Follow up: 86% of S23 is based in the Bay Area

[zedrick]

A few weeks ago I posted about how Y Combinator is all about prestige.

You can read my old post here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ycombinator/comments/13q6ql9/y_combinator_is_not_for_the_little_guy_anymore_or

It was quite funny watching people coping in the comments, arguing that Y Combinator is fair and ultimately it all boils down to skills. Get better! Speak to customers! Get more MRR! It's all in your hands!

The stats are in. 86% of the founders are in the bay area. Prestige matters, my point stands.

My favorite highlight from one of the new companies in the batch is the following:

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/quill-ai

The bio from one of the founders, Gabriel Banks says:

Love to touch computer all day

What sheer brilliance. "Love to touch computer all day". I wonder what convinced the YC partners?

Ohhhh... he went to MIT.

Got it.

Anyways, before any one of you claims that I'm just butt hurt, my co-founder and I literally doubled our MRR in the past two weeks (thanks to enterprise deals).

Focus on yourselves kings.

 

[jesuspleasesaveme]

@zedrick Awesome work. I think too often founders lose sight of the forest for the trees. The primary goal is to build a successful business first and foremost, not appeal to investors.

Would love if you’d share what you’re building and what’s your background? Totally understand if you don’t want to share and that this is just a throwaway account to talk about YC.

 

[zedrick]

@jesuspleasesaveme I can't share any details. I don't want to create enemies... I know my bluntness can piss people off.

I'm in my mid-twenties, middle-class, and attended a very average university (mostly to please my parents). I'm a tech freak, I've been building products for as long as I can remember.

In regards to what we're building today, of course it's B2B SaaS. From the day we applied to YC until today we ~20x MRR (lower 5 figures).

We really thought we had a shot so we were hyper-obsessive about posting updates in our application. The demo account that was created for YC was never touched, I'm not even sure someone actually took the time to read our application.

Now when I think about it, yeah I am a bit salty.

But to be fair I'm grateful for YC. Our pitch deck follows their start-up advice and investors love it. We have applied to some local VC firms and the response have been so good.

We really prepared for the worst kind of YC scrutinization so everything feels so easy now.

 

[jmzr]

@zedrick It sounds like obsessively setting goals and updating your progress had a positive impact on your business though! Do you have a mechanism that allows you to continue doing this, like a Mastermind group or weekly Slack channel standup/demo w/ your favorite investor?

YC's decision is outside of your control, but you get to decide what your mindset will be (salty). If you found YC's carrot extraordinarily motivating (me too), you can replicate that pressure by joining an accountability group.

 

[neena56]

@zedrick I had worked in startups where they paid the customers cashback or waive the fees to boost up their MRR or TPV just to get new investors to pump in money so that these founders can cash out at early stage.

Until you can really share more about how your MRR is generated or more specifically on how the business model works and can grow at the VC scale, it can be difficult for others to understand if the rejection was or wasn't justified.

 

[zedrick]

@neena56 You think I expected to trick YC into investing? Do you think I expect them to be brain dead?

That is the most bizzare cope I’ve ever heard.

 

[neena56]

@zedrick Not sure why your reply sounds grumpy, but I definitely can see how things didn't work out well. You do know the world doesn't owe you everything right?

First, you posted YC acceptance criteria is geared towards Ivy league or founders with awesome backgrounds, not so much for the little guys. But as a matter of fact, I know at least 20 ppl in my batch (S22) including myself are not from Ivy league or FAANG.

Second, when ppl pointed out that you sounded salty and can't let go of not being accepted, you became very defensive by denying what everyone else notices.

Third, if you are really on a great MRR growth already, you shouldn't be spending time on this post and threads. What you should do is focus on growing your business however you can to prove others wrong.

Honestly, if you are really a founder who is looking to be successful, you should move on and focus on what's best for your venture. And better, don't engage with VC at all, cause in the future, you will highly likely get hundreds of VC rejections on fundraising. Are you gonna be posting about all of them?

Yes, we were rejected by at least 50 VCs during seed round fundraising, it was harsh but we kept note of their concerns and are now pursuing only 1 thing: hit the organic MRR target we need for series A in 3 years time, everything else doesn't matter.

Anyway, I wish you all the best.

 

[zedrick]

@neena56 20 people out of the full batch is still a vast minority. You’re still proving my point.

Also, I pointed out that I might be salty myself; I’m self-aware.

Trying to draw a correlation between my success (or lack of) and the fact that I spent 10 minutes of my day to create a short post is quite funny.

Don’t act like you never scroll social media.

 

[neena56]

@zedrick If it helps you sleep better, I only met about 90+ startups in the batch as we were 420+ companies in the same batch which we were split up into 4 groups, so the at-least-20-founders I met out of the 90 * 2 founders (on average) is definitely high enough to prove the 86% wrong, at least in my batch.

Also, YC is like any other VCs, but more like a startup, they are also experimenting and learning, so even if my batch had higher % of non-privileged founders, it doesn't mean that they will follow the same for the future batches. They are also adapting, especially with this funding winter where everyone is being careful about how they invest.

But my point is:

if you keep getting pissed/salty on how VCs/investors don't like your idea and wouldn't put in the money you expected them to, you would likely end up building for VCs instead of your customers - those who are paying you to grow your business. And yes, this isn't about YC, this is more about you yourself.

 

[dougw59]

@zedrick Hey, this is Gabriel Banks, thanks for the shout out.

However you are factually incorrect about some things:

- I didn't go to MIT. I did a summer program there in high school. I don't even have a college degree.

- As others have pointed out, that 86% figure is mostly meaningless. First, its for the W23 batch. Second, it's for locations AFTER the batch, not before. Third, even if that figure was from before the batch, you don't know what percentage of all applicants are from the Bay Area, so it's impossible to argue that YC favors Bay Area companies by a statistically significant margin.

- You imply my bio had a role in convincing the YC partners of accepting us. Interesting, because that bio is written *after* you get in. The YC partners likely were convinced by our idea and progress, and believed in our ability to execute - just like every other YC company. I wrote a silly bio because I think it stands out more - glad you agree.

It sounds like you and your company are doing great - keep that trajectory going! Ultimately what determines success is whether or not you make something people want, not VC funding. There's many successful companies that were rejected by YC, and many YC companies that have failed.

 

[newlight]

@dougw59 Hi just saw your comment way at the bottom and couldn’t help but laugh. Beautiful. Cheers to you mate and best of luck.

 

[sanyambe]

@zedrick Just to clarify here - 86% of the batch came to the Bay Area for the program (not that they were originally from the Bay). Many stayed.

Anyways, congrats on your progress!

 

[zedrick]

@sanyambe All good - in the end, I'm just observing based on available information to me.

I personally feel that there is a huge disconnect between the persona that YC positions itself to be for, versus who actually gets admitted.

But still, I could be 100% wrong.

 

[jr620]

@zedrick That is not what you showed with your post at all.

 

[zedrick]

@jr620 What did I not show? The 86% number is from the LinkedIn article that I included, here's the exact quote:

> With regards to geography, 86% of the batch founders were based in the Bay Area despite a remote-friendly program

Would you interpret that as 86% moved in, or were already based in the bay area?

Anyhow, I don't want to prove anything. This is just my perspective.

Feel free to scroll through W23 and S23, click on the LinkedIn of the founders, and look where they worked and which university they attended.

Draw your own conclusion. The information is out there.

 

[buna]

@zedrick Its a remote friendly program, but people are encouraged to attend in the US because of various on site events and connections with other founders.

A lot of companies from W23 were from different countries, and stayed back, or are incorporated in the US. The data was wrong for last batch, and would be misleading ahead as well.

 

[buithanhtruong92]

@zedrick You're focusing on the wrong thing.

Being in the Bay Area, especially as a tech startup, has a ton of benefits. A lot of my batch mates stayed in Bay Area after the batch.

Can you build a great VC-backed business outside of Bay Area? Definitely. But you get an unfair advantage of being in the Bay Area. Especially when you start mingling with like minded people who also want to see you win. It's all about pattern matching. I know what I would do if I was to do another startup.

Source: S20, solo first-time founder, from a non-target city, without any formal education besides two completed courses at a community college.

 

[buna]

@buithanhtruong92 To add to that, selection in YC opens different doors for immigration otherwise not possible.
As PG says, one of the biggest mistakes startup founders do is mot being in Bay Area, and founders optimise to not do that mistake if possible.

 

[malvina]

@zedrick Correction: these are stats for W23, not S23

 

[misterdisc]

@malvina Yeah. I’d be surprised if the S23 stats were already available.