Ask HN: Submit Questions for Office Hours with YC
When we announced that we’d be restarting the podcast [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12969562], many HN users requested Office Hours as a recurring segment. We’re kicking that off next week on YouTube.
Sam’s generously offered to go first. So, if you have a question, please post a few sentences of context and the question here. We’ll do our best to answer as many questions as possible.
You can subscribe to our channel https://www.youtube.com/ycombinator to get the video when it’s posted.
Looking forward to this!
63 comments
[ 10.3 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadThis is the hardest problem, I think. Some "out-of-network" routes to market I can think of are cold calling, cold emailing, cold snail mail (FedEx, USPS, etc), cold LinkedIn "inmailing," participating in conferences (getting speaker spots and/or setting up booth), blogging, "ShowHN" style posts on online forums, advertising on search engines, advertising in industry publications, getting referrals from your investors (if you have investors) ... am I missing any? For every one one of these "hacks," you can find people saying that it doesn't work, that it's waste of time/money, that you should spend resourcing on building product instead, etc. Have YC companies succeeded in the earliest stage through these kinds of efforts? Are some more effective than others, for particular markets?
If it really is all just about personal network in the earliest stages, then that's equally puzzling to me because the numbers seem so low - how many prospective buyers could anyone possibly have in their personal network? Isn't it supposed to be a numbers game ("dial and smile")? It would take just a day or two to contact everyone you know who might be a buyer, what do you do after that?
The investor referrals idea seems like a plausible source of B2B startup success (especially if you are selling to other startups), since investors tend to be highly connected. I've heard YC partners say they can be very helpful in sourcing of your early customers. But another philosophy is that the only way to get into YC is to not need YC ... In other words, this leads to a chicken & egg problem because typically you need to get sales off the ground before any investor (often including YC) will invest in your company. It's the same as saying that you should get sales leads through customer referrals - that might not be super useful advice if you're pounding pavement to find your first handful of customers.
In other words - is networking more important than innovation nowadays?
Startups tend to be all consuming, so it's hard to say that another full-time commitment like school could be an advantage. Unless you have a business that is taking off like a rocket ship, I would wait til after graduation.
In short -- By your vision, what is the future of "Sign Up" in the digital world?
Thank you very much for the response!
Should a founder need to get work experiences first or execute the way he compel for his idea and learn from mistakes along startup journey?
But I have to wonder, if she had proper domain knowledge of the cleaning industry, maybe she would've known that her idea will not work at all. Same would be applicable to all the founders jumping into the food industry. If they were aware of the terrifying economics, maybe they'd be able to avoid burning VC dollars on poor ideas.
It might be helpful to know that I will submit application wither now or at the end of my phd but that would be three years from now. On one side if I wait I will have support of my supervisor and my committee members as advisors who are big in their fields and probably catch your eyes, on the other side a few years from now might be too late!
What would make you say, "Wow, that's some consciousness research I want to fund!"?
Thanks!
I'm the CEO of an on-demand app that is getting a lot of traction and partnerships with brick and motor stores.
1) Right now we are doing a simple 60-40 split of profits between us and our delivery drivers. Do you see any downside to this?
2) Should we enlist the help of an MBA grad to help scale for when shit hits the fan since we're growing so quickly?
3) How can we stand out when applying for YC or any other VC? I don't want to be seen as just another Uber for X.
What path should I be taking to become a successful startup CEO?
Right now I'm deciding between doing software engineering at a top company vs front end development at an ad tech Unicorn.
I want to get some industry experience after I graduate next year.
We believe that pursuing an M&A transaction with other players that can offer our product to their existing customer base is the best way to realize its full potential.
We also believe that additional fundraising is useless as the value of the company will not increase significantly for a potential acquirer.
Luckily, We are in a space that's acquisition-heavy and we have MANY potential acquirers. Overall there are 5 types of acquirers that could find strategic value in buying us.
I have digged up what I could find online about preparing for M&A and selling a company. However, the advice is pretty generic with statements like "companies are bought not sold". This is obviously the best case and will probably be the most lucrative type of acquisition as well. The reality is that we want to run a competitive auction in a relative short (6m) time-window before we have to pursue additional funding.
Given this opportunity, it would be amazing to clarify the following questions:
1/ How direct should we be about wanting to sell the business when talking to potential acquirers.
2/ Have you seen companies successfully soliciting M&A and running a competitive deal process? If yes, what tactics have you seen that worked and what tactics killed deals?
3/ What drivers do you see most often for corporates to close the deal? For example, from our experience raising VC it is pretty clear that for VC's the main drivers to close are fear of missing out or greed and absent those the "deal" keeps getting delayed forever.
4/ When corporates buy startups, what's the typical timeline they need to see ROI on their investment.
5/ I understand that founders are often locked-in for some period of time and the money is escrowed until certain milestones are reached. What are common milestones corporates set?
6/ How do VC's perceive companies that want to sell? Assuming our VC will be supportive, what can we expect a VC to help with? Obviously they will introduce us to firms they have relationships with but can we also ask them to spread the word to PE firms that own potential acquirers or build a connection to potential acquirers board. How much engagement can we realistically expect here?
7/ Any terms we should be watchful of to avoid getting screwed post-acquisition?
$20M is a slam dunk for me personally but a loss in VC terms. Should I still think about taking this to Y Combinator?