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Comment by aatd86 | Hacker News Reader

Or maybe they have learnt that investors due-diligence is about the hard facts and not sentiment?

Not everyone is a good story-teller either so to avoid the confounding charm factor, just be as boring and straight to the point as possible?

Which should also keep every startup of their batches on equal footing and hopefully mitigate the hype factor?

Not defending them, just me brainstorming about what could be plausible explanations for this.

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It's the opposite! Only the good hype-makers and storytellers get early access to investors before demo day. If you're a good huckster, no one finds out about your stats. Even though... YC tells people to be dry and boring and focus on stats.

That's his complaint.

YC suggests people tell a story: https://www.ycombinator.com/library/49-a-guide-to-yc-demo-da...

Exactly, a rational facts-driven investor is a myth

I think the rationale here is "be so good they can't ignore you". While advanced fundraising skills could potentially help someone to raise without first making a great product that people demonstrably want, nailing product and early growth sufficiently well makes fundraising achievable even for founders who are notably lacking in the charm and storytelling departments.

Here again, I think the complaint is the opposite. He's saying that if you have traction already, you don't need YC. You're further along than what they offer. They are there to help people who have no traction and no metrics and no money.

The sad thing is that the hype cycle is more important than the product delivery. Many huge investments are made on products that have nothing delivered. It's more BS than we'd like to admit. My own product failed in the market because I focused on the MVP and making it real and not on getting hype out and using that to get money.

'Traction' is a pretty wide spectrum. Having some early traction with a small number of users who love your product is a sweet spot for YC imho, especially if you don't have connections or a 'pedigree' in the startup world. At that stage, VCs typically aren't interested unless you have something else going for you. YC helps you take the few sparks you've got smoldering in some twigs and turn it into a little fire that is potentially interesting to angel and seed investors without too much embellishment.

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