[michaelheinrich]

Hey guys, I founded ohmygreen and here are my reasons for attending: 1) community of other high quality founders which leads to helpful friendships and discoveries of new ways of thought 2) yc is a forcing function, e.g., experimentation with new business models, focus on growth, etc 3) it makes everything easier (hiring, fundraising, etc) => every little edge helps 4) long term investment: who knows, I might start another company with someone I met at yc or invest in yc companies 5) additional customers we might not have had access to (easy to reach out to any yc company) 6) while we're not quite seed stage, we bootstrapped a couple years and I wanted to scale things faster in order to bring healthy and blissful living to more people

We were at a stage where yc wasn't necessary but a very helpful catalyst. I hope this is helpful, happy to answer more.

[ones_and_zeros]

I think it is a no brainer given your reasoning but I think it is fair to say you would have done it without the cash investment. I think this is just a testament to how far yc has come from an incubator taking 7% and giving 20k (or was it even less?) to some unknown hacker types with a paper napkin prototype.

YC is more of a "business club" than an incubator from some points of view, I don't blame either side and is probably the reason they are diversifying with various programs to ensure they aren't missing out on the unknown hacker with a paper napkin prototype.

[michaelheinrich]

I can say that it wasn't an easy decision, I had to mull it over a few times and talk to various advisors, alumni, and friends about it. In the end it was very worth it!

[zaguios]

I think it's clear why you joined YC as it can be very beneficial to any company. The comment is questioning whether YC still remains to be a company focusing on the seed stage of investment. Nowadays it appears that a lot companies that go in have a business already in place and a significant amount of traction. This contrasts with YC's earlier companies in which many of them had only an idea or a prototype with no traction. Whether or not this is true I'm unsure of, but it definitely seems to be the overall perception of what YC has become.

[michaelheinrich]

I agree that there is a trend to accept some more later stage companies. While there are a few post seed companies, there are many in the batch that just started their company right before yc or a few months before, so that is still a theme. With a 100 companies every batch it is easier to have many more diverse companies represented.