What this says me, and hopefully you is this:
"that inconsequential thing you are staring today.. do not be so sure it is that inconsequential. Most of all just do it"
I really enjoyed PGs post for the detailed description of the thought process behind the creation of YC and how they took those initial steps (including getting the funds together and deciding how to run it).
A lot of 'this is how I became successful' biographies seldom provide that level of detail. Whilst I still find them interesting, I found PGs writing to be more inspirational (to me anyway) because it's almost like a 'how-to' guide.
agreed. From that post, only missed some more insight on how he dealt with that first batch on the summer camp. Were most of the ideas already good? Did everyone even got there with ideas ready to go? etc
The downvotes are because you are not adding to the core conversation. The community standard is that if you support a comment then up-vote it, and that's it.
Additionally if you have something to say in response then write a comment.
Thanks. That's a decent explanation. :) I did read the Hacker News Guidelines but apparently not well enough. I definitely missed this: "Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." Apologies, all.
Fantastic read. It's really interesting to hear about how Y Combinator started much like a startup itself. Today we take YC for granted, but 7 years ago that concept must have been extremely novel and easily dismissed. It's hard for me to imagine the modern tech world without YC, though.
"Initially we didn't have what turned out to be the most important idea: funding startups synchronously, instead of asynchronously as it had always been done before. Or rather we had the idea, but we didn't realize its significance. We decided very early that the first thing we'd do would be to fund a bunch of startups over the coming summer."
I wonder what the best batch size is: each cohort seems to be larger than the last. When does it makes sense to do three, four, or six a year as smaller batches.
Happy birthday YC & Co. Been a fan since it was publicly announced.
And not to take anything away from YC's effort but I find it rather amusing that first time some good hackers take their turn at improving the VC industry they transform it and become (arguably) the most successful investors in it.
I wish more people would try to improve the VC industry. There's at least a few YC-level waves that could occur. AngelList the best example.
I think there's an upper limit to the quality of entrepreneurial mentorship you can give, mostly as a function of (1) the mentors and (2) the mentor-entrepreneur ratio. Right now, YC invests in roughly $20k/company * 60 companies/batch * 2 batches/year = $2.4M per year. If they were forced to invest 50-100x that in a year, it'd be really hard to find 50-100x more mentors on the same level as the existing ones.
So doing the winter batch in California seemed like one of those rare cases where the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious one were the same.
There is nothing more heavenly, more sublime than that rare situation in life in which the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious choice align. There's a keen insight to be had there.
Unfortunately, those moments are very rare.
For instance, at least, in terms of my personal temperament and disposition, I have found that I most enjoy life, from a "human" perspective, in places that are terrible places to do business, and may, in fact, have very dysfunctional local economies, high amount of corruption, etc. I'm the kind of person that has the most fun in the colour of Greece, Italy, southern Spain, Portugal, Argentina, etc. I can appreciate the comparative orderliness and clockwork of Teutonic and Anglo-American civilisation, but it doesn't make me happy, and yet I need that whole universe in order to sustain my livelihood in any practical sense. But everything else about it doesn't make me very happy.
I wish there were some way to reconcile those two. I haven't found any place that has an optimal intersection of cowbell on the one hand, and practicality on the other. Maybe it exists, but I haven't found it. However, my natural sense is that there is a inherent, perennial tension between the two.
That's why that particular phrase really got me. I wish dearly for such a Shangri-la.
That's the reason I actually moved in NYC. For a French 20 something, it's a great city to live in, it's not too far from Europe and the tech scene is booming.
My next stop will probably be Brazil. I've travelled over 45 countries and Brazil seems to have that unique combination of "human" perspective, a work culture and a growing tech ecosystem. You should give it a try :)
I work here in Madtown :-), but I'm not sure that I would describe it as a start-up hub. Sure, there's the university and that has lots of energy, but tech start-ups? I'm curious what you see that I don't.
(Perhaps it's because I only work here and live an hour out of town, that I don't see it.)
And actually, corruption is not really much of a concern right now, it's more of radical incompetence on all levels. At this point, no amount of bribery will help you go smoother.
the colour of Greece, Italy, southern Spain, Portugal, Argentina, etc. I can appreciate the comparative orderliness and clockwork of Teutonic and Anglo-American civilisation, but it doesn't make me happy, and yet I need that whole universe in order to sustain my livelihood in any practical sense
Maybe try Hong Kong? I haven't lived there but it seems colourful (in the Asian rather than Southern European sense) and yet still has the British history.
I was about to suggest the same. I currently live there (and Shenzhen) and it is indeed colorful. I just wish there was a stronger startup culture. The entrepreneurship culture is definitely there but for low-risk, traditional business. I personally prefer Shenzhen to Hong Kong although it is difficult to function in English.
Sounds like a good idea for China. However, I wouldn't call Hong Kong an emerging market given it has a highly developed economy and is ranked 5th country in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita (above the US, according to the IMF).
For you people who talk about bouncing around working abroad, what do you do? Are you running your own company or freelancing? Or just moving to another country and then looking for work?
I'd love to work abroad but I don't really see how to go about it.
In my case, running my consultancy (call it freelancing if you like). But the work can pretty much be done from anywhere that has reliable connectivity, though this is a privilege whose existence I have hitherto ignored.
Berlin makes a lot of noise about its startup culture, but it's vanishingly small. The winters are absolutely horrible. Also, the city is full of Germans.
Yeah, but settling in Chile when Buenos Aires is right there is like setting up shop in Yonkers or Jersey City, the lights of NYC taunting you from across the river. :-)
To tell the truth northern Italy alone is one of the most developed, wealthy and productive areas in Europe. The industrial density is extremely high and diversified.
Um... how about Berkeley? It's mostly a terrible place to do business, has a dysfunctional local economy, but is part of Greater Silicon Valley despite its weirdness.
One of the things that I noticed is how YC's opinion regarding patents has evolved since its founding.
>"If you're accepted, we'll deal with the paperwork for you. We'll incorporate you, get you a corporate bank account, supply simple, generic employment agreements for you to use, and so on. We can give some advice about patents, though you don't have to deal with that in the earliest stages; you have a year after making a discovery to file a US patent application for it." [http://ycombinator.com/old/sfp.html]
However, the best part of the story was the I'm-quitting-my-job smile.
However, the claim that they have recently become an existential threat is dubious, in my opinion.
Yes, there are lots of stories in the techpress about industry titans battering each with patents and partisan ranting which often accompanies it. What there aren't is stories on HN about startups forced to shutter because of patent claims.
But more importantly, funding for startups is accelerating not slowing as would be expected if software patents were a serious threat on the scale your post implies.
The problem with software patents for an investor such as YC is that they are hard to quantify as a risk and thus create uncertainty. What I see is that YC's initial approach to software patents was naive from an investment standpoint, i.e. that the risks of uncertainty turned out to be significantly greater than the potential gains from patent licensing.
I don't think YC's change was do to wholesale adoption of a FOSS ideology or conversion to Stallmanism. The day patents become a true existential threat, YC will not be funding software startups.
I work at a startup whose founder was forced to shutter a previous startup with more promise (ever heard of Modista?) because they were sued by iLike for a patent that had clear prior art. The suit came in the midst of a funding round and basically killed the company as it was just gaining steam. I anticipate that there are numerous similar stories that you've never heard... People don't exactly like to talk about succumbing to bullying.
As he wrote this, PG asked me if I remembered the chronology of certain things and it was very hard. So much is blurred together in my mind. But I remember the night we decided to start YC and this photo.
It wasn't just happiness that I was quitting my job. I was also so excited about this idea and the opportunity to work on something that could make a difference in the world.
It shows and I wasn't intending to trivialize what I know was a complex decision. [edit] There's nothing quite like the person one loves confirming that it truly is for better or worse.[/edit]
Happy birthday YC! It's awesome that YC is as scrappy and as startup-minded as the hackers they fund. They stick to their roots. They talk the talk and walk the walk.
now pg, please put some left and right padding on those static pages =]
Can't find a link, but I think I saw somewhere that pg/YC actually pitched reddit to the reddit team because they liked the team but disliked their original idea.
Wow, that's phenomenal. In 7 years, out of 8 companies there were 5 acquisitions (and a couple mergers). I'm sure any VC would be ecstatic to have that kind of success rate.
Reddit is the most prominent. It's had a huge impact although from what I understand it hasn't done extremely well financially.
I don't know what Reddit sold for, but while Loopt's $40M was far down from its earlier $500M, it's still a hell of a lot more than the ~$300k valuation it would have had when YC invested in it.
I think he's not just talking about the dollar value of exits, but the value of the founders.
The founders of Loopt, the Reddits, and Justin.tv have done a lot for the YC program (and for startups in general) going forward; arguably these 3 moderate successes financially for YC but having very involved alumni might be worth more than a huge financial success which didn't stay involved with YC.
The comment that I was specifically replying to was this:
"Wow, that's phenomenal. In 7 years, out of 8 companies there were 5 acquisitions (and a couple mergers). I'm sure any VC would be ecstatic to have that kind of success rate."
I don't see how that statement has anything to do with the value of the founders.
He said "5 acquisitions" not "2 (or 3) acquisitions and additionally they have very involved alumni.
It's amazing to see the humble roots of YC and what it has grown into now. As a person who made it through 2/3 of the previous batch I can honestly say there is no other experience like it and solely the intelligence of the people you are placed in the same room as week in and week out is enough for you to be at least as ambitious as the founders of YC were. Quit your job, make the leap, build something great.
Au contraire, founder disputes are something very few entrepreneurs write about, especially YC-caliber entrepreneurs; and yet anecdotally, they happen rather frequently. I stand by my assertion that writing a blog post about it would be good; please consider doing so, especially if you have insight on how to avoid or prevent it from happening.
>If we'd had enough time to do what we wanted, Y Combinator would have been in Berkeley. That was our favorite part of the Bay Area. But we didn't have time to get a building in Berkeley.
I'm in Berkeley and quite like it here but that's also because I mostly avoid networking events. Berkeley's startup culture is a bit weird because the city is in some ways anti-software business. If YC were here, it would have been enough of a political force by now to have actually shifted the epicenter of Silicon Valley around enough for Berkeley to be taken more seriously as a place for startups.
"If we'd had enough time to do what we wanted, Y Combinator would have been in Berkeley."
As a co-founder of Berkeley based company from YC S11 batch. Darn it! Berkeley would have been a great place to start YC. With Berkeley campus supplying a lot of CS students and the easy-going counter-culture that Berkeley provides (which gels well with counter-intuitive funding strategy of YC). It would have been great! Of course, the VCs would've to trek to Berkeley to attend demo days but that filters out the people who aren't serious. :)
On the flip side, now that MobileWorks is here, pg, jl and the YC community have a welcome place to hang out when they're in Berkeley. Thursday nights at the MobileWorks offices are starting to have a YC vibe to them.
I had the opposite reaction: "What good fortune that they didn't have enough time!" Not that Berkeley isn't great, but it isn't in the Valley. It's hard to imagine YC being quite as successful if it weren't right in the thick of things.
"We realized early on that what we were doing could be national in scope and we didn't want a name that tied us to one place."
Personally I find that one of the most important reasons to think long and hard about a name. Most startups go through many pivot points until they finally get it right. Choosing a name that is overly representative of the present business model can lead to team lock-in that could spell the death of a company before it even gets going.
It seems a wiser decision is to go with a name that represents a startup's future ambitions instead of its present circumstances.
SOmetimes, opportunity meets preparation, or so the saying goes. When things fall into place and fit, usualy great things emerge. And that happy smile, even it would have been only for that moment and one summer batch, I think most people involved it would have ben worth it.
Happy birthday and continue on like you do!
Wayback is instructive for founders. If ever you doubt the value of what you're doing, and fight desires to hold fire and perfect more features, the wayback machine is a great reminder that those companies that succeeded started somewhere less than minimal too, and executed on from there.
If you are interested in those early years, there is also some video footage of that first class (and interview with PG) in Aardvarked, the Joel Spolsky video made that same summer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NRL7YsXjSg&feature=playe...
104 comments
[ 9.1 ms ] story [ 191 ms ] threadWhat this says me, and hopefully you is this: "that inconsequential thing you are staring today.. do not be so sure it is that inconsequential. Most of all just do it"
A lot of 'this is how I became successful' biographies seldom provide that level of detail. Whilst I still find them interesting, I found PGs writing to be more inspirational (to me anyway) because it's almost like a 'how-to' guide.
I wonder what the best batch size is: each cohort seems to be larger than the last. When does it makes sense to do three, four, or six a year as smaller batches.
And not to take anything away from YC's effort but I find it rather amusing that first time some good hackers take their turn at improving the VC industry they transform it and become (arguably) the most successful investors in it.
I wish more people would try to improve the VC industry. There's at least a few YC-level waves that could occur. AngelList the best example.
why would a pension fund give money to Sequoia, and then have them give it to YC? that's an unnecessary management fee the pension funds have to pay
If a pension fund wanted to invest $250m in YC, they'd have to scale up by so much I doubt it would work the same.
I wonder if pg has written anything about this, if there is some point of diminishing returns in the lean startup scene
There is nothing more heavenly, more sublime than that rare situation in life in which the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious choice align. There's a keen insight to be had there.
Unfortunately, those moments are very rare.
For instance, at least, in terms of my personal temperament and disposition, I have found that I most enjoy life, from a "human" perspective, in places that are terrible places to do business, and may, in fact, have very dysfunctional local economies, high amount of corruption, etc. I'm the kind of person that has the most fun in the colour of Greece, Italy, southern Spain, Portugal, Argentina, etc. I can appreciate the comparative orderliness and clockwork of Teutonic and Anglo-American civilisation, but it doesn't make me happy, and yet I need that whole universe in order to sustain my livelihood in any practical sense. But everything else about it doesn't make me very happy.
I wish there were some way to reconcile those two. I haven't found any place that has an optimal intersection of cowbell on the one hand, and practicality on the other. Maybe it exists, but I haven't found it. However, my natural sense is that there is a inherent, perennial tension between the two.
That's why that particular phrase really got me. I wish dearly for such a Shangri-la.
What a great age we live in!
I guess quitting the 9-5 to work on startups might qualify - there's always sacrifices though :)
(Perhaps it's because I only work here and live an hour out of town, that I don't see it.)
Ticino, Switzerland
Slovenia
Well, that went fast!
And actually, corruption is not really much of a concern right now, it's more of radical incompetence on all levels. At this point, no amount of bribery will help you go smoother.
Maybe try Hong Kong? I haven't lived there but it seems colourful (in the Asian rather than Southern European sense) and yet still has the British history.
I'd love to work abroad but I don't really see how to go about it.
(I've lived here for four years.)
Other than that, set yourself up so you can live somewhere you like and work remotely.
Also, Italy is very different from north to south. The north is still not a great place to do business, but it's a lot better than the south.
>"If you're accepted, we'll deal with the paperwork for you. We'll incorporate you, get you a corporate bank account, supply simple, generic employment agreements for you to use, and so on. We can give some advice about patents, though you don't have to deal with that in the earliest stages; you have a year after making a discovery to file a US patent application for it." [http://ycombinator.com/old/sfp.html]
However, the best part of the story was the I'm-quitting-my-job smile.
However, the claim that they have recently become an existential threat is dubious, in my opinion.
Yes, there are lots of stories in the techpress about industry titans battering each with patents and partisan ranting which often accompanies it. What there aren't is stories on HN about startups forced to shutter because of patent claims.
But more importantly, funding for startups is accelerating not slowing as would be expected if software patents were a serious threat on the scale your post implies.
The problem with software patents for an investor such as YC is that they are hard to quantify as a risk and thus create uncertainty. What I see is that YC's initial approach to software patents was naive from an investment standpoint, i.e. that the risks of uncertainty turned out to be significantly greater than the potential gains from patent licensing.
I don't think YC's change was do to wholesale adoption of a FOSS ideology or conversion to Stallmanism. The day patents become a true existential threat, YC will not be funding software startups.
It wasn't just happiness that I was quitting my job. I was also so excited about this idea and the opportunity to work on something that could make a difference in the world.
Congratulations on a job well done.
now pg, please put some left and right padding on those static pages =]
I'd love to read a "where are they now" post on the first couple batches of founders, along with some quotes from them.
Kiko - Acquired by Tucows, team founded Justin.tv
Loopt - Raised 15million in Series A and B financing, at it's peak was valued at $500m, sold for $40m to Green Dot
Simmery - Closed. Founder went back to uni.
Infogami - Merged with Reddit.
MemAmp - Never launched, one founder (Chris) joined reddit one (Zak) went back to uni.
FireCrawl - Never launched, team founded TextPayMe and got acquired by amazon.
ClickFacts - YC stake acquired by private investors because YC wasn't a good fit. Company still exists.
Reddit is the most prominent. It's had a huge impact although from what I understand it hasn't done extremely well financially.
That's quite a halo effect that has prevented you from seeing the true "success rate".
Where are you getting 5 acquisitions from?
Reddit, Loopt basically made out.
Infogami merged with Reddit. That's essentially a save face maneuver and doesn't exactly signal success.
Clickfacts - "YC stake acquired by private investors" doesn't sound like that would be a win but a break even. More like "take it off our hands".
Kiko - Sold in an ebay auction for 258,000.
http://gigaom.com/2006/09/05/tucows-bought-kiko/
http://tucowsinc.com/news/2006/09/why-we-bought-kikocom/
I'd give it 2.1 out of 8.
[1] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/loopt
The founders of Loopt, the Reddits, and Justin.tv have done a lot for the YC program (and for startups in general) going forward; arguably these 3 moderate successes financially for YC but having very involved alumni might be worth more than a huge financial success which didn't stay involved with YC.
"Wow, that's phenomenal. In 7 years, out of 8 companies there were 5 acquisitions (and a couple mergers). I'm sure any VC would be ecstatic to have that kind of success rate."
I don't see how that statement has anything to do with the value of the founders.
He said "5 acquisitions" not "2 (or 3) acquisitions and additionally they have very involved alumni.
Congrats to everyone who has ever applied and the YC team! You have changed the rules of the game for the better...
I'm in Berkeley and quite like it here but that's also because I mostly avoid networking events. Berkeley's startup culture is a bit weird because the city is in some ways anti-software business. If YC were here, it would have been enough of a political force by now to have actually shifted the epicenter of Silicon Valley around enough for Berkeley to be taken more seriously as a place for startups.
As a co-founder of Berkeley based company from YC S11 batch. Darn it! Berkeley would have been a great place to start YC. With Berkeley campus supplying a lot of CS students and the easy-going counter-culture that Berkeley provides (which gels well with counter-intuitive funding strategy of YC). It would have been great! Of course, the VCs would've to trek to Berkeley to attend demo days but that filters out the people who aren't serious. :)
On the flip side, now that MobileWorks is here, pg, jl and the YC community have a welcome place to hang out when they're in Berkeley. Thursday nights at the MobileWorks offices are starting to have a YC vibe to them.
Personally I find that one of the most important reasons to think long and hard about a name. Most startups go through many pivot points until they finally get it right. Choosing a name that is overly representative of the present business model can lead to team lock-in that could spell the death of a company before it even gets going.
It seems a wiser decision is to go with a name that represents a startup's future ambitions instead of its present circumstances.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050324062234/http://ycombinator...
Wayback is instructive for founders. If ever you doubt the value of what you're doing, and fight desires to hold fire and perfect more features, the wayback machine is a great reminder that those companies that succeeded started somewhere less than minimal too, and executed on from there.
"Privacy Policy: We're too lazy to look at log files, and haven't yet written any software to do it.
Terms of Use: When you click on a link, our server will send you the corresponding page."
Love it. Unlike many other sites, this one hasn't changed in years.
edit: privacy policy is gone (so I presume they got around to writing the software)