[a13n]

We're bootstrapped, and we did it last year. I wrote about our experience: https://canny.io/blog/what-youll-get-out-of-y-combinators-st...

I would guess that this is YC's version of freemium. They're giving away a slimmed down version of their product for free, to drive brand awareness / resonance, and attract more qualified leads to their paid (7%) program.

You might not be interested in YC proper, but there's still plenty of great advice, that will probably translate into you having a more successful startup.

[nojvek]

It is amazing how successful YC has been. Is there another well known accelerator that has close to YC’s total valuation of startups?

Also it baffles me that YC has close to 1000 startups that have gone through them but only one “Dropbox” has IPO’d.

I get the feeling that YC’s best days are ahead when things they invested in a decade ago will pay off huge returns.

[rpm33]

> I get the feeling that YC’s best days are ahead when things they invested in a decade ago will pay off huge returns.

Yes. It takes a good 10 years to build / IPO a company. Also they've funded a bunch of companies outside the US / Europe region where IPO markets are not as friendly.

[bob_theslob646]

Are there any benchmarks to how successful a yc company is over another company?

Extremely hard to say when most information is non public. Past performance does not guarantee future results, especially in high interest rate environment.( Low interest environment, everything changes)