I haven't been to Shiva's, but Amber India on El Camino Real is excellent. It's also pretty pricey, but the lunch buffet is a great deal. Godavari (formerly Sue's Indian Cuisine) on Castro St is also very good, and more reasonably priced. I've only been there for their lunch buffet ($10).
I'm pretty picky when it comes to Indian food because I'm ethnically Indian and I benchmark the restaurants against mom-cooked meals. :)
Castro St has a bunch of other good restaurants, and a number of crappy ones too.
Well, there are 3 days and each team gets 15 minutes. Assuming they give about 5 minutes interval between the breaks, that means 3 teams per hour. So assuming they do 8 hours of interview every day, that is 3x8x3 = 72 teams. This is not including those teams which are local and have been moved to the weekdays. So all in all, those who are selected, don't be too happy yet, there's still only about 1/7 chance of getting into the final 10.
Well, sort of. The selection isn't random. If you're one of the 10 that appeal to them most your odds are 100%. If you're not, they're 0. Unless they decide by rolling dice there's really no probability involved.
As far as I know there isn't any particular cap on how many teams are picked. Idea I got from one of pg's post is they pick all interviewed companies that they think can succeed from what they've seen and heard.
That they think can succeed in YC's particular approach to startup building, you mean.
pg has a fairly clear set of factors that he thinks indicate success -- being physically in a startup hub, for instance; having multiple founders; the sort of thing he recommends in his essays. Rejection from YC can mean that they don't think the project can succeed; it can also mean that they don't think the project, even if it succeeds, will give them the kind of return on investment they want.
So (to make the math easy) suppose they have a company that they own 10% of, that they've invested $15K in. This means that for them to break even, the company has to eventually have a value of $150,000. A rule of thumb for business valuation is that the sale price of the business is 3 to 5 times its annual earnings -- which means that the business has to earn $30,000 a year to $50,000 a year in profit for that to be worthwhile.
Now, a micro-ISV, for instance, that treats its founders' salaries (appropriately) as expenses may be a terrifically successful business from the point of view of the founders, especially if they pay themselves acceptably well and like the working conditions. But unless it makes $30,000 to $50,000 in profits a year, it's a losing proposition for Y Combinator.
There are other ways it can be a winning proposition without those profits -- if it's just before the tipping point of a big trend, or if the founders are especially skillful. A company that isn't making any profits at the moment but has the potential to make really big profits, or the potential to be sold for a lot of money, might be a worthwhile investment.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 52.2 ms ] threadI'm pretty picky when it comes to Indian food because I'm ethnically Indian and I benchmark the restaurants against mom-cooked meals. :)
Castro St has a bunch of other good restaurants, and a number of crappy ones too.
pg has a fairly clear set of factors that he thinks indicate success -- being physically in a startup hub, for instance; having multiple founders; the sort of thing he recommends in his essays. Rejection from YC can mean that they don't think the project can succeed; it can also mean that they don't think the project, even if it succeeds, will give them the kind of return on investment they want.
So (to make the math easy) suppose they have a company that they own 10% of, that they've invested $15K in. This means that for them to break even, the company has to eventually have a value of $150,000. A rule of thumb for business valuation is that the sale price of the business is 3 to 5 times its annual earnings -- which means that the business has to earn $30,000 a year to $50,000 a year in profit for that to be worthwhile.
Now, a micro-ISV, for instance, that treats its founders' salaries (appropriately) as expenses may be a terrifically successful business from the point of view of the founders, especially if they pay themselves acceptably well and like the working conditions. But unless it makes $30,000 to $50,000 in profits a year, it's a losing proposition for Y Combinator.
There are other ways it can be a winning proposition without those profits -- if it's just before the tipping point of a big trend, or if the founders are especially skillful. A company that isn't making any profits at the moment but has the potential to make really big profits, or the potential to be sold for a lot of money, might be a worthwhile investment.