So I prepared a simple guide with examples that will help founders build successful applications and avoid common pitfalls.
I've personally applied for YC three times, and was accepted only on the third time with Fluently.
This guide is based on my personal experience and was reviewed by other YC alumni. However, I would be glad if you could share your thoughts on that too.
Not to bag on anyone who’s in YC right now, but it seems to be going the way of many ivy leagues - still meaningful, but very much not the same proxy for extraordinary it once was.
[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in-ivy...
YC has lost all of the people who were there at the start. Saying something like “what ever was the ‘luster’” is akin to saying “who the heck was Steve Jobs, who cares, Apple is still the same business.”
Sheesh.
I believe the same is true for YC. The primary value is being able to claim that you’re funded by YC and you were part of a cohort. That opens doors, to both investors as well as potential partners. The education/advice is standard and freely available everywhere.
YC's huge advantage is that they have an internal network of startups who support each other with YC money as customers, which then get pushed to VCs as revenue growth numbers. VCs have learnt to get in on the gravy train early, because the brand-name still carries value downstream. For no-name startups and no-name founders with no fancy universities (who are increasingly being ignored), this is a huge disadvantage.
If you want to look at YC's actual success rate, take a look at any of their public market companies' performance. Hint, none of them have outperformed their IPO price. In fact, many of them only found their ways into exits through the SPAC frenzy of 2021.
250ish per cohort meant the partners were spread very thin, and founders could realistically connect with just a subset of batchmates.
I'm glad they're scaling back the batch size.
I do like your comment as the critique of contemporary tech entrepreneurship culture that is very hype oriented, likely at the expense of comparatively few blue ocean ideas that get crowded out.
However I do fear that's global and not something specific to YC or the valley. Here across the pond we have the same gold rush, except at minor league level.
There is so much market up for grabs. Most companies will fail, but the ones that succeed can win really big. And the surface area is so much larger than attempting a non-AI company since the advantages are potentially huge.
> ChatGPT wrappers.
Create value. Doesn't matter how you do. Just create value.
I'm sure a lot of it is pure slop, just a bunch of prompts and a CRUD app. But I wouldn't be so quick to assume that anybody talking about "AI" is just a bunch of prompts.
Without looking carefully, I can't tell which ones are generative AI / boiling the oceans to bullshit you; it's possible that some of these are legit uses of machine learning, which existed before ChatGPT and will hopefully continue to exist in the future. But I bet it's all ethically questionable bullshit.
Forerunner AI jumps out as a likely ethical black hole, based on its one line description "Copilot for aerospace engineers making rockets, munitions, satellites." On top of code theft, water use, emissions, and the many other horrors of Copilot and its ilk, we can also add war profiteering.
EDIT: Prediction: YC's next batch will include a startup trying to replicate whatever the fuck this is: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
So no, not a requirement. OTOH if you do come with an AI idea, they won't reject you just because they already accepted a few hundred others :)
YCombinator is a tech investor, of course they are investing in the future. It just so happens that in this current tech cycle AI is the future.
So the risk is $dayjob unless you’re a serial founder, the reward is the connections and money to float for a few months, while selling I think 10% of your company? The odds of your idea working out, even under the umbrella, aren’t great. Is that accurate?
YC is an enormous brand in the VC and startup industry, and as a YC startup doors open to you that would be harder to pry open otherwise. The connections, and willingness of people to "pay it forward" are a huge (probably biggest) asset.
The odds of your idea working are not great, that's correct. YC does encourage you to experiment and fail fast so you have time to adapt the idea or try another one. If all fails, having had a YC startup means it'll be easy to get into other startups (if you like the lifestyle - and you really have to like it!).
That sad, YC is what you make of it. You get encouragement and support but nobody's going to force you to take advantage of all the things they have to offer.
Watch a few episodes of https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5Nd98Sc9I-k... If you get a feeling "omg I want to work with those guys", then you might be a fit. If you get a feeling of "dude, no", then you're probably not a fit.
You said “ My feeling is that if you think quitting the day job is risky, you probably won't fit the profile YC and VCs look for.”
And
“ The odds of your idea working are not great, that's correct.”
So it is kind of geared towards wealthy people?
He said that 95% of the batch are between 20 and 30, mostly AI and mostly US.
There are exceptions to the rule but let's not pretend there isn't a YC thesis.
raising pre-seed venture capital is more similar to getting hired at an investment bank (as an entry level/post mba banker) than it is to starting a company
I literally went to the cheapest state school in rural Pennsylvania and still was accepted into YC. My co-founder didn't even finish college, at some point I think people just want to make excuses.
Also — I don't understand your second point. It's an accelerator. Capital is part and parcel when it comes to accelerating.
If you aren’t pre-vetted, it doesn’t mean you’re worse, it just means vetting you is more work and has more risk.
Just because it’s tiresome doesn’t make it untrue in this “era”.
This is not a bag on YC, but yesteryear’s “web store”, begot “social”, begot “blockchain”, begot “ai” and today’s private markets are more conservative for Seed and A rounds.
