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Comment by clarky07 | Hacker News Reader

Seems lots of people are calling the terms terrible, but for an early stage investment it seems pretty reasonable to me. Plenty of things are in the 1M valuation and under range. If you are shooting for something 8 figures or higher, in the long run this won't kill you, and in the short run it lets you get started and gives you a good bit of runway for say 2 founders.

I'm not looking for funding at the moment, but the speed would be a huge bonus for me. There is a huge amount of value in being able to focus on making your business succeed instead of focusing on getting funding so that you can continue trying.

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These terms are far from terrible. Outside of a few selected places like Silicon Valley, you can dream of getting $150K for 15% as an early stage startup with no sales.

It could be argued that YC brings a lot of added value to the table, but if we are simply looking at the terms, their ~$20K for ~6% is far worse than $150K for 15%.

The remaining 9% though (that YC leaves on the table) could be worth at least $100k during next funding round, probably more if you expect to be successful.

Of course but with this said:

> This should help you to launch the first version of your product and to test your initial hypothesis about the market before (potentially) raising more funding to grow the business.

They are shooting for helping companies who know what they need to execute do it fast and not worry about the rest, at least for a bit. After personally going through almost 6 months of angel investing diligence hell to get a similar deal, this is completely something I appreciate.

I think YC does this too, though the costly expertise is internal, so the $20k pays for rent/food, etc..

It's definitely good to have these options, so people can make better choices for themselves / their needs - and hopefully be able to get access to what they need. :)

It's pretty good for two founders in the earliest stages (e.g. only a rough idea of what they want to build). It's not so attractive for startups that already have a prototype and a couple of customers.

Can you expand on why that is the case? If your runway is running out and taking a loss on operating costs is not an option how can it be better to just fold it?

We have a prototype and a couple of customers and still think this is a good deal. It would let us go from pure bootstrap mode (chasing money in any form) to longer-term thinking.

All the projects submitted to Kima15 since the launch 3 hours ago are more than a prototype. Real products with customers already...

If you look at early stage investments in Europe, the terms are pretty good. Eg. compared to accelerators, seed round investors etc.

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