One of my favorite quotes about startups, which I original attributed to PG (due to [1]) but really belongs to Peter Steiner [2] is "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
The big idea is that so long as you're hiding behind the magic of servers and networking, your business even as a young, fresh-out-of-college startupper looks just as legit as any other business on the web. Maybe even more legit, if you put in the work to look super stodgy.
The odd thing is everybody knows all of the YC companies are run by "dogs," and that's where the fun is. In fact, I'd say the human interest story of college kids making millions from only $20k of funding is the biggest selling point for a lot of the YCombinator companies. Not to demean their products, but I can't remember the last time my mom got excited about, say, her Oracle online calendar. On the other hand, Kiko's a really interesting story.
All of this leads me to believe that simply being a part of YCombinator alleviates suspicion of all of the bad aspects of being a dog (lack of credibility, obvious inexperience, youthful stupidity) and also exposes all of the good aspects (mostly, the publicity, and perhaps the fact that you're more in touch with what's new and hot).
In the end, I think this is a net win for folks like me. To what I think will be a large extent, companies doing something obviously YCombinator-like will catch all of the YC benefits simply by association. I wonder, though, if companies that are branching out into new areas who can't manage YCombinator-style support will still have to struggle with being taken seriously.
And I still find it ironic that PG's the main reason something he's said previously is being proved irrelevant.
I think there is something very wrong with the current state of conversation on the web. I don't know if there are a lot of ways to make money off solving the problem, but I also don't always think a for profit solution is the best way.
Not only that, but everyone knows you're also a Pomeranian or a Chihuahua. A very smart one, but small; the majority are "web 2.0" sites with a 3-month ramp-up.
The big idea is that so long as you're hiding behind the magic of servers and networking, your business even as a young, fresh-out-of-college startupper looks just as legit as any other business on the web. Maybe even more legit, if you put in the work to look super stodgy.
The odd thing is everybody knows all of the YC companies are run by "dogs," and that's where the fun is. In fact, I'd say the human interest story of college kids making millions from only $20k of funding is the biggest selling point for a lot of the YCombinator companies. Not to demean their products, but I can't remember the last time my mom got excited about, say, her Oracle online calendar. On the other hand, Kiko's a really interesting story.
All of this leads me to believe that simply being a part of YCombinator alleviates suspicion of all of the bad aspects of being a dog (lack of credibility, obvious inexperience, youthful stupidity) and also exposes all of the good aspects (mostly, the publicity, and perhaps the fact that you're more in touch with what's new and hot).
In the end, I think this is a net win for folks like me. To what I think will be a large extent, companies doing something obviously YCombinator-like will catch all of the YC benefits simply by association. I wonder, though, if companies that are branching out into new areas who can't manage YCombinator-style support will still have to struggle with being taken seriously.
And I still find it ironic that PG's the main reason something he's said previously is being proved irrelevant.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
[2] http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html