[VeilEm]

As a 3 time early employee of a YC funded startup I'm going to go ahead and say that the first customers benefit is as much a problem as a benefit because it presents the illusion of having a viable business. A lot of early customers only joined because of my startup's ties to YC and it always hid a problem with acquiring new customers. In 2 out of 3 experiences it took years of our lives wasted to figure out that the company couldn't be a success all the while trying to replicate whatever growth we had initially when that really was just from that first YC based TC article.

Basically you need to know if you can be viable without YC before you want get those early YC customers because eventually you're going to need customers that come to you who don't know what YC is.

[AndrewWarner]

VeilEm, would you email me so I could ask you a few questions about your experience? [e-mail]

You raised a counter-intuitive issue and I want to understand it.

I do interviews on Mixergy.com and I need to hear about experiences that contradict mainstream thinking so I can make sure what's taught in my interviews is true to reality.

[pj_mukh]

Similar experience, different conclusion. We were not prepared to handle customers when getting into YC. However, the process told us in 3-4 months, what would have otherwise taken us at least a year. Our customers were nowhere close to the "YC Crowd" either.

[the_watcher]

The problem you had sounds like the mistake that was made was in what you learned from those customers. It's not an acquisition strategy, it's a strategy to get early users who will give feedback on the product. Figuring out how to sell it into non-YC companies is a separate challenge, but it comes after building a useful product.

[VeilEm]

The products were already useful, there just wasn't a viable enough market for them. It's hard to know that this is a problem when you have 5% growth for a few months and think you've gotten something that works only to see it slowly trickle to flat growth over time that may end up paying your bills in 10 years from now.

If you are able to have growth before getting into YC you will be better off than depending on YC to jump start your growth. Do you not think that lots of people are signing up to YC to get that jump start in growth?

[grey-area]

It's hard to know that this is a problem when you have 5% growth for a few months and think you've gotten something that works only to see it slowly trickle to flat growth over time that may end up paying your bills in 10 years from now.

This is a problem almost every project faces after launch (getting through the trough of despair) - finding enough customers/users almost always takes years of hard graft. Perhaps it is amplified a lot by joining YC though.

[pj_mukh]

People use YC for a myriad of reasons. Some use it to raise capital so they can build a product that requires upfront capital. Some use it to jump start growth for a product they know is useful already. Some use it because they are complete noobs, are technically capable but have never built a product before. Those are all places YC is hugely helpful.

[VeilEm]

Sure, I'm not saying YC is bad, it's immensely helpful in many ways. I'm just sharing some lessons that were very expensive and painful to learn.

[Geekette]

I pondered the same point. If YC community isn't your target market, then this benefit is also of limited use or worse, damaging via creating illusion of demand which evaporates when you hit your target market.

[the_watcher]

You need to think of it as product development. It's hard to get users to use a product that no one has heard of. The YC network will actually try it out. This is important because even if they aren't your target market, it's still use of the product - which will always teach you something.

[Geekette]

If the things you learn from YC community usage is inapplicable to your target market, then that is not useful learning. It is useful for business if their use context overlaps with that of your target base.