[jedberg]

I've been going to Demo Day off and on since 2007, and one big thing I've noticed is a change in who gets accepted. I see a lot more "sure bets" and a lot fewer "long shots". When I go to demo day now, I see a lot of companies that are fairly interesting, founded by an amazing team with a lot of accolades and/or exits or previous experience, and most of the companies have already launched and have revenue.

What I don't see a lot of anymore are two people who just finished college (or maybe they didn't even finish yet) working on something that could be amazing or a spectacular failure, who haven't launched yet or have no revenue yet. Look at Dropbox, reddit, and even your own startup, JTV, which of course morphed into Twitch. All of them founded by guys just out of college, all of them now worth over a billion dollars (and unless I'm mistaken, all of them pre-revenue at demo day). And while AirBnB was started by guys who had a couple of years work experience, they didn't have much experience with running a company or anything other than a few years working in industry (and of course also worth well into the billions).

It feels like for the most part the risk analysis has shifted from "a couple of folks just out of college with an amazing idea" to "a couple of folks with a proven entrepreneurial track record and an amazing idea".

I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it's definitely different.

[mwseibel]

We still fund a lot of young early stage founders. I think there are two things that make them stand out less on Demo Day. First, batches are much larger and the average age of the batch has increased. Second, these founders are much less likely to be starting consumer startups and therefore they blend in better with the other startups.

Another important change over the past 10 years is that many talented young potential founders are being vacuumed up by the big tech companies once they graduate from college (or before in college internship programs). Essentially, the big companies are pre-hiring their future competition. The combination of these actions and the strangling of distribution channels (messaging, social networking, and email) is preventing consumer startups from getting a foothold. And by and large young founder tend to be attracted to consumer startups.

We are doing a number of things to counteract the recruiting efforts of big companies including YC Early Decision: https://blog.ycombinator.com/early-decision/ and YC Startup School: https://www.startupschool.org.

[jedberg]

> And by and large young founder tend to be attracted to consumer startups.

This, and everything else you said related to it, are an excellent point I hadn't thought about, and maybe that's why it seems different. Thanks for pointing that out.

[wellboy]

> We still fund a lot of young early stage founders

Examples from this batch?

[murukesh_s]

It's fairly obvious in the application form itself, If I remember. They do take folks without 'traction' but there are too many applications now I feel YC find it difficult to bet blindly.

The obvious solution then would be another YC like or a sub-brand from YC that do not accept startups with existing traction, as they are just looking for a boost instead of real hand holding. I feel YC realized this and they are doing programs like startup schools to accept/help more startups.

But a long term solution IMO is there should be more YC like orgs in every country/city to really nurture and help the ecosystem. The theme of accelerators should also vary based on the location and not just try to replicate the US model. For e.g. In US, it make sense to start product companies that have global vision. While in China, or India it make sense to promote ideas to solve local challenges or B2B products that do not need the media glare that SV companies get/enjoy. Also in India and other south-east asian countries, it might make sense to accelerate companies that can provide quality outsourcing experience to small/medium product companies in the west. I am yet to see a global startup-friendly outsourcing behemoth when there is an opportunity for same.

Also I feel if a company is not accepted in a cohort, they should be given weightage in the next cohort if they are hanging around and have bettered their stats.