

The Y Combinator Startup Index - dmor
http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/03/the-y-combinator-index/

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mrchess
Direct link to YC spreadsheet:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ApqWF3CqjgjSdE9...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ApqWF3CqjgjSdE9lSVN3bGxxNEM5aFRCb0ZHc09ZSHc)

(terribly hard to view in the blog post IFRAME)

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zeeg
These stats hardly rank some companies like Disqus where they should be. In
all honesty, I'm surprised (with the metrics used) that it ranks Disqus as
well as it does at all.

It also can't gauge the most important metric of them all: revenue.

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tptacek
Most private companies don't publish revenue numbers, no matter what industry
they're in.

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zeeg
My point is that the metrics used are mostly meaningless

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olegp
I think the absolute numbers may indeed poor indicators, but looking at the
derivative or trends tells a different story. At <https://starthq.com> we are
working on recording historic data and showing the rate of acceleration in
numbers like Compete rank to give an indication as to whether the startup is
up and coming, has plateaued or is in decline.

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shaufler
Hey Danielle, your list is missing Rap Genius. Its Alexa scores
(<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/rapgenius.com>) should rank it number 8 on the
list behind AirBnb.

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dmor
Thank you, I will update it with all the feedback on this thread so keep it
coming. Check back shortly and you'll see Rap Genius on there

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paulwithap
I had no idea 9Gag was YC-backed. You've created a monster.

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Kiro
Most successful YC company if you ask me.

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purephase
In what terms? If usefulness is taken into consideration I would rate Dropbox
and Stripe considerably higher (and a few others).

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nvr219
I have a question about the design of the web site in the OP. I'm bringing it
up because it seems to hit the front page a lot.

Why does the author's face show up in 5 different images above the fold, on
every page on the site? I'm counting byline on the left, header image, 2
tweets, and a drawing of the author on the right. I feel like this is a
celebrity web site but I have no idea who this person is so it's weird.

~~~
dmor
Because I'm too lazy to modify the Emptiness theme I've been using for 3 or 4
years. Counting the days til I move the whole site to Svbtle, so not really
investing much

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nvr219
Fair enough! Your blog still looks better than mine no matter what.

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dkasper
Justin.tv also does Twitch.tv which is ranked 573 on Alexa, not sure about the
other stats for them.

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marcamillion
PG and crew always seem to debate that the startups view their batch-mates as
competition.

This will likely exacerbate that, so I am interested to see what PG thinks
about all of this.

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dmor
Hmmm, that's not how I saw it at all going through YC. The companies on the
top of this list are the ones I look up to, and it's cool to see people
sticking it out after 3+ years and kicking ass. There was healthy competition
inside the batch to do things like launch and have new stuff to show off each
week, but it always felt motivating not mean-spirited.

~~~
marcamillion
Well...that's usually the feedback we hear from YC-founders themselves. There
is competition, but it is friendly, not adversarial like the tech press likes
to paint.

But, if I recall correctly, I distinctly remember PG & gang bristling when
they hear this - because they don't want to feed any competition at all.

Well....that's just my impression, as an outsider looking in anyway.

Either way, this is an intriguing concept for sure :)

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mrwhy2k
You should look at Alexa for world traffic vs US traffic, not many YC
companies are targeting international users yet but are very successful in the
US. Take into account FB/Twitter followers as well. Even though followers
don't determine success, companies that don't grow their social side of the
business usually indicate a slow growth or nongrowth business. Also goes to
show how much extra time or money they have to throw at it.

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biznickman
I built something like this at <http://startupstats.com> and have indexed
close to 50,000 companies with time series data to derive the trends over
time. Will have to release a leaderboard so people can see what's popping up!
The biggest issue I've found so far is that it requires human analysis. The
leaderboards simply serve as a way to guide you to dig deeper

~~~
dmor
Why is the signup process so many painful email based steps? I gave you my
email address thinking I would get access to your site, but I find myself on a
mailing/waitlist.

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biznickman
Didn't realize its painful to enter your email and press submit! I didn't
release the leaderboards yet but will do so quickly. Happy to show you them
though if you email me

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slashCJ
Pretty cool. Only comment would be to add in something that takes into account
Estimated Revenue or Valuation (no way Airbnb can be considered 7th).

I'm not sure of an easy data source for that so you might be able to use the
Crunchbase api for Total Funding as a first order approximation.(Kind of
surprised Crunchbase doesn't have latest valuation / revenue numbers, rumored
or real)

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chmike
This is an excellent initiative and has the benefit to cast some light and
provide visibility on the Y Combinator startups. They will love that.

On the other hand the one dimensional ranking is not a good idea because the
reality is that this doesn't exit. There are many parameters to consider and
many of them are not disclosed.

Maybe you could converge interest of Y Combinator startups seeking visibility
and high value contacts, and on the other end, people who want to know who the
Y Combinator startups are, what they do, where there are at it. Some people
might event want to pay a fee for premium information or access to backstage
information.

It could be a facebook like server for Y Combinator startups with premium
services.

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mahmoudimus
Just for giggles, I checked
<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/balancedpayments.com> and Balanced comes in at
93 after PagerDuty.

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olegp
This is great! We’ve been working on something similar at
<https://starthq.com> to automatically generate a popularity score for B2B web
apps:
[http://starthq.uservoice.com/forums/198432-roadmap/suggestio...](http://starthq.uservoice.com/forums/198432-roadmap/suggestions/3754180-combined-
popularity-score)

dmor: Would you be OK with us adapting your method, with attribution of
course? We would be able to calculate the scores automatically and update them
daily.

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rock_hard
AppData MAUs are off by 3 digits on at least two of the companies :/

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jamwt
Yes, waaay off.

Just using publicly available data like top 10 social networks, you can see
Bump is top 10 in many regions:

[http://www.apple.com/euro/itunes/charts/apps/top10appstoreso...](http://www.apple.com/euro/itunes/charts/apps/top10appstoresocialnetworking.html)

The MAU numbers are way off for us (and some others I have a pretty good idea
about), so I'm not sure you're measuring anything accurately about mobile,
FYI.

\- Jamie @ bump

~~~
dmor
My methodology doesn't currently include mobile, I will add more data sources
and update the approach in the April version

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rvwaveren
I've visualized the data so you can get insights quicker:
<http://ycindex.silkapp.com/>

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salman89
Good comparison for RapGenius/9GAG type sites, but generally comparing
startups based on a traffic ranking is probably not the way to go.

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dbyrd
Startups that sell things don't need as much traffic to make the same amount
of money. Dropbox & Airbnb should be a lot higher than Scribd. Also, the list
is missing Shoptiques.

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wilfra
Stripe as well is way undervalued in a ranking like this and any business that
revolves around pageviews is going to be overvalued.

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GBKS
One thing I'd love to see this evolve into is a timeline for each company.
When it was started, when they received funding and how much, when they
reached 10k/1m/10m users, etc. It could look like an Alexa/Compete/etc chart
with these milestones added on top. This would make for a great research tool.

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kristopher
Good effort, although I thought it was interesting that revenues were not
included as a metric.

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JacobAldridge
I'm sure if the data were publicly available it would be, but in reality that
would just introduce a whole load of bs guessing games to the ranking.

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generalpf
Without revenue or profit, the entire ranking is BS, is it not?

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wilfra
I wouldn't say it's BS but there are obviously gaping holes in the
methodology.

I'm most interested in the companies with very low rankings - however Sheet 2
isn't loading for me.

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jedc
Interesting! Danielle, would be interested in figuring out how I could help
you automate this through Seed-DB (<http://www.seed-db.com>)

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jessedhillon
I've been browsing this for the past week or so and was wondering -- how do
you generate your valuation estimates? Seems like the sum of exits for
something like YC could be off by as much as $250M if you consider that the
low quality estimates could vary by 100%+ from their true value.

<http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators/view?acceleratorid=1011>

~~~
jedc
There are no valuation estimates; just estimates on sale prices when companies
have exited. Luckily the biggest exits are the ones that have press interest
and thus have a price attached.

My methodology depends on research into previous funding rounds and a bit of
guesswork, influenced by how the exit is framed. (Is it an acquihire? Or a
traditional exit?) The reason I put the H/M/L indications is to be up-front
and honest about it. You're correct in that they could be off, but $250million
is <25% of the total value of exits that I have recorded.

In some cases I've had insiders e-mail me with details where my estimate is
off; in these cases I do correct my figure but keep the original H/M/L
indication.

~~~
jessedhillon
Wow, that's amazing that insiders are sharing knowledge with you like that.
Ever since I've found seed-db I've been sharing the surprising (to me) fact
with people that YC has ~90% of the recorded exists in the accelerator
ecosystem. That figure, of course, comes with an asterisk :)

~~~
jedc
Frankly, YC startups get the lion share of press attention. Between that and
Hacker News, it's always easier to get information on YC startup exits than
those from other programs.

And generally insiders only get in touch with me around my worst valuation
errors. :)

~~~
jaredsohn
>And generally insiders only get in touch with me around my worst valuation
errors. :)

It seems like you know how to get more people to contribute data. :)

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donebizkit
Good effort! It's very nice to see the list on one sheet instead of following
links on crunchbase or angellist. What was the methodology for coming up with
the overall rank?

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ntomaino
Interesting to see Scribd has such a high Alexa and FB mau rank. Scribd is not
as hyped as the rest of the top 10 imo. Anyone know if they are profitable?

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giis
Anyone here know, whats the difference between Alexa Traffic Rank and Alexa
Rank (Web Traffic)?

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dmor
Alexa Traffic Rank is the position within the link, Alex Rank (Web Traffic) is
the global ranking provided for the site by alexa.com

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giis
Thanks for the info.

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pzaich
Isn't this list missing Reddit?

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jaredsohn
It doesn't included dead and exited startups. (Reddit was acquired by Condé
Nast.)

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seeingfurther
ಠ_ಠ

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cdelsolar
Last I checked we at Leftronic haven't died nor are we going to :)

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avich3
Loved it. very useful

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herdrick
Very cool.

