Why Y Combinator is a waste of time

I think I understand from personal experience what he might be trying to describe in terms of not letting YC be your alpha / omega. <p>We applied to the Fall 06 YC round. I was in school and my co-founder had a job at a small software company. Really we just had a cool idea and wanted to do it. When we found out about YC we thought it was "perfect for us". We spent a week or two struggling over answering question just right. We had no product, and had not yet considered some of the questions the application was asking. As you may guess we got an email from YC in late October saying: <p>--- " 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. For example, we were very reluctant to accept proposals with only one founder, because we think starting a startup is too much work for one person. We also rejected a lot of proposals simply because we couldn't understand them, or didn't understand the problem domain well enough to judge them, or because the project seemed too big to start on only three months of funding.<p>We realize this process is fraught with error. It's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email making fun of us; we want to learn from our mistakes.<p>Thanks Y Combinator Staff" ---<p>We told ourselves that wasn't going to stop us.... but it sorta did for a while. I wasn't done with school, but was getting dream job offers, and my co-founder was enjoying his software development job. So we didn't do much for a few months. We just kept talking about our idea for Revvu.<p>In doing some soul searching though, I decided I had to turn down these job offers and stop wasting time in school. This is not the life I wanted. After talking to my co-founder we came to grips with the fact that... working regular jobs was the default. That was the easy way to go about life, but we wanted more than that. We are too creative and determined to be held back or stifled by the nuances of a "job". <p>In January I moved across the country to live with my co-founder and work full time on our project. Shortly after that we had a full business plan, and were testing our site in closed beta. As of this week we've launched publicly and are getting encouraging user feedback. <p>We are beginning to tap our network to find potential investors, so that we can grow the business significantly in the next 12 moths. <p>About a week ago my co-founder brought up YCombinator for the first time in months, and we decided to apply at the last minute. Not because we NEED the living expenses, we both have savings. Also, not because we need it to feel like we're doing something. We're already confident that we're doing something, and we'll peruse other sourced of funding if we don't get YC. We applied because we know we could benefit from the mentoring, the guidance, the connections, and i guess partially because not draining our bank accounts just to eat would be kinda nice.<p>If the author had good intentions, IMHO, we might be a model for what he was trying to communicate. We weren't ready before. We were sitting around waiting to hear back from YC in October, and nearly let our passion fade after not being accepted. <p>This time filling out the application didn't take long at all, because we actually knew our answers. This time we have a real plan for our business and legitimately strive towards success.<p>If we get YC... awesome, if not... thats fine too. <p>I hope many of you are in the same boat. I hope you're building something you believe is great, and nothing will stop you. Don't get discouraged. Don't let anything slow you down. The world is big enough for all of us to succeed. <p>-if you build it, they will come

Premise is right, headline is wrong. If you look at the businesses that made people billionaires, the other point they have in common is that the owners aggressively pursued opportunities. So yes, Bill Gates slaved away for 6 years, with a variety of other products, before IBM came knocking. However, if he had turned them away, or been out of the office flying his plane like Gary Kildall, we'd be talking about the "Digital Research Monopoly" instead.<p>My startup initially wasn't going to apply to yCombinator. We have a solid team, a product that I really want to see exist, and we're making steady progress implementing it. But I figured that if we have a decent chance of success without yCombinator, we'll have an even better chance of success <i>with</i> yCombinator. So why not spend 4 days or so putting together an application and see if they accept us?<p>If they turn us down, fine, we go back to our original plan and keep working on the product. But if they don't, <i>great</i>! It's advice, connections, a set timetable for when I leave my day job and work full-time on the startup (for me, this is a question of when, not if: yCombinator would just make the decision for me), and a cool hacker environment where you get to bounce ideas off other equally-smart people.

If YC is for losers, then Robert and Trevor and I are losers ourselves, because we modelled it on how we started Viaweb. We took $10k in seed funding from our friend Julian, who (since he was a lawyer) also set us up as a company. <p>For us, Julian's help was both a necessary and sufficient condition of getting launched. Nothing has changed since then about life in the seed stage. Sure, maybe you can get to the next stage on $200k instead of a $2m series A round like in the Bubble, but initially you still need at least a few months' living expenses.<p>I only skimmed that [what should I call it? article?], but I did notice one other thing that's mistaken. We don't judge people by their karma on news.yc, but by the quality of their comments and submissions. Surely that is a reasonable test.

The very point of this article is an argument in favor of applying to YC and not against it.<p>Like it or not, all successful web companies have at some point taken on funding. It is an inevitable part of building a company. <p>Raising funding is a resource and time drain. The author argues that we should all be spending time building our products. I completely agree and that's why I applied to YC. It's the equivalent of outsourcing your "distractions". Being a YC company dramatically reduces the amount of time you have to spend finding PR and investment (things you will have to do at some point). These things will find you.<p>The real power of YC is not the money. It's their ability to take away most of the distractions that cause startups to fail and let you concentrate on what really matters - building your product.<p>The author shouldn't be so short sighted and should take a longer term view of building a business.

I was rejected by YC for the 2006 WFP. I created an app with no funding that didn't make any money, but gave me credibility. As a result, my current (new) project is funded. If it had kept looking for funding instead of just building something, I probably would have given up long ago.<p>The true ethos of a hacker lies in building stuff. If you get rejected, just keep building stuff!

I think the author is missing part of the point. YCombinator is simply a way to make something that's very very hard to do just that much easier. Nobody should bank everything on getting accepted (I know I'm not). Just because you shouldn't bank on something doesn't mean it's not a valuable thing.<p>The author is right in that you should plan on doing it without YC help. My point is that you should still try to get YC's help. It'll be worth it.

There are so many failed assumptions made that this doesn't even stand as a valid opinion piece. <p>A valid point to make would have been: Accepted into the program or not, a good startup will learn from the experience and continue on.<p>Then stop there; everything else was either superfluous or unfounded.

Though it could be said in a much less offensive way, I agreed with this in the article<p>"I read YCombinator Startup News. I read that thing that Paul wrote saying that anybody who contributes regularly is going to fare better. That’s shit from a bull! Anybody who is spending time posting on a site that is a collection of links to dream money instead of working on his project is never going to make money. Anybody who cares about “karma” on that site instead of spending time reaching users for his product is an idiot."<p>I've been checking out these threads for a few days and have started leaving comments because that apparently gives you a better chance. Paul has a lot of tough choices to make and I understand his reasons for using comments as one of the many tools in filtering prospective startups, but I really hope its a small small factor. Sure it proves I read blogged advice and other mumbo jumbo on the subject of startups and am interested in the funding, but it also might indicate that a person has way too much free time or has a serious net addiction (a major development killer). I've been getting ready to kick start my startup this summer for over a month now. During that time I've read a lot of these startup articles, all of Paul's entries, Founders at Work, bought a few other books and searched the net for VC firms and how to get in touch with them. One article at the beginning of the process affected me greatly. When I was making the tough decision to do the startup or take a very appealing job offer I read Paul's article (not to brown nose) "A student's guide to startups" which said the best time to start one is when you're 24, fresh out of grad school, and hopefully have a solid internship behind you. That was something I didn't know and hit me hard because this summer that will be my exact situation. If I hadn't have read it I might have missed my perfect window! I made my decision right then. Every article, book, or resource since however has been repetitive and more draining on my energy to get started than helpful.<p>My point, and the article's author's point in the quoted paragraph is, use these articles to get yourself inspired and confident about doing this thing and then stop reading and commenting! You're inspired now don't kill it and waste your time with reading more and more of the same crap, go make your own stories. This is most likely my last post here. I hope that doesn't effect my rating :).

There's a grain of truth here, in that YC won't guarantee a successful startup, and that rejection from YC doesn't mean your idea will fail, but did anyone really think otherwise?<p>To call YC "a waste of time", however, seems to me nothing but attention grabbing... if anything, YC is the opposite of a waste of time - for a student like me, YC funding means _not_ wasting my time at a summer job for food/rent while working on an idea, and _not_ wasting my time on searching for business advice/legalese if the idea makes it off the ground.<p>How the heck did this make it to the #1 story? Is it because people anxious about being rejected by YC, or is it just the rebellious headline?

I don't think anyone is applying for the money. After all most people are in their 20's with little to no responsibility. Just living in the Cambridge area for the summer will eat up a chunk of money. If you have a great idea and must have 3 months to concentrate on it or you'll never get it done, just move in with the folks for 3 months.<p>I think most people are applying for the mentoring and collaborative environment.I found a great partner in the process. That has to be worth taking the time to apply.

Well, if he can point to his success then I might be inclined to take his advise, otherwise ...

Actually, there is a subtle point in the way YC is approaching this whole thing and the person missed the point. Assume there exists a world without YC, how many people will spend time doing something they believe on and make effort to take it to a point so that you can show it to someone? Probably a vast majority would anyway do it. say 90%, what YC is trying to do is - try to squeeze a percent or two of the remaining 10% by making them work by promising them that they'd fund if you come up with something interesting and that adds a certain value to the society as a whole. <p>So it is certainly a waste of time if - you think of an idea, write an application and decide to work on only if YC is funding it.. <p>But not - when you are working on something or planning to work on something, YC offers you that last bit of motivation to actually go and do it because you want to play the YC gamble. <p>And it might happen that otherwise, you end up building something, YC rejects you, but you say to yourself, what the heck, I have already done something so lets take it to a logical conclusion (may be 90% will chicken out. but who knows one of those who persisted might be next big thing!!) YC has certainly helped them, who would have been left in "I am planning to do" state otherwise and I think thats what PG is essentially trying to do. Make more people try a stint at 'startuping' and all of this comes at a reasonable cost to everyone!! <p>To conclude - would the authors' brother have not been happy if there was an "Irish Pub" or something that promised, hey if you send us your recordings, may be we can give you a saturday night and if you get a deal from a recording company, we get cut out of it... (Ouch! I just spit out an idea for some "irish pub" owner, if he's on the list!)

It seems like this guy is a big fan of the [Ben and Jerry's] (<a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html)">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html)</a> organic company model, and is deriding YC for being more of the "amazon" big burst type model (or at least accusing YC of creating small startup companies that follow the Amazon model). This analogy is slightly flawed, because, like ViaWeb, most of the startups that YC funds don't really seem like Amazon model companies. I would say that the author of this article is drawing the line between "organic startup" and "explosive funded company" much closer to the side of startups that start small, and including YC funded companies on the "explosive funded" side. That may account for some of his anger.<p>FWIW, his piece does have a good point: that a viable startup should be able to continue along a successful path even if they get rejected by YC. But as other people have noted there are benefits to being funded by YC: firstly they can [remove some of your distractions](<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9439)">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9439)</a> and give you good advice; and secondly, applying to and being rejected by YC might just [force you to step up and improve your company](<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9486).">http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9486).</a> While there certainly are (and should be) companies that don't need YC to become successful, I think if you can get ahead by getting funded, then you should do it, and that's why YC really matters.

Some of the stuff he says isn't so bad. It's good to just go out and create something. Too many people do seem to rely on YC.<p> However, the money YC gives is really insignificant. I doubt many people even applied for the money at all. Its really more about the network and mesh of people you get with it. Anybody can work and save up 6k, its not that hard. <p>I didn't apply because I want to be in the San Fran. network isntead of the cambridge area. If this round was in the bay area, then I would have applied, and been accepted :).<p><p>

Anyone else find it ironic that this document is hosted by a YC startup?

While the original post may have been a bit off target it certainly set off a very interesting comment conversation. The post has been thoroughly critiqued here, but I did want to add on thing that came to mind as I was reading through the discussion.<p>YC is a model that was created based on expereince and success. The value of YC funding is not the money, $5-20 k is not hard to save or raise. <p>It has been encouraging and interesting to hear from so many people, who obviously find a lot of value in VC's approach, offering slight variances based on their personal situation.<p>It is important to take what is valuable from a model and apply it to your own startup situation. If you can implement the use the best concepts and models from other and apply them to your unique startup, you will reduce the chance of failure and save a ton of time and money. <p>If you fallow blindly and base your success on one groups acceptance your not an entrepreneur.

Not the greatest essay in the world, but the author may be right in that too many people are applying to YC for the wrong reasons.

Sour grapes? I dont know why people think it as though YC will spoon feed and get u stand up on your feet and will teach you walking and running. I see YC as a way of catalyst which nurtures, get you connections and give valuable advice. Again this is my perspective, i may be wrong but i really dont agree with the write up on scribd.com.

Did anyone find this article helpful? I thought it was... a waste of time.

The only reason I can imagine applying to YC and then not going through with the startup if I didn't get in is if when I applied I wasn't totally sure that I and my cofounder were totally on crack when we thought we could start a startup. Acceptance by YC would, in that situation, give a big confidence boost, and validate the idea. I don't think that's a terribly unreasonable premise. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some currently successful startups who thought they might not do it if they didn't get into YC.

As usual, people see only the money. Y Combinator is also about the networking, and based on some things I've heard, that's the more important part. "Never Eat Alone."

<a href="http://juwo-works.blogspot.com/2007/04/our-plan-b.html">http://juwo-works.blogspot.com/2007/04/our-plan-b.html</a>

(took out the first paragraph I had here. I should have read the full article!)<p>People that are applying for YC definitely are just seeing this as another possibility and not an end all to their idea. I'm sure that a very small amount of people are going to give up their business if rejected.<p>

Don't feed the troll.

There is some meaning within this rambling. <p>Here's a startup idea Mr PG: I will pay $50 for basic feedback on a very early startup idea and give you 1% equity.<p>What are the alternatives? Is there any way to get feedback on startup plans from half competent people without broadcasting your ideas all over forums?

(Back to where it was) The author unfairly compared Paul to a young musician's experience, said Paul speaks Bull, and that the YC is a waste of time. He also insults the reader. The author should apologize.

Funny. And stupid.