This is how YC works. "We accept idea stage" is a partial myth that gives regular people hope

[aliciaew]

I know YC says all the time that "you can apply with just an idea." So this tricks a lot of people with really good ideas into thinking that they have a chance with YC, even with just an idea and no MVP or revenue. The problem is that if you do not fall into the categories, you're not getting in with just an idea:

Category 1: Former founder who raised capital and had a successful exit

Category 2: Young undergrad/postgrad in MIT, Stanford, Harvard (or any of the similar unis)

Category 3: PhD student or graduate with deep knowledge and new insight into an industry.

Category 4: A graduate from one of the schools mentioned above (MIT etc)

Category 5: Present FAANG or Ex-FAANG

Category 6: Employee/Ex-employee of other top tech companies/MBB company(for the CEOs)

Category 7: A highly technical team with a mix of the above categories.

If you and your teammates don't fall into one of these categories, just forget about getting accepted at idea stage. The best way to be accepted to YC is to build your MVP, get some good traction/revenue, and then apply.

YC has a strong bias for elite people (even though they deny this countless times), as we all know that actions speak louder than words. What we see is the reality of YC, not what they say. Good luck to everyone!

 

[rachel_44]

@aliciaew Forget about getting accepted into YC, build product, talk to users, grow your metrics. YC is not what makes you succeed, your determination and focus is.

 

[youb4me]

@rachel_44 Seems like a strange thing to say in a sub dedicated to YC.

 

[rachel_44]

@youb4me No it’s not. The reason why? That’s what YC would tell you too.

I’m not saying don’t apply to YC, I am saying you don’t win by getting accepted into YC, so that should not be your focus. The great thing about being focused on the stuff I mentioned? You’d improve your odds of getting accepted massively!

 

[skyvongolaprimo]

@youb4me The opposite: This is the perfect place to say something like this

 

[anhphuong]

@rachel_44 What if your project is too expensive to build without some startup capital from YC or a similar group. For instance, a hardware tech startup. How are you supposed to get that off the ground?

 

[rachel_44]

@anhphuong Well, you’re not entitled to get something off the ground just because you want to. With 3D printers, you should be able to build the first 10 by hand. That should reduce the cost to something you could fund on your own.

 

[hesgoturback]

@aliciaew My objection to this system isn't about "fairness". It's that narrowing the scope that way is in direct contradiction to "make something people want". The big money is not in SaaS. It's outside the tech bubble. It's facebook and Google, companies solving problems for masses of people. Not niche sexy tech that appeals to technologists

 

[masako]

@hesgoturback Yes but the bigger the idea the more worthless it is. Let’s take a few examples: Flying cars, curing cancer, increasing longevity.

3 giant ideas. Multi-billion (maybe trillion) dollar ideas. But no one in their right mind will give me money just because the idea is big.

 

[lyn02]

@hesgoturback This is well thought out. I agree 100%

 

[masako]

@hesgoturback Yes but the bigger the idea the more worthless it is. Let’s take a few examples: Flying cars, curing cancer, increasing longevity.

3 giant ideas. Multi-billion (maybe trillion) dollar ideas. But no one in their right mind will give me money just because the idea is big.

 

[luanvan24]

@aliciaew Honestly, this post should be made sticky for the benefit of all.

The category list can be made official by crowdsourcing.

I think there is Category 8: Companies who already have tons of traction, but are willing to give up 10% for the access to Series A funding which YC facilitates.

 

[programofficial]

@luanvan24 Yep, in our batch there were a couple of non-US cos around for 4 years with great traction who applied and got in on the basis of US expansion and capital access

 

[luanvan24]

@programofficial The dollar conversion rate helps the non-US companies. YC funding itself is equal to series A type investment in India.

 

[laramarina]

@aliciaew Of course there's a bias for elite engineering universities. They're more likely to produce founders with strong technical talent/market insight. A Stanford student will be on average, more technical, more entrepreneurial, and perhaps most importantly, have a network of OTHER Stanford students vs a grad from Florida Atlantic University.

YC's success hinges on being an accurate prediction machine. And they'll take into account variables that have correlated to success in the past. This of course, doesn't make for good PR so they won't admit it publicly or they'll obfuscate the real criterion.

Just go heads down, build and stop worrying about YC. If you needed YC to make it, you'd probably fail either way.

 

[skyvongolaprimo]

@laramarina Perfect. The majority of successes did it without YC.

Just one addition: imho every VC behaves as described. It’s not an unique behavior from YC.

You either show traction or show credentials. It’s impossible to raise money without both.

 

[matthewv]

@laramarina Highly doubt a Standford student will be more technical OR more entrepreneurial then grads from any other non-joke university.

Time and time again when put to the test these types of stereotypes get crushed under any real examination. The top 5% of any decent university is all going to be made up of the exact same types of people.

The reason people think otherwise is because of programs like YC or companies like a Goldman Sachs (of years prior) that only hire from certain places, inflating the "worth" of them.

 

[laramarina]

@matthewv Stanford is the most successful school for building entrepreneurs and it's not even close. Yale and Princeton have many brilliant students, but those schools attract the types that want to become doctors, lawyers, politicians. CalTech students are probably smarter than the average Stanford student, but there's probably a bias here to people who want to literally be rocket scientists.

Stanford attracts the types of students that want to build a VC funded tech company, the Silicon Valley prototype.

 

[matthewv]

@laramarina Again, you just said it yourself and fell into the exact same fallacy I mentioned, "build a VC funded tech company". A VC funded tech company is not the only type of company or even the only approach to building in tech that exists.

That neither makes Stanford graduates more technical nor entrepreneurial then any of the other large schools.

 

[rebelde]

@laramarina What about the Duke, NYU, USC, Northwestern types? We're some CS/CompE/math students from there (three of those) and will be trying to pre-seed fundraise in two months. We will have a very basic lean prototype, but given then nature of the problem we're trying to solve, we can't launch in the traditional sense like a SaaS or an app.