abiekatz

Great post!

I think if a founder speaks to a small handful of VCs and/or other knowledgable startup people: they can get a good sense of how easy or difficult fundraising will be...and that will be more useful than any one guideline that can be provided. Series A lead VCs need to see a potential path to $100 million in revenue going to $300 million to be a home run...and a combination of the team/product/market/traction combo gives an investor the necessary conviction and excitement to propose an investment.

The limitation with growth + revenue guidelines for fundraising is that it will never be enough information as there are so many factors that go into an investment decision. And there has been a proliferation of startups that reach $1 million in revenue growing ~15% a month and still the vast majority won't get to the scale that makes a series A VC happy.

As a side note, I'd love to see any company with "Engagement rates that are higher than Facebook" that can't fundraise. :) I think there may be some off the charts positive indicators: team with incredible track record, off the charts engagement + retention in a large market, amazing unit economics + high growth that the ability to fundraise is all but inevitable.

I like Sam's line: "I always tell my partners that our job is to fund all the companies we can that can be worth $10 billion or more. That’s such a difficult constraint we can’t have any other constraints."

Build something that people want and make it grow and things have a way of working out. Many VC firms actively monitor the top of app stores, angellist and ask what software their friends and portfolio companies are using. Build something awesome and people--including investors--will find a way to connect with you.

There are benefits of working at another startup first: gained skills, experience and network. If you want to go right away into starting a startup it'll take some combination of increased hustle and more solid proof/the company being further along before raising a seed round.

Many investors also regularly check app store rankings, angellist, accelerator demo days and ask their friends and portfolio companies about "what is interesting?" or some version of that question. Build something interesting/awesome and word can spread across silicon valley very quickly.

What are the key differences between Stellar and Ripple?

Interesting look into your fundraising process Jarrett.

It's impossible to distinguish the impact that YC had on your second go around at fundraising versus the impressive progress that EasyPost had made as a company.

YC definitely helps with fundraising--it's a strong signal of social proof and it can generate a sense of urgency in investors--but growth metrics and traction are usually the most important things.

What work is for an investor and an entrepreneur are quite different.

As PG says entrepreneurs should "Live in the future, then build what’s missing."

Investors allocate capital to what will be more valuable in the future: whether it is something that is missing now or whether it is something that will simply continue to grow in value.

Venture Capital is an interesting middle ground because not only do you allocate capital but you also assist the companies in creating value and you have to compete to be able to invest in the most promising companies. By blogging well you are building your brand and this will help you meet great entrepreneurs and increase your ability to have access to invest in their companies. Of course your reputation will mainly be based on the track record of your investments and how much you help the founders you work with but writing well and having it consistently on top of hacker news helps.

Plus, your writing helps clarify your thoughts and provides you with useful feedback which can help you refine your investment thesis.

Warren Buffett has said he spends 80% of his days reading and 20% talking on the phone. He only has needed one good idea per year to be the best investor of all time. His schedule doesn't sound like work to most people but it clearly has worked well.

Satoshi Nakamoto in February 2009: "In this sense, [Bitcoin]'s more typical of a precious metal. Instead of the supply changing to keep the value the same, the supply is predetermined and the value changes. As the number of users grows, the value per coin increases. It has the potential for a positive feedback loop; as users increase, the value goes up, which could attract more users to take advantage of the increasing value." http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-sour...

Check out http://speakertext.com/

Why not offer both options? Either take it at a predefined pace in line with academic semesters or at your own pace. Seems like it would be the best of both worlds.

Does anybody know when it will be possible to buy a self driving car and how much of a premium the cost will be?

This is part of why temp agencies and "talent resource" companies can exist. Trying to filter the ton of resumes and hire the right candidate off of craigslist.com can be quite the pain.

I do wonder though what jobs bright people without hard skills should pursue. This guide is interesting: http://www.slideshare.net/choehn/recessionproof-graduate-172...

I think people in that position should try to learn a valuable skill. Of course easier said than done but there are a number of skills that should lead to a middle class life that can be learned relatively quickly.

Programming could be a good choice. See: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/10/dev-boot-camp-is-a-ruby-suc... DevBootcamp seemed to produce quality developers in 3 months.

Though also PR, online advertising, some focus in marketing, web design, sales...whatever.

I find this post on the topic to be interesting: http://www.julesmaltz.com/post/3376586698/if-you-like-saas-t...

I think if you don't have the sales rolodex to sell traditional enterprise software going freemium or low cost SaaS is the way to go. Or to team up with some one who can sell into enterprises. You may be able to learn the ropes as you go but that is unlikely. If you look at the background of a lot of the top enterprise software entrepreneurs, you will see that they have worked at other enterprise software companies previously.

Like anything, it is difficult to give a sweeping answer. There are a lot of great opportunities in enterprise software that are worth pursuing. The "hassle" of selling can be reduced by have more consumerized enterprise software but selling will be a big issue. Plus it'll be more tricky as you attempt to sell to larger organizations.

Thanks I appreciate it. How does Game Closure do these things better than the many other HTML 5 based game development SDKs?

I have heard great things about Game Closure including that it speeds up development time, enhances game quality, and makes games run faster. Does anybody know what exactly makes their SDK so much better than competitors? A layman's explanation would be greatly appreciated.

The textbook method to disrupt a market is through disruptive innovation. This is serving the very low end of a market with a solution that is just good enough and then moving up market.

Sustaining innovation is when a company keeps improving a product and raising the prices. Stripe is more of a sustaining innovation than a disruptive one. Typically incumbents are the ones to improve their products while raising the price, but it is also possible for a new entrant to do the same. Providing a much better user experience could potentially lead to Stripe dominating the payments market but it is really just a less hassle version of what is in place today. Payments are a huge hassle to deal with as a merchant/developer so this is still an innovation but just not a disruptive one.

Dwolla is a better example of disruptive innovation in that they are circumventing the whole credit card system which could potentially save merchants and indirectly, consumers, large amounts of money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation

I wonder if the "Thiel fellowship" model is a scalable form of education? Would some portion of bright young people benefit from pursuing their most ambitious idea for two years?

It could be kind of like a gap year but applied to pursuing some ambitious idea. If it works, great. If it doesn't, returning to college would still be an option.

I feel like "ask hn" questions are very similar to a large portion of the initial content on quora and the initial communities were somewhat similar. I wonder if there is anything that YC could do to make hacker news better preserve the evergreen content on the site. Sometimes I check out a 2 year old thread and feel like commenting on it but then I realize that boat has already sailed.

thanks

I think another part of why people support (product-driven) projects last minute is that people are debating whether they want one. There is no consequence to wait for the last minute and I bet many people, myself included, are debating whether it is worth buying one.

Here's the text of Munger's speech: http://www.loschmanagement.com/Market%20Comment/Client%20Let...

It is well worth a read.

It is interesting that one of the cast members is Dwight Crow, a founder of the YC company carsabi. I imagine being on a show like this could lead to quite a bit of publicity but I wonder if it is worth the distraction and likely unrealistic portrayal.

http://sfist.com/2012/04/05/meet_the_cast_of_bravos_new_new_...

Bloomberg did a decent miniseries based on TechStars New York http://www.bloomberg.com/video/75400336/

It was a lot more serious than this Bravos show will be but they still probably manufactured some conflict to keep things engaging.

There are many different groups in Silicon Valley with varying levels of overlaps.

It is still there...http://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/startups/office-space

pg, I think you are a good speaker. Not in the classic motivational speaker sense but you do speak with conviction and have a unique voice...both literally and in what you say. You are one of the few authors that I literally have your voice in my head when I am slowly reading one of your essays. At least among your target audience, what you have to say is much more important than how you say it. So keep rewriting your talks minutes before you give them, even if it leads you to say um during your speeches. As long as you continue to say what you truly believe, that'll shine through and you will continue to be a good speaker in my book.

I really like the list of VC blogs here: http://larrycheng.com/2011/01/19/venture-capital-vc-blog-dir...

They are ranked by the number of page views which is a decent proxy for quality.

What Tim Draper is planning on doing with Draper University, which is a former hotel in San Mateo, may end up being pretty awesome. http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-times/ci_1984021...

I think the rise of "hacker houses" is indicative that people really care about community and like living with like-minded people who they can collaborate with, be inspired by and socialize with.

I think there is potentially room for a hybrid residential university and incubator model. I don't think making housing required but making it optional for those who want it would be awesome.

My favorite answer:

‎"In the ideal world, the Khan Academy [or another online learning solution] will progress to the point that you can get a deep understanding of most topics independently and "school" will be a physical place and support network that helps you explore and apply what you know (build robots, start businesses, write a book)"

The problem with online education is the lack of available credentials that are well recognized. The main reason people pay $50k a year to go to a top school is to get the well recognized credential. The ability to learn has gone online. Many top colleges such as MIT, Stanford, Yale and Harvard have put some of their course material online but you can't get recognized for what you have learned. Someone needs to create a prestigious, low-cost online undergraduate degree for students that can't afford a conventional college or who don't want to be tied down to one location for 4 years.

Right now I would say that the University of London International Program is the most respected program available in the category: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_London_Internatio....

I look forward to more known universities creating online versions of their educational programs but I think top universities that have no problem attracting students will resist making the change. And for new programs, getting the necessary prestige and recognition will be a very uphill battle but I hope some social entrepreneur will find a way to crack the code. Also, Salman Khan has a lot of interesting views on the topic of the college of the future: http://abiekatz.com/2011/06/salman-khan-presents-his-vision-...

I wonder if the flip side of this claim can also be true in certain cases. Could staying in college prevent one from achieving a global maximum? For example (this is just conjecture of course) Steve Jobs might have had too much debt if he finished earning a degree at Reed College, would not have been able to participate in home brew computer meetups and would have been unable to strengthen his relationship with Steve Wozniak. These factors likely would have prevented him from founding Apple.

Silicon Valley is a truly special place and I think there is a lot of value in taking a year or two off of college and try working at a startup, traveling and/or pursuing whatever else seems cool and worthwhile. Then you can decide whether returning to college is the right thing for you...