It's ironic that YC membership might become exactly the kind of credential to investors that a college degree is to employers, given PG's distaste for such things. Makes me a little sad, actually.
When a startup we rejected does well, we usually know about it without them telling us though. And when one does we go back and try to figure out how we missed them. We've already made several changes in the application process because of good startups we missed.
What about something that seems too radical for the model, like energy sources or medical devices? Those lessons could take 3-5 years to become obvious.
2. We now have YC alumni read the applications too.
We'd be happy to try funding energy sources or medical devices, but we just don't get many applications for that sort of thing.
Just three examples: First, the capital requirements of a med dev company are much higher than a software company. 11K + 3K*n wouldn't even cover the early biocompatibility and animal trials needed to demonstrate proof of concept.
Second, there is less measurable progress in 10 weeks relative to a software company, due in part to the length of the aforementioned trials.
Third, there's no ability to release a minimum viable product to customers and quickly pivot based on their feedback. That's partly because in medical technology 'customer' is an unclear concept and partly because your product won't get used in a meaningful way until feasibility human trials, which are at minimum several months after prototypes are created.
...making great progress with the newly re-branded his "innie" and his/hers "outie" models. Since I'm bootstrapping (at the moment) my target markets are individual consumers, though the long-term roadmap calls for FDA Pharmaco-Therapeutic classification and Class II medical device approval by year 3.
What if I told you that this product sits at the forefront of a $15bn industry. Is that something you might be interested in?