How not to get accepted to YC or Techstars | Hacker News Reader

How not to get accepted to YC or Techstars

saint-rebel.com

25 pointsstrebel6 comments

Linkbait and strawman. "Why didn’t we apply to what seems like a necessary program to launch a startup these days?" Even PG would not claim that YC is "a necessary program to launch a startup."

It is indeed pretty clever to claim that doing something the majority of startups do is a bold move and worthy of attention on that account. (I wish the majority of new startups applied to YC, but that is almost certainly not the case.)

Think you are missing the point. I am asking 'is' it necessary, really? The trend is going in the direction that to be considered 'legit' a startup is compelled to participate.

The 500 check in hand investors at the latest demo-day speaks to the tail wagging the dog cycle that is beginning.

I think this statement is very powerful by itself for YC, TS and all other accelerators:

"From all apparent sources they have seemed be similarly aligned with founders after the same things, successful companies. If this trend continues of more accelerators, and more startups applying to them, and the primary benefit becomes out of reach of non participating companies, then it would likely have the opposite effect."

and this...

"It appears though that it is becoming more and more necessary to participate in these programs and pay the price of admission to gain entrance to the club. "

So will accelerators become the next Subway Sandwich franchise?

I'd like to hear more about how you rolled your nice little snowball. Did you have any VC? You didn't have YC, but you did get support from Gangplank (gangplankhq.com) right?

Entirely bootstraped. We had some personal savings that allowed us to run real lean and build up revenue slowly without trying to out run burn. We hit a tipping point about 8 months in where the momentum started to carry us.

We are an orignial anchor of Gangplank, but never utilized any funding but am thankful for the community support. Gangplank is a great collaborative workspace, in the early days though there was not the formal mentoring or incubation to speak of that has become available over the last few months.

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