
Question for YC Applicants: What's the lowest offer you'd take after *zero* months? - dfranke

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dfranke
The discussion in the "What's the lowest offer you'd take" thread gave me an
interesting idea for a related question:

Suppose you've just been accepted to the SFP. In addition, you have someone
else offering each founder $N to turn down YC and abandon the startup. You're
allowed to go straight on to starting some other startup, but you're not
allowed to work on any related idea or work with any of your current
cofounders. What's the lowest value of N you'd take?

I have three things going for me and my startup right now: a good idea, a
great cofounder, and a uniquely low opportunity cost because I'll be
graduating from college right before I start. Together, I value those things
at about $250k. Having YC's offer in hand would increase that but only by
maybe $100k, because I reason that if I can get accepted once, then I can
probably get accepted a second time given a similarly good idea and cofounder.

~~~
danw
What a strange question, perhaps I've missed the point.

"If you were accepted to the SFP how much money would it take for you to turn
it down?"

For me SFP isnt about money, its about the experience. I want to build
something great and be a part of a community of people who enjoy doing this.
After seeing the YC dinner on Justin.tv and talking to people I've met on
news.yc I'm more certain than ever that this is what I want to do. If I was
offered a place in the SFP, no amount of money would stop me.

~~~
dfranke
Yes, you've missed the point.

I'm not asking how much you'd have to be paid to throw away that experience
forever. My answer to that question would be a lot more than $350k. I'm just
asking how much you'd have to be paid to throw away your current progress and
roll the dice again. If you're confident in your abilities, then that
shouldn't be all that frightening.

Also, if you're in it mostly for the warm fuzzies, then YC is not the only
game in town. You could find a similar experience by going to a top grad
school, or mentoring at Mathcamp (<http://www.mathcamp.org),> or interning at
Google. I'd rather do the SFP than any of those things, but not by such an
enormous margin that I can't put a dollar value on it.

