[alehul]

In this case, why would you be interested in YC? What would it offer you?

It seems disappointing that YC's value is no longer qualitatively good advice for early-stage founders and a close-knit community of hackers.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but it appears increasingly corporatized every year. Sometimes it feels like YC might as well be a certificate — just a stamp of approval that provides access to a network of investors and clout. (I'd love to be wrong on this).

[joshpadnick]

> In this case, why would you be interested in YC? What would it offer you?

It's a fair point. The irony is that because our startup is doing well, we'd rather spend our time talking to customers and building the product than pitching to investors. Maybe what we're really looking for is a next-gen take on capital that would look something like this:

* Minimal time needed by us to reach a decision on whether they'd like to fund us

* Known good terms (preferably open source) that we don't have to spend time digging in

* No board seat

* Minimal equity take

* Minimal reporting requirements. We already share financial statements and KPIs with the whole company. We're happy to share those but don't want to spend a bunch of time writing an "investor update."

* Minimal distraction from running the business

* Access to advice from credible individuals

* Access to resources that can help us do things like recruit, setup security policies, etc.

In other words, we want reasonably priced capital, support and advice with the minimum possible overhead. We're happy to share in the upside (by granting equity), but want to spend our time with customers, not investors.

[katm]

Those all sound like reasons to apply to YC. :) We've funded a good number of companies at this point that were farther along when they applied and had millions in revenue (MessageBird, for example, who was just on HN a couple days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23624854). I recommend reaching out to some of those alum and talking to them about their experience.

[joshpadnick]

Thank you for clarifying! Do you offer the "standard deal" to such companies, or do you propose something more custom in these situations? I didn't see mention of this on ycombinator.com.

[robertvis]

Happy to chat ;)

[technotony]

Curiously, you just listed a lot of good reasons to do YC. Until the last few weeks of the program you will be encouraged to focus on your business except for the Tuesday evening talks and short meetings with the partners. As this is remote you won't even have to waste time traveling to Mountain View from wherever you live.

Then at the end you focus on demo day which I promise you is the most concentrated and efficient way to meet investors and raise a round on the terms you are looking for (caveat being I don't know how it works remote). Then it's back to grinding on the company. The further along you are by demo day the easier and more efficient your raise will be.

Is that worth 7%? Lots of founders think so. In our batch we had a company that had more than $8MM revenue previously that went on to raise millions on an uncapped note that converted really high. Pretty sure it was worth it to them.

[edhallen]

I co-founded a company that found itself with a similar set of criteria for what we wanted. For us, VC worked out well. We weren't the typical company they saw, but going in with a very clear set of things we wanted from a partner was very helpful. Ultimately, they were high value add when relevant but otherwise let us focus on growing the business.

My guess is it comes down to the right VC/Partner and finding mutually agreeable terms.

[jayparth]

Sounds like you'd get what you want via a large round from an angel investor.