zabramow

You're right that accelerators are bound to fail, you're wrong to call YC an accelerator. That's what distinguishes YC, it's not an accelerator it's a company that funds lots of startups at once. Accelerator implies that you're going to artificially speed up growth, presumably in order to get the company an outside investment. YC doesn't accelerate growth and Sam in particular boasts (in a good way) about being a patient investor.

Also, don't underestimate HackerNews. How many other "accelerators" have a content hub that engages their customer base daily. You can't underestimate what that does for their brand.

Ok. But be honest, were you pitching something as good as AirBnB. We can be passionate about what we are building and try to raise capital without thinking our concept is as good as AirBnB. Given that, I would have suspected a warm intro would have done the job. My guess is that the founders (if you gave them truth serum) would say that they thought AirBnB was going to be huge all along.

I could be wrong on that.

Not at all. But these guys were pitching AirBnB and they are considered some of the most impressive executing founders on the planet. Law of averages would get them one "yes."

Agreed. But you don't need to investors to figure that out. You can get that from your users or customers.

The amazing thing, to me at least, about that story (and these lessons) was that they heard no from warm intros.

Even if you remove gender from th equation, this is a good idea because it saves time and, in some cases, could actually leave employees with a higher salary then they would have negotiated for somewhere else.

The hole in your argument is that it's much easier to keep finding employment as a lawyer because law as a skill doesn't change dramatically and the more senior you get, the better. Developers skills diminish over time e.g. you're a .net programmer and now you have to learn Python to get a job.

Not convinced either will last, but Twitter is effectively mashing on a pimple and making it worse. Prediction: this will help Meerkat's brand + hurt Periscope's.

I agree -- but I've seen instances of developers almost trying to make the first version uglier than it needed to be (and not actually viable).

One correction: YC funds 120K, 500 Startups funds 100K and then charges a 25K "program fee."

Negative effects aren't "expected" - but I've seen multiple instances where early stage companies were paying certain founders too much and getting too little in return. I also noticed that, broadly speaking, founders who were taking less salary were producing more. I'm now wondering if there's a correlation.

As far as measuring productivity - I'm defining it as meeting deadlines.

I've never heard people who advocate lean startup not qualify their endorsement with, "Now, I don't advocate EVERYTHING that lean startups preaches."

Other related important read is Chris Dixon's piece on tools --> network http://cdixon.org/2015/01/31/come-for-the-tool-stay-for-the-...

Such an important article.

This means he doesn't look you in the eye before he sends you to the Gulag.

Don't go to work -- you'll get everyone there sick. Work at home and be more productive than you would have in the office and no one will hold it against you.

Agree. The article is total fluff. Also, Pinterest started out as Tote when it was many things and they found one feature that really caught on. It's good to focus, but let's not pretend like there's some magic recipe.

I don't want to be too snarky, but is this news to anyone? Who is building start-ups that are trying to be everything all at once? Who has that many resources?

Actually, I think that FB has been good for blogging. It helps get the crap off of blogging. People who can't actually maintain a blog write on FB and think of it as their blog.

Another good example is how Disqus has layered their tool (better comments section) to a discovery platform.

PS I've not had great success with advisors. I've ended up doing more free favors for advisors than anything that would justify their equity. My suggestion: unless they're blue chip, offer them a negligible amount of shares and then if they're good increase the number.

very interesting. thanks for sharing.

Really interesting question, I'm sure Clev would have a better answer. My guess is that you're going to have a hard time practically speaking getting an investor to sign an equity document without any of the usual terms in those documents.

Looked into this. Pretty sure this is an issue with the parent site.

What's the problem with a cap/valuation? General rule, whatever you raise, give up somewhere between 10-20%. You'll keep plenty of equity that way and your investor is getting a fair deal.

He makes good point, but you can also address some of the points he addresses with a Safe. His complaints seem more about poor valuations. You can assign "value" with a Safe (or a note for that matter) by putting in a cap.

Tweet this at @ProductHunt @Rrhoover and they should give you ability as the "Maker" to come in and comment.

Same thing happened to us, but I was on a plane to Israel with my entire family.

Cool, would love to pick your brain sometime.

I also thought of Bunch. We were/are doing something related (but not really) at ReplyAll.me so I had kept track of your company. Were you a dev there?

Not sure I understand the need. Aren't there enough places on the Internet where you can connect with people around shared interests?