[noodle]

yeah, it wouldn't be a YC failure, it would just probably be a company YC wouldn't invest in. why would a single-person 200k/year profit company need YC?

edit: this seems to me like she's confused. YC's preferences on companies that they would like to invest their time and money in doesn't necessarily equal "the best way" for all entrepreneurs under all situations and circumstances.

[pg]

YC's preferences on companies that they would like to invest their time and money in doesn't necessarily equal "the best way" for all entrepreneurs under all situations and circumstances.

That is certainly true. We would never claim otherwise. YC invests in startups, and only a tiny fraction of the millions of small companies in the US are startups. Nearly all are service businesses whose prospects for growth are minimal.

Startup founders are a very small subset of entrepreneurs.

[AmberShah]

This is interesting to me. I consider what I have a startup, but what is the distinction? I'm not sure what about the $200K statement makes me an entrepreneur and not a startup. I'm assuming we are talking about scalable tech business, not consulting.

EDIT: Updated for clarity.

[pg]

I don't know what you're doing, but consulting is not the only way to have limited growth prospects. A company could also be making a product for a niche market (and not be doing it merely as a way to get started engaging with users). I believe some people call these niche software companies MicroISVs.

[netcan]

I think you need to start qualifying 'startup'a little more, particularly when the topic tends towards hair splitting.

It looks like the definition a lot of people use is one that includes your startup as a subset.

I find it so frustrating reading through threads like this that get all bogged down in semantic nitpicking. It also opens a door to a particularly annoying type of quasi-trolling or baiting. Maybe 'startups that exit' or something

[pg]

I've found the best strategy (as with most words) is just to use the word the way it's used in standard, educated usage.

In standard usage, a startup does not mean any newly created company. It means a newly created company designed to scale dramatically. Most of the 20 million businesses in the US are not startups, because they aren't designed to scale. They're either service businesses or niche product businesses.

[jmillerinc]

Your last sentence: that's exactly what I took to be the point of her post.

[noodle]

indeed. i suppose i should clarify a bit -- advice given to YC companies and similar companies should be treated as such -- advice for companies on the YC company-like path, not as universal gospel, and i believe he's made that distinction in the past.

[dasil003]

Yeah but this is such a specific goal for an early stage startup. It's true YC might not be into this, but on the same token they invest more in people than ideas. So if a company evolves into this, will YC insist on an exit strategy, or would they accept a dividend or some other arrangement? Somehow I don't see PG et al bringing down the VC-style hammer down over a $20k investment.

[SwellJoe]

YC doesn't insist on anything, beyond the initial terms you agree to when you accept YC funding. Which is why there have been a huge variety of company endings (from quietly slinking off back to college, to selling to Google, to returning remaining investor money and shutting down, to turning into a profitable growth company with no short-term exit plans, etc.).

Anyway, the terms they offer don't give them any way to demand anything. They are a common shareholder in the company with 2%-10% of the shares and no seats on the board. They can't steer the boat, they're merely passengers. So, it makes sense for them to choose companies that the most obvious outcome is one that will be profitable for them.

[ahoyhere]

Yes, but the PG message - and the message of other VCs - is not "Well, here's one valid way to make a lot of money (with investment and an exit), but you can also make lots of money with a SaaS."

It's "This is the way to do business."

That's the issue.

[pg]

That's false. I have never used the word entrepreneur in an essay, except once in a phrase in scare quotes. My essays are addressed strictly to the small subset of entrepreneurs who are starting startups.

If people interpret what I say more broadly than I mean, there's not much I can do about that, but if you go back and look at the actual words I use, I could not be more explicit.

[ahoyhere]

I didn't use the word entrepreneur, either. That's a bad stab at replying to me, and you know it. You often imply, although in not so many words, that the essence of what it means to be a "hacker" is to do a "startup".

[pg]

I certainly don't believe that starting a startup is the essence of being a hacker. What a completely crazy idea. How could I believe that Ken Thompson was missing the essence of being a hacker?

I wish you'd be either less contentious or less mistaken. It would be fine if you were one or the other, but having to deal with both simultaneously gets kind of wearing after a while.