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Comment by 7Figures2Commas | Hacker News Reader

> Don’t let funding take your eye off the goal: making something people want. Everything else, including going through Y Combinator, is there to support that goal but is not the goal itself.

It would be interesting to see a chart plotting over time the number of applicants in each batch who have applied to YC multiple times. Based on the number of folks here on HN who have apparently applied multiple times, and for different concepts no less, it seems plausible that a not insignificant percentage of the applicant pool now consists of folks who, contrary to YC's own advice, are more focused on getting accepted into YC than building a real business.

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The best way to get into YC is to build a great business :)

honest question because I hear this line from YC partners, then at that point why as founders would we need YC at all?

You don't, but if you are dumb enough to give them a share of your business they are happy to take it.

I think the math is quite favorable to taking YC investment as a +EV decision until quite a late stage in a successful startup's development.

pg wrote about this pretty convincingly here: http://paulgraham.com/equity.html

Unless you are comparing YC against an actual term sheet in your hand with at least 2X better terms, that YC is overwhelmingly likely a good deal. There might be good reasons not to enter YC for some companies, but the 6% equity is rarely the determining one, even for companies with revenue and sustainable Ramen profits.

There are many multiples of "great".

Have you read the book From Good to Great? I've never applied, much less been accepted, but I imagine that YC helps you get the flywheel going that Jim Collins talks about.

It sounds like everybody that participates says they make more progress in the program than they would have otherwise in that amount of time.

But if you have a successful business then you probably don't NEED them. But they can still help.

paul b.??

I don't doubt this is true, but this shouldn't be what an incubator is about. It should be about taking a great idea and a talented team and helping them buid a great business when the founders are inexperienced in running a business.

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