allanscu

Thank you soooo much!

Good research. I don't think this is anything new. I'm familiar with a few YC companies that use CL as a method to get their supply (in this case vacation rentals).

I think this statement is very powerful by itself for YC, TS and all other accelerators:

"From all apparent sources they have seemed be similarly aligned with founders after the same things, successful companies. If this trend continues of more accelerators, and more startups applying to them, and the primary benefit becomes out of reach of non participating companies, then it would likely have the opposite effect."

and this...

"It appears though that it is becoming more and more necessary to participate in these programs and pay the price of admission to gain entrance to the club. "

So will accelerators become the next Subway Sandwich franchise?

Yes. That's about the age he started TC.

There's definitely a market for such a service. I've been to many games and concerts and would gladly pay an upgrade if I could. However, I see this as a feature and not a full blown product. Tickets.com or LiveNation can easily add this feature in since they are already heavily integrated into the team's ticket inventory. What's keeping the big boys from adding such a feature already?

(I'm not knocking your product, b/c I'd love to use it once it becomes a available).

Is the assumption that all seats do not get sold at a game/concert so people that already have tickets to the event can upgrade their seat just prior to the event starting - so you're trying to capture that incremental revenue that otherwise would have been flushed down the toilet?

Congrats and good luck.

I like it. The only problem is getting people to submit content. You may want to focus on one tech savvy city, troll Craiglist for events, go to REI to get events, go to StubHub for events, etc.

There will be a lot more opportunities. At least your gut told you they were a winner. Now ask your gut to go pick the next one (and tell me what it is.)

Congratulations!

There's also YC Reject. We are currently accepting late applications at http://www.ycreject.com/p/apply-to-ycr.html

"hustle" is starting to become the sexy geek word now.

What about something as simple as the expected value proposition or 'why should we give a sh!t about your idea?' When I've pitched to angels, these seem to be a common theme.

Good posting. I'd be interested to hear what other questions YC alums have gone through.

The concept is so simple and needed. I've run into this problem so many times. I like it. Wow!

This is really cool. I think I'll have an a-ha moment later today with a real practical purpose. It may be something to use at a sporting event or music festival or to get a politician to notice a specific cause. Keep up the good work.

This one is pretty good

Yesterday, somebody put it best: Facebook, Microsfot, Apple, Groupon, etc were not funded by YC. Not a bad group to be a part of. =)

It's going to come down to determination of the group, and it's hard to gauge that in an application or interview process. I'm in the process of gathering more information about groups that applied to YC/TS/500 that were rejected but eventually became successful. If you know of any, please let me know. allan@ycreject.com

That's a fair question. Without knowing me, it's hard to gauge my integrity. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to speak with you.

The money is only a small part of it. It's really there to make sure you can focus on your project and not worry about putting food on your plate or making rent. The money was put on the table, but I'd like to get feedback to know if it's something that interested teams would want in exchange for equity.

Even YC has always said that there were promising groups from those that did not make the cut. They've admitted that they aren't the best at picking winners. So you can't say that the A groups were better than the B groups. Many of the B groups (and even single co-founders) were just a victim of YC's rules and capacity.

With 40-50 groups now your time spent with him as a YC'er is significantly less. He's added staff, but scaling out his time is a big problem. Plus with the 40-50 groups - I can only imagine that the demo days are a complete circus. Will angels continue to invest their money in what essentially has become a meat market? If I were to invest my money on a high-risk venture I'd like to get a little T.L.C.

What about the quality of the applicants? Will the better candidates not bother with this project since no money is involved?

For purposes of full disclosure, I was approached by an individual angel and I sat down with the investor for a meet and great. The selection process needs to be sorted out and the term sheets need to be agreed upon by all parties before it's finalized and a check is written.

The reason I posted this blog, is because I want to get candidate feedback. The money involved in YC is just a small (but helpful part) of what they do. Will teams that participate in this grassroots project want to give up 6% of their company? What are your thoughts?

You bring up good points especially with getting speakers and getting angels. I do plan to leverage the groups by having them contribute in setting up speakers and finding qualified angels.

I'm more concerned about scaling this (that's the engineer in me thinking). At least five groups is somewhat manageable especially when it comes time to finding space to meet once per week.

I've been to a lot the H&F events and other events in the Bay Area. They're great, but they do not empower the individual groups. They're good at getting speakers and creating a forum to get to know each other. With YCreject.com, I want to complement those efforts and take those organized groups to the next level. YC does a good job at putting their companies on a pedestal and tell the world to "look at us". Given this small grassroots project over the upcoming summer, I'd like to take 5 groups and place them on a similar pedestal so that investors and the press can see who they are and foam at the mouth.

Yes.. then I would be DQ'd.

There's no reason to not start their own group. But you have to stay laser focused.. otherwise too many cooks spoil the food.

It's just a name by itself for now (for SEO purposes as well). Of course I wouldn't go around to investors and say we're 2nd tier groups that PG didn't want.

Right now, I want to keep it very small. Find out what everybody wants and go from there.