
Why Not All Great Hackepreneurs Get Picked By YC (he offers a Plan B) - mattculbreth
http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/1350/Why-Not-All-Great-Hackepreneurs-Get-Picked-By-Y-Combinator.aspx
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bootload
The YC email arrives ...

GEEK #1: So read the message. Did we get in?

NERD: _READS EMAIL, looks dejected, tears streaming from eyes. Starts blowing
on sleeve. Honking sound._

_'... We're sorry to say that we can't accept your proposal for funding.
Please don't take it personally, because most of the proposals we rejected, we
rejected for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the applicants
...'_ [0]

GEEK #2: "So did we get in?"

NERD : "No, we didn't get in."

GEEK #2: "Why, do you think it had something to do with me saying, 'I wanted
to give it a try for 3 months then go back home and continue my PhD.?'" [1]

GEEK #1: "You what?"

NERD : "I told you, first we do the startup, make a good product, then the
PhD., then we party, not before."

GEEK #1: "What about this?" ... interesting offer, "show off hackenpreneur
skills?"

GEEK #2: "Isn't 'hakenpreneur' one of the Thunderbirds?"

NERD: "Thats Hacken - backer" [2]

 _ALL: Read article, mouths words, absorb information_ [3]

GEEK #2: "You do almost the same thing, same place, similar money, coding!
LOOK! They even give you a idea to start working on."

GEEK #1: "Sun Tzu says: _'a wise general makes a point of foraging on the
enemy. One cartload of the enemy's provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's
own, and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty from
one's own store.'_ " [4]

NERD : "Hmmm. What about our idea?"

NERD : You know. Our idea to revolutionise the storage and retrieval of
unstructured data across the Internet. We have a demo, we've launched, got
great feedback, users. We have what it takes. It will probably change. We can
adapt.

GEEK #2: "Goggle stopper!"

NERD : "No, Google stopper."

GEEK #2: "Thats the code name, 'Goggle Stopper'."

GEEK #1: "Sun Tzu also said _'when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped,
your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring
up to take advantage of your extremity'_ [5]

GEEK #2: Ancient Art of War, I love that game. If you get enough knights, take
the bridge you can ...

NERD : But if we work for something else, we miss out on working on our own
stuff, the people stuff, the business stuff. We could always go home, scrape
some money together, polish our idea, skills and pitch again?

GEEK #1: "Sun Tzu also reminds me that, _'our men must be roused to anger;
that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their
rewards'_ ". [6]

NERD : Every day we aren't working on our own product, is a day wasted.
Nothing will stop us!

GEEK #2: You're right. Why would we want to work on other peoples ideas? We're
street wise. We do things on our own terms.

NERD : Working for a boss, sucks.

GEEK #1: Right. [5]

GEEK #2: You tell 'em boss.

__Reference __

[0] I read this straight off a 'mauricecheeks' post
~<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9464> It is by far the best current
Plan B that I have read.

[1] I know someone who did exactly this. Sad story.

[2] Really Brains name is "Hiram Hackenbacker" ~
<http://www.google.com/search?q=hiram+hackenbacker>

[3] Dharmesh Shah, "Why Not All Great Hackepreneur Get Picked By Y Combinator"

[4] Sun Tzu, "Mit Classics, II. Waging War, #15" ~
<http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html>

[5] Sun Tzu, "II. Waging War, #4", Ibid.

[6] Sun Tzu, "II. Waging War, #16", Ibid.

[7] Straight out of 'Alien', Brett.

~~~
pg
This the funniest thing I've ever read on news.yc.

~~~
bootload
_'This the funniest thing I've ever read on news.yc.'_

(as you know ) if you poke fun at things you can get across messages in
parallel.

------
pg
Of his reasons, 1 and 2 are mistaken. If a startup with a single founder looks
especially promising, we don't simply reject them; we get them to find one.
And we have no bias toward consumer apps. Two of the most successful startups
we've funded (neither is launched yet) are doing stuff for businesses. The
reason we fund more consumer apps is simply that more apply.

BTW, we're soon going to announce a third plan B, which we hope will be a
better alternative to this or Techstars: to work for a YC "alumni" company.
While some (e.g. Loopt) are quite established, others are so new that you
could be the first hire, which is very much like being a founder.

~~~
far33d
PG: Who's hiring? Is this going to be restricted to YC applicants?

~~~
rwalker
Zenter is hiring - <http://www.zenter.com.> You can email us at
jobs@zenter.com

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richcollins
If you really need to be told a plan B you shouldn't start a startup.

Plan B is just start building something and stop worrying about getting other
people's approval! If you make something cool, then you will be able to find
other founders, money ... etc.

~~~
timg
Not all ideas, no matter how world-changing, can be turned into a full company
with just one founder and roughly zero cash. For young founders, 15k, partners
and a basic support system can make a world of a difference.

edit: The real deciding factor for me though will be his equity equation.

~~~
nostrademons
Right, but it's usually possible to find another, simpler idea - even if it's
just consulting - that will generate $15k and bring you in contact with
potential cofounders or customers.

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jsjenkins168
Thats a cool proposition, something to consider for those of us who dont get
accepted YC. However, I think 99% of the experience founding a startup is from
the fact that it is based on YOUR idea, not someone elses. From that comes the
insane relentless drive to push the limits. I would have a hard time
programming 20 hours a day for weeks on end for an idea I was not involved in
creating.

I do think its cool he would be willing to fund your personal idea after the
work period. But then you lack the mentoring/community/networking aspect of YC
which I think is more important than the actual funding (at least in the very
early stages). Best of luck to him though on recruiting some quality hackers.

~~~
dshah
I would disagree with your thesis that 99% of the experience is based on
pursuing your idea. Many entrepreneurs start companies for reasons other than
pursuing their own idea. Some simply like the control, autonomy and culture of
a startup.

I'd also posit that when finding co-founders, you are in a sense finding
someone that will help you execute your idea (and that makes them no less of
an entrepreneur).

~~~
andreyf
"Some simply like the control, autonomy and culture of a startup."

Will people really get the opportunity for that, though? If the idea isn't
"theirs" in the sense that it was (more or less) handed to them as something
to work on for you, will they feel the same freedom to change or modify it as
they would with their own startup? And isn't that flexibility a necessary
component for a startup's success?

It's a delicate psychological issue... as students, we've been very much
conditioned to respond to an authority figure (teacher, boss), and if you
don't want to fall into that role, you should be consciously careful not to.

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chapster
Good idea. The most important thing YC provides is an effective social
network. You're connected to piers going through the same process, so you have
people that understand what you're going through. In addition, YC provides
advise/access to people who have been where you're attempting to go and
facilitates interactions with investors that would be difficult to arrange on
your own. You probably couldn't offer the same networking opportunities, but
if someone is having a hard time finding a cofounder, being Cambridge at MIT
would probably help.

~~~
dshah
I agree with all your points. That's why my offer doesn't really compete with
YC. In fact, you have to have applied to YC and been turned down in order to
be considered for this option.

I can't provide the peer-group support and advice that PG does. But, I can
hopefully start you down the process (I'm involved with half a dozen local
startups, not including my own, and have decent contacts on both the
entrepreneurial side and the investment side of the community).

------
brlewis
Summary: If you don't get to be a YC founder this time, come work for his
startup on his ideas. Same location, same time period, same money, very
different role IMO.

~~~
dshah
This is a reasonably fair characterization (though candidly, I have not worked
out all the details yet).

I considered simply making an equity investment (like YC does), but don't have
the bandwidth to do something like that at this time.

One of the reasons I didn't post this article until after the YC deadline is
that I wanted to make sure people didn't confuse this as an alternative to YC.
As you noted, the role is very different.

Not for everyone, but might make sense for some.

~~~
mattculbreth
Howdy Dharmesh. I think it's a cool idea--good luck with it. I like the
<http://www.websitegrader.com/> app. I ran it on a couple sites I'm involved
with and got some good suggestions.

~~~
dshah
Thanks. This is a pet project of mine (amongst others). Response so far has
been pretty good. We haven't officially "launched" it yet, but about 9,500
URLs have been processed by the tool so far. It's a fun little tool to work
on.

~~~
Alex3917
I hadn't seen the site before, very cool. My only suggestion would be to offer
the necessary syntax when relevant, e.g. for adding meta keywords. Granted, it
only takes thirty seconds to lookup, but people are more likely to make the
changes immediately before they forget if it's right there.

------
sethjohn
I'm excited by what seems to be a boom in micro-seed startup financing...what
could less charitably be referred to as the YC-app knockoffs.

This guys seems to have a good approach, though, in defining a slightly
different niche for what he wants to do. While I would be willing to concede
that nobody can implement the YC model as well as YC, I hope there is room for
more micro-seed startups^2 with different focuses and different approaches.

~~~
dshah
I would liken this more to Google's summer of code or Joel Spolsky's paid
summer internship program.

I think it's really hard to compete with Paul and what he's built with YC.
Strong following, great set of people and a very difficult set of benefits to
match. If you fit the YC profile, I think that's a great path for lots of
hackepreneur types.

But, I think there are still "gaps" in the market between YC and other early-
stage investment vehicles (angel groups, VCs, etc.)

------
budu3
Wow this summer will be very interesting. I'd like to see the outcome of the
Techstars.org, YC and onstartups. I'm sure we should get a good crop of
startups.

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mukund
I dont know if there are more than 2 plans. Its either YC or go alone. Reason
for sticking with YC is free access to paul graham :D and his suggestions. I
think this is something priceless and if at all we are out of YC, I hope i
have a face to face meet up with PG and convince/beg to be our mentor :) Just
like George Bush quoted "You are either with us or against us", i would go
ahead and quote, its either YC or alone :)

~~~
nostrademons
Don't forget the other YC founders. PG gets all the fame, but IMHO RTM has
accomplished more. And I wouldn't mind working with Trevor or Jessica
either...

~~~
mukund
Well when i said PG, i meant PG + Team at YC. As long as i get advice from ppl
at YC, i would be glad

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dpapathanasiou
I wonder if he'll get the type of people he wants or expects: there's a
significant difference between people who want to start their own company
versus going to work for someone else (i.e. this does sound more like a summer
internship than a funding opportunity).

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veritas
Very interesting proposal. If someone isn't already working on a startup, this
would be a great way to get some experience (working for a startup is the next
best thing to starting one). Who knows, it might serve as preparation for the
winter round of YC.

~~~
dshah
That's the hope.

Though I'm a big PG fan, I'm no PG. My thinking is that my experiment can
extract a few more people into the startup mindset (and clearly, there's some
upside for me too). In my experience, simply resisting the temptation to jump
into big company land is a huge step. If possible, I'd like to make it really
hard for great hackepreneurs to revert to a big company job simply because
they didn't make it in to YC.

------
juwo
Contract programmer at $27 per hour for a 3 month project. That's what it is.

~~~
dshah
I find it curious that you think that's what it is.

Candidly, I'm not naive enough to think that I'm going to attract anyone worth
attracting if that's all it was.

~~~
juwo
Will they be working on _your_ project?. Yes

Will they be working on _their_ ideas/project? No

Will you pay for medical, dental, 401K etc? No

Will you be paying the employer share of Federal and State taxes from their
paycheck? No

Is there any obligation or gurantee that you will help them in return for the
work they have done for you? No.

If, after working for 3 months on your project; if you dont like them, will
you still be obligated to finance them to work on their idea? No

That's the definition of someone looking for a temp or contract programmer.
(and frankly, the market rate for a 3 month contract programmer of YC caliber
would be at least double that).

So, was I mistaken? :) :)

Note the big difference. YC lends a helping hand by letting the startups work
on _their own projects_ and investing money, effort, experience and time to
help them succeed with their companies.

My sincere suggestion is: be _generous_ and offer the exact same terms that YC
does.

"cast your bread upon the waters for after many days they shall return to you"

([http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=25&chapter;=11&version;=47)](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=25&chapter=11&version=47\))

