*cough* Virtualmin -- YC Winter 2007 *cough*
There's a difference between "Getting into YC would help my business" and "I need to get into YC to start my business".
> There's a difference between "Getting into YC would help my business" and "I need to get into YC to start my business".
Astounding! Who else have you told this to?
It's not as hard as you think. The difference YC offers is that you're already at stage two of the VC or angel process: Vetted candidate. You get to do a one hour presentation for one member of the VC firms, maybe a partner, instead of having a ten minute phone call to make your pitch. You still have to meet the investors you want to talk to...but they are actively looking for deals in the valley every day. Go to events and you will meet them. If you build something popular, some will even come to you (maybe the hungrier ones...Sequoia isn't Googling for new investment ideas).
Not even a little bit. But we were moving full steam ahead whether YC was involved or not. As others mentioned, we were launched, we were selling products, and we were developing the connections we needed to get to where we wanted to be. YC just accelerated that, gave me the impetus I needed to get moved to the valley, and gave us a chance to hone our message and our product under the discriminating eye of a lot of smart people. Well worth the time, effort, and equity.
But there would still be a Virtualmin, Inc. without YC, and it would still be building products that people like.
"You can do it too!" works better when they aren't telling you to pursue a different strategy than they did with no specifics.
I didn't think I needed to do so, since I assumed everybody here has read all of pg's essays, seen Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start, and read a few other useful books about startups. While everybody who's built a business (I'm on my second) has at least a few things to teach others in the same boat...I didn't want to clutter up the post with a bunch of random rants. I respond to posts here with specific advice whenever there's a question I feel qualified to answer.
You haven't explained how your start-up succeeded without YC.
> seen Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start
I hope you're kidding about that.
Nobody asked.
I'll take your response as somebody asking.
In both cases, I made myself a recognized expert on an Open Source project that I liked a lot and that I liked the people involved (Squid in the first case, Webmin in the latter...though the first also included a huge amount of Webmin-related work and inspired the second). And then I founded companies built on making some Open Source project easier to use, more powerful, better documented, and more popular. The first never really made it out of the "consulting business" stage, though I constantly tried to convert it to a product business...had I been in the valley, I would have been able to make it work the way I wanted it to. It was a hardware based business, and for that you need volume, which I didn't have the capital to deal with--closing a big sale in the server appliance industry can cost tens of thousands of dollars before seeing any cashflow from it. So, stay out of hardware if you don't have the capital to see it through. Even then, you probably ought to stay out of hardware. So, the first one did not succeed without YC, by my standards, but did buy me a 350Z and keep me in food and houses for 7 years.
The primary thing worth learning from the first business (which I built without not only YC but without any outside investment for involvement) was that you can't do it alone. Get a partner, get to the valley (I don't even bother saying get to a "startup hub" because nobody is doing deals in Boston), get to work.
As for the second, here's what I know so far:
1. Start or join, very early, an Open Source project.
2. Work on it for several years. Get millions of downloads and millions of users.
3. ...
4. Profit!
"> seen Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start
I hope you're kidding about that. "
Of course not. Guy's a great motivator. Can't start a business worth crap (see Truemors), but he has a lot of good stuff to say about marketing, salesmanship, morale-building, and lots more. Some accidental experts really do have good advice.
Actually that's how this whole debate got started -- I asked: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=52613
> because nobody is doing deals in Boston
So in your opinion would YC be better off doing both batches in Silicon Valley? My impression is people would be better served living there and flying to Boston for Demo Day 2 than vice-versa.
> but he has a lot of good stuff to say about marketing, salesmanship, morale-building, and lots more
http://valleywag.com/tech/silicon-valley-tool/guy-kawasaki-2...
http://www.nowpublic.com/don_t_be_a_dude_yamaha_a_gripping_s...
http://techdumpster.com/2007/08/03/toolbox-profile-1-guy-kaw...
> Guy's a great motivator.
In a "scared straight" kind of way, sure.
Actually that's how this whole debate got started -- I asked: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=52613"
Yeah, I took that as smart ass sniping. If it was a sincere question, I'm glad I've now answered it.
"So in your opinion would YC be better off doing both batches in Silicon Valley? My impression is people would be better served living there and flying to Boston for Demo Day 2 than vice-versa."
Yes, and I've told pg as much (he asked everyone in YC their opinion on the issue a few months ago). But, I don't know as much about the startup business as pg, and I'm given to understand that pg likes living in Cambridge...he brings the money, he makes the rules.
"yada yada yada, Guy Kawasaki sucks, blah blah blah"
Who cares? Have you actually read his books, or watched him speak? If you're too stupid to know a good writer and an amazingly good speaker when you see one, I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you. At the very least perhaps you can learn how to speak to people in public without pissing them off.
Getting into YC isn't even an answer in itself, other people here are just trying to tell you it is possible to do without YC. You know, people did start companies before YC.
No. Objecting to platitudes isn't trolling.
The statements most commonly described as "platitudes" are short proverbs and aphorisms which are intended to motivate or encourage another person, but which are in reality overly-simplistic or cliche; for example, "You will succeed if you try hard enough"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platitude
> You asked a question that was impossible to answer
Wrong again -- funny, because he answered it above, describing what he actually did for years before YC.
It's disappointing how much knee-jerk reactionism there is when people perceive something as raining on their fantasy parade. Critical investigation will help people succeed. As a result of my not accepting the original platitude, the poster supplied much more informative answers.
With computers you tell them "here's exactly what's wrong with you." With humans you can actually rely on them to fill in the gaps and just state things a lot more diplomatically (not to mention, it's not about making people "wrong" anyway!). Something phrased very gently and ambiguously can get results, and is probably the only way to deal with people effectively in most circumstances. I appreciate the reminder!
I only answered after clarification on just what you wanted me to say. Your first post was merely a "then why didn't you pass up the opportunity to get advice from YC if it's so easy?!" jab.
I think it's clear that I think YC is a great opportunity for early stage startups--probably the best one going. We accepted funding from YC, and I've never hid that (why would I? it's good for business and for our odds of raising the money we've just begun to raise). But, I also thought it was clear that the steps you need to be successful are pretty well documented if you only pay attention to them, and actually do what you need to do to make things happen.
Moving to a startup hub (really, just the valley) is not really optional if you intend to raise money. Despite all the talk of VCs and angels doing deals elsewhere, more deals happen in a week in the valley than just about anywhere else in a year. If you want money, come to where the money lives. This is the sole reason my first business didn't go where I wanted it to go--I, too, lacked the "connections" to raise the money I needed to build the business I envisioned. I wrongly believed that because a few successful tech companies were started outside of the valley, one could do it entirely outside of the valley just as easily as in the valley. I was wrong, and I've admitted to that numerous times here at News.YC, on my blog, and in frequent conversations. I didn't have a pg essay to tell me otherwise. You do. I also managed to ignore the advice on how to actually get in touch with investors, even though I'd read many books that covered the topic.
You seem to be upset because the advice you're getting for how to get connections seems like hand-waving, because you're having trouble visualizing a world in which you can meet investors accidentally on a weekly basis. You're thinking, "I need someone to introduce me to these people", but you don't. It helps, sure, but so would a magical fairy that could wave your products and the money you need into existence...even having pg on my side doesn't mean I get to relax and let the money come to me[1].
So, what you're calling a platitude was merely encouragement. Encouragement to build a business, regardless of YC involvement. If you can't imagine yourself building a business without pg there to hold your hand[2], then you're not cut out for entrepreneurship, and that's OK, too.
BTW-My first business was a success by some people's definition. It kept me fed, reasonably well paid, and I got to work on my own terms most of the time. I wouldn't have chosen an office job over what I was doing with my previous business. I have larger ambitions than just "not an office job", but I learned a lot. As quite a few others have said, you learn more from trying and failing at running a business than you do working for someone else waiting for the perfect opportunity to start a business to come your way. You have to make your opportunities. This isn't a platitude--it's a fact of life.
1: pg is not a magical fairy.
2: pg doesn't hold anyones hand. He's a hard ass.
Build a prototype - of anything, really, as long as it's impressive. Show it to industry contacts. Have them tell you "this is interesting, but it's not really what we need right now. However, if you could solve this problem for us, we'd pay you money for it." Get them to pay up-front to fund development. Build the product with their money. Sell product to other customers. Reinvest the profits. (my day job, also Sun Microsystems and Franz Inc.)
Find a group of passionate enthusiasts. Write software for them, and charge money for it. Partner with a business that benefits from what you're doing. Always look for underserved markets, and then opportunistically go after them with cheap products. Iterate quickly. Take over the world. (Microsoft)
Build website. Convince friends to join. Serendipitously discover that friends tell all their friends about it. Overload servers. Charge money for premium features to keep servers running. Make modest profit off of it. (LiveJournal, Flickr).
Same as above, but provide ways for people to make money off your product (selling services to each other, for example). Take a cut of their revenues. (EBay, PayPal, Second Life, Microsoft).
Get people laid. Profit. (HotOrNot, PlentyOfFish)
You need industry contacts first. Suggestions?
> Take over the world. (Microsoft)
"Left as an exercise for the reader."
Work. Go to trade shows. Hang out on Internet forums with people in your target market. Make friends with folks.
It doesn't work so well for me, because I'm 2 years out of college and not in a particularly client-facing job. However, the OP is 36 and in a big company. You ought to have some sort of professional contacts by then, right?
My impression is that the best way to meet investors is to live in Silicon Valley. That sounds like it's leaving out a lot of steps...
You'd be surprised how easy the "get contacts" step becomes when you're in the valley. I was. I fought it for years, as I loved living in Austin. But, events where you can rub elbows with investors happen every single week here...it's a world apart from anywhere else.