Hacker News Reader

Comment by iMuzz | Hacker News Reader

YC has a giant application pool. This makes it very difficult for very early stage companies with no revenue / users to compete in the application pool.

As a company with no revenue / users, How can we best stand out against those that do have growth / users?

I understand that companies can apply for the fellowship. But what does a company lose by getting into the Fellowship over Core?

View on HN

We fund companies with no traction/revenue all the time, though the bar is higher.

A really compelling idea is more important to us than traction or revenue. We understand how quickly exponential growth happens.

Sam given the huge volume of applications you guys have to go through and the limited time you have to look at each one do you think that you are in a position to accurately judge if an idea is compelling or not? You can judge traction quickly, but it takes much more time to judge the quality of a pure idea.

It is interesting that on this AMA you say both "ideas are worth so little" and "a really compelling idea is more important to us than traction or revenue." Can you elaborate?

Ideas are worthless, except those that aren't.

I think the compatibility of those statements hinges on the difference between an idea in the sense of something you could transfer in an elevator, and an idea in the sense of the culmination of an entire viewpoint on a topic, along with the mind(s) that developed that viewpoint.

It is striking. My guesses:

1. Revenue/traction are worth even less.

2. Not the idea itself, but the passion and resolve it evokes in the founder, and their backgound and general ability to be able to execute it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com