marketing companies is that their myopic focus produces
reactionary organizations - more ad hoc institutions than enterprises.
'Marketing companies' are sometimes profitable, but rarely maintain a
commanding market position for long if they get there in the first place.

Contrast these with the real product companies of our time: Apple, Google,
Craigslist, Facebook, Toyota. The real profit and _value_ are being created by
companies who focus on actual products. Some of these companies have little
marketing apparatus at all, at least in the sense you're talking about.

This reminds me of a silly aphorism: You rob a bank because that's where the
money is. Providing seed funding to 'marketing geniuses' is like robbing
twenty hot dog stands and hoping that one of them forgot to deposit their
earnings that week. It's only a good plan if you can't figure out how to rob
the bank.

------
epi0Bauqu
I like your confidence, but I don't quite get it yet. Are you talking about
the same type of ideas that would be submitted to YC now, but just by people
who don't have the skills (at least currently) to implement them?

~~~
rokhayakebe
Yes. I am speaking from personal experience. It took me forever to find a
technical cofounder. If I had technical support in the beginning from experts
maybe I could have sold and market it.there are lots of people who know what
they want and how to build a company, but they just can't make it.

------
Caligula
Fallacy: If they are sales geniuses/marketing geniuses, they won't need you to
get the 15k. They don't need a YC. They have the loot and the connections
already.

The good thing about technical entrepreneurs is that they know if their
projects in mind are realistic. They can also actually go out and build it
exactly how they envision it rather than relying on someone who works
according to their own schedule with their vision on how it should be. This
basically leads to things being developed slower where speed is the #1 thing a
startup has going for it.

p.s: what exactly is a sales/marketing genius?

~~~
rokhayakebe
i ll answer that when you answer what exactly is "talented
developer/programmer". We can both write books on the subject.

~~~
Caligula
The only riff raff you get will be unsuccessful sales/marketing people. Your
basically going to be paying for an idea. I am inexperienced but from what I
have read, ideas are not worth a whole lot...

I would hope that the answer to your question is farely obvious......

~~~
rokhayakebe
Dude. If we move our thinking process from _this is not going to work_ to _how
are we going to make it work_ then a solution will emerge. I mean common, we
are at ycnews where people challenge the Impossible.

------
palish
This reminds me of "I'm going to make an MMORPG, anyone wanna help?"

------
webwright
"20 months from now I will be financially set from the sale of my not-
launched-yet mobile startup"

That's my favorite part.

~~~
rokhayakebe
That part was supposed to be fun. As I said before noone knows what the
outcome is.

------
paul
You haven't launched your startup yet, but in 20 months you will be
financially set from its sale?

~~~
rokhayakebe
That is called being optimistic I believe. It might never make it through the
first 25 users. Maybe it will suck to death. Money from s startup or from the
lottery, it is totally arbitrary. All I am trying to say is that such a
program should exist.

~~~
palish
<http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html>

Number seven

------
ryantmulligan
So your company will be generating 94% of the value instead of 6%?

~~~
rokhayakebe
Not at all. If I make your prototype and help you launch it. If it is a good
product then eventually you will be able to add technical cofounders and they
can come in and help even more. It also shows that you are good at something
other than thinking and you are already trying to make your vision a reality.
That alone, my friend, is worth millions. Doubt it let's go to a vc and you
got an idea and I got the prototype.

------
kyro
This would be something I would be incredibly interested in.

~~~
rokhayakebe
I got your back. Give me 20 months unless someone do it right now.

------
Goladus
How would you provide the technical help?

~~~
rokhayakebe
Hire developers for 2 months and work on the apps. Invest 15,000 for
development like PG maybe. I mean guy launched truemors for 12K

~~~
Goladus
I don't think that would work too well. You'd need to find a few exceptionally
talented hackers that would be interested in helping a variety of founders
implement their ideas technically for a significant stake (eg 6%) in the
company. I'm not sure there's anyone who can code that much.

Realize also that Y Combinator doesn't discriminate against non-technical
people, except that the applying company has to have at least one technical
founder.

~~~
rokhayakebe
So you are telling me that if you find someone who gave away 5 % of his stock
to get an alpha product out, asuming you like the idea, you still would not
consider being a cofounder to his startup ? The way startups are made today is
almost the same 1.have a unique idea 2\. Work hard at building the alpha and
demo it 3\. Get funded and grow it. Etc....

All I want is to have step 1.5 get someone who understand your vision to help
you build the alpha.

~~~
Goladus
I'm saying that Y Combinator is a very small number of people providing
startup and venture capital mentoring to a correspondingly large number of
bright young people (not all of whom are technical). I'm saying that if you
tried to take a similarly small number of technical experts to support a
similarly large number of fledgling companies, it probably wouldn't work.

I'm not saying you have a bad idea, but it's an important question and "hiring
programmers" isn't really a good answer. If I was a good hacker, and I could
take 6% from 30 little companies and do all their coding in 3 months, that
might be fun and profitable. I think the chances of you finding someone that
capable and willing to take the risk are slim, is all.

------
ashu
this is a huge troll and everybody is just feeding it.

edit: including me, duh!

------
rokhayakebe
I am just glad the reddit guys didn't think it was impossible to change the
way we get/submit news or any web relevant content. By saying _it can't be
done_ what you are really saying is _I am not up to the challenge_ . Now I am
not saying this is easy task.

------
eusman
then you will fail

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rokhayakebe
going around down voting isn't making a point is it? Its like the bully
hitting the weak kid because he cannot respond intelligibly to his questions.
Please speak your mind. If you cannot convince me without down voting, maybe
you need to read a few blogs about how to get IT out of the brains. It is a
very short distance, but for some it is a long way so they just go with the
next best thing. In this vas that is down voting. Because you cannot hit me
physically you are trying to get points away. I believe that is showing your
level of maturity and if you are truly honest to yourself I am challenging you
to put your startup name here and I will put mine. We should all agree to
disagree. If you do not like my comment then do not read them. Excuse my
freedom of speech.

~~~
blader
Is it okay if I respond to you, and down vote at the same time?

~~~
rokhayakebe
It doesn't make sense to go through all my comments ever made and down vote
them. If you do so all that's gonna happen is some friends are gonna go and do
the same to you and vote up my comments again. At the end no1 is going to
benefit. Now please tell us your startup since you are so sincere about down
voting me and I will tell mine. You are acting like a groupy

