Open Application for YC Growth Program | Hacker News Reader

Open Application for YC Growth Program

blog.ycombinator.com

68 pointscbcowans20 comments

How does total number of employees is a good proxy for success of the company?

In my opinion, total number of employees is a bad proxy as it fundamentally masquerades the unit economics and profit margins once they have revenue in several multiples of millions (which is what founders should have on their mind all the time if growth is healthy). Also, naturally logistics related startups will have more full time employees vs. pure SaaS company. Venture business is run by outliers. And 2 of the outliers of last 5-6 years were Instagram and WhatsApp - both of which had less than 50 employees at the time of sale.

Would love to hear thoughts of YC on this.

When I went through YC, one of the things the partners beat into our heads was "more employees ≠ success." I don't think that's changed.

I see the headcount guidelines for YC Growth not as a belief that "headcount = success," but instead an attempt to create a batch of companies facing similar challenges - the people challenges that come as a company grows from 50->150.

If you can avoid the 50->150 problems by scaling your company's impact without having to scale headcount, that's incredible! You might not need YC Growth.

WhatsApp only needs 50 engineers for its 900M users back then (After Series B).

I wonder at the design of this program and what incentive the is to join:

...The Growth Program is designed for companies with between 50 – 150 employees that are scaling rapidly. Ideal candidates are companies that expect to double employees, revenue, customers, etc in the next year of operation....

Why would I spend 3 months of my time (time I could apply to running my company), if I already had this level of success ? Plus, no promise of a funding round.

What am I missing ?

> What am I missing ?

You're missing that scaling beyond that requires knowledge and experience that you're not going to collect while 'training on the job'.

One doesn't just coast after entering that phase of growth, there is a completely new and very real set of problems and challenges to face. If I were running a company with 100 employees and I expected that to double in the next year, I'd want all of the help I could get. I'd have no reason to believe that this would be any less difficult than the earlier stage of that company.

It’s not 3 months. It’s one evening a week over 3 months.

Are you guys open to companies that may conflict with current portfolio or would that be an auto disqualify? Especially, since this is not directly tied to funding.

I know they fund similar companies all the time, so I wouldn't think that's an issue.

For some years now the average YC batch size has been 100+ companies. With so many companies, it's inevitable to select and support competitors. My experience is that conflict of interest is not a thing at that stage.

If you feel like you're competing with other companies at seed/A stage, maybe your market is too small?

In short: Yes, they'll select you.

Have you considered how this will impact people who are running a business with 50+ employees 10000km and 9hours time zones away from the Bay Area?

As it is, it's definitely optimized for US companies who can afford to fly in for the weekly dinners without allowing their companies suffer from their 3 month absence.

YC is US centric, and more specifically SV centric. If you are not in a position to benefit from this that will no doubt skew the situation even further away from a level playing field but that is how the rest of the world feels anyway. All attempts to duplicate Silicon Valley to date have failed.

Taiwan has plenty of talented people [1] [2], but there aren't as many accelerators like YC over here.

If any investors are disillusioned with living in the US, you're welcome to visit Taiwan!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16271384 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16272114

It sounds like you're upset about capital inequality around the world, which is fair. YC abstaining from taking advantage of such knowledge concentration for ideological reasons, though, would not help global inequality. All that would happen is that YC would be usurped by another organization that isn't afraid of such issues. Problems like income and capital inequality are definitely growing issues in our country and world, but they probably won't be solved by individual companies within a capitalistic society.

Upset?

Ha! Why would I be?

I just asked what I think to be a sensible question.

How will those far away cope? Or how does YC expect them to cope?

Considering they are running big businesses full time and cannot miss one of the weekly dinners.

It's OK if it's US centric. And it's OK if it has not been considered.

PS: That was quite a leap you took though. Olympic level. ;)

Is there a demo day or expectation of a Series A round of funding at the conclusion of the program?

No Demo Day or fundraising event currently planned.

Just wondering: Why Elon Musk did not go to YC when he starts SpaceX?

I think he already had a (successful) startup experience by that time and also some money.

So it means founders who have a (successful) startup experience and money don't need YC?

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