[nikiscevak]

Paul, why do you call the firms clones? Aren't you a clone of a seed stage incubator? I absolutely love what you do but to say that there are clones in the investment world (where there is zero scale) is a weird way of looking at the world. You probably have enough money to fund every good idea in each intake but you certainly don't have the time to spread out across those ideas. So if you have inspired more capital to come into this stage then surely that is a good thing for founders?

If there is competition, then founders only win out in the end. If someone was 'pressured' into accepting before other options played out that should be a huge signal to the founder that the firm is less than desirable.

[pg]

I was calling them clones because that's what other people were calling them.

They are, though. All we have in common with seed stage incubators is investing at the seed stage. What these guys have in common with us is a whole list of distinctive things: investing in multiple startups simultaneously, taking about 6%, using an application form instead of accepting business plans, making founders move to where we are, using a three month timeline, having weekly dinners, bringing in outside experts to speak to the founders as a group, having a Demo Day where they all present to investors. Often whole chunks of text on their sites are paraphrased from ours.

[okeumeni]

This question 12 was copied from YC application as well

>12. Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

It clearly illustrate the apparent problem YC will face in the future, I think you should think of something to avoid complete duplicate. From my view I think the value of YC is in its network and Knowhow, any founder will recognize that.

As it's getting harder and harder to even speak to you guys the temptation for founders to go the other way will even be stronger. I'm sure you can come up with something.

[jkent]

So what is to be done about this?

I assume one of your main distinctive features is unique to YC - you.

Surely by continuously refining the detail you can be one cycle ahead of the competition - possibly shortening the 'application open' window.

Why not release more data on your successes. They can't copy that.

[pg]

I don't think we have to do much about it. Copies are never as big a problem as they seem.

[Kaizyn]

Releasing more data would just give the competition something else to copy. Instead, YC could build a 'one click' application process and patent it.

Seriously though, YCombinator could always franchise their system. That way, they at least profit when others use the fruits of their labors.

[attack_forgotpw]

YC is a clone of Google's SOC project that occurred the prior summer. Taking on multiple projects simultaneously, providing about 5k, accepting applications, three month timeline, having frequent meetings between people and mentors, bringing in outside mentors, having a day at the end for people to present their accomplishments.

It is natural to be concerned about competitors, but everyone who is being abrasive to these other angels for copying a couple aspects is harming the angel investment community overall. YC is just a couple people with a couple MM, they can't fund everyone.

Bonus similarities: appealing to the young, first session occurred immediately after google's finished, setting up mailing list forum for those interested, primary announcement occurred on slashdot.

[pg]

YC wasn't copied from the Summer of Code. We weren't really aware how that worked. What it was copied from, initially, was the classic college student summer job at a software co. The idea was basically to let people get a summer job starting a startup.

Later we tossed some aspects of that (going back to school in the fall doesn't work well with startups), but kept others, like the 3-month cycle.

[attack_forgotpw]

So everyone is a clone.

[flipbrad]

midgets standing on the shoulders of giants, as even the mighty will admit. what matters is the evolution with each new generation. get the right mix of memes and you end up with something very powerful, which YC arguably is