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Comment by berpasan | Hacker News Reader

Hi @sama, I'm From Brazil and CEO of an EdTech startup. We're profitable, with 60 employees and a lot consumer traction/revenue, but didn't raise a Series A yet. Questions:

1) What advice would you give to applicants from Brazil and other large countries (India, China, Russia), whose products initially target their local markets?

2) What advice would you give to post-Seed and pre-Series A applicants? When (if at all) would you consider them "too big for YC"?

3) If you select a post Seed startup, would YC invest at their latest valuation, or would it only offer the standard deal, even if it would be a "down round" for current investors?

Heard you are visiting India and know you've been to Mexico not long ago. Ever thought about coming to Brazil? Best regards, Bernardo

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1) No specific advice--we fund lots of companies whose products target far-away markets and are particularly interested in doing so. The only different question we might ask you is "How will you handle being away from your users for 3 months?"

2) We have funded companies that have raised more than $10 million, and they've said they still got a lot of value out of YC. If anything, it's usually the existing investors that have a problem with it.

3) Standard deal, BUT we buy common stock, so it doesn't trigger any anti-dilution stuff. Most investors understand that YC is mostly "sweat equity" anyway.

I might come to Brazil for New Years!

Wow, that would be great! Please, let us know if we can help in any way during your visit. Lots of interesting things for you to see in the Brazilian startup ecosystem. We are close to São Paulo (where Embraer, the 3rd largest airplane manufacturer in the world is located). Regards

That is my home town! What do you guys do? I currently live in Campinas but would love to know Startups in SJC!

Plz, come visit us: http://redealumni.com

My email is bernardo ARROBA redealumni PONTO com

Minor nit on #3: Doesn't the new YC stock agreement come with pro rata rights...? Doesn't that mean it's not really common stock? (In the sense that those rights aren't explicitly given to employees and founders.)

You can still have pro rata rights on common shares.

When are you visiting India? Which cities would you be visiting. I strongly recommend visiting Powai Valley(Mumbai). It is a very small area highly dense with great startups. The ecosystem is insane here as almost 90% of the start up are founded by IIT-Bombay alums (I am also one) which is just 2 km away from the area. Many people from SV who visited here have said this is better than SV in terms of eco-system.

If you come to Brazil and you can spare a couple of hours it would be very nice to have you in one of our meetups for our local community http://meetup.com/Germinadora/ we are fans of YC.

Hey there. Do you mind if ask what's your startup?

Just out of curiosity; I'm Brazilian too :)

Our product is here: http://querobolsa.com.br

What's yours?

Nice.

I have some colleagues adventuring in entrepreneurship, but right now I'm a typical 9 to 5 enterprise employee (at http://aec.com.br).

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