
Ask HN: How are meh founders becoming partners at yCombinator / 500 startups? - ActsJuvenile
I have seen this happen twice now:<p>Someone launches a no-one-knows-about-it start-up company, and raises angel &#x2F; series A funding.  The company gets acquired for $5m.<p>Next thing I see is that the founder is now a partner at an incubator and working as a tech investor.  I have seen this at both yCombinator and 500-startups.  Case in point: Harj Taggar.<p>How is this possible?  After the acquisition the founder would have barely netted $2m.  Is the bar for entry to partnership at a prestigious place like YC so low?
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onion2k
Building a business that exits for $5m makes you an exceptional founder,
especially a decade ago. That was only a few years after the dot.com crash.
And Harj did it in about a year and a half, so you can't really compare his
business to the decade or more of growth of businesses like Facebook or Uber.

Any exit is quite rare; one that returns a decent multiple to the investors is
much more rare. Don't put down the hard work and exceptional capability of a
founder who achieves success.

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ActsJuvenile
I am trying to calibrate my internal scales to Silicon Valley price tags, not
trying to put anyone down.

For reference, a popular deli and catering service in my hometown makes a
profit of ~$1m a year. A good McDonalds location nets more than $2m a year. A
dad and sons medical practice nets over $5m.

Required investment to become a partner at YC seems quite low to me compared
to these traditional businesses. I was under the impression that YC would need
something like $30m-$100m investment to become a partner.

