Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by alexl 5553 days ago
My point exactly - again! "They are more comfortable in that area" means "they don't actually invest outside that area." I feel I could have saved some time if I knew this before I applied for the first time.

But yeah, I get it, you can't conceive them ever being wrong, for some reason. I have nothing against that, it's an opinion and it's as personal as a haircut.
1 comments
ericmsimons 5553 days ago
No, it doesn't mean "they don't actually invest outside that area", it means that you have to have a kick ass team and product for them to even consider taking you. You don't have a team, which is what probably killed your application from the start.

Again, this is all posted on their website. Digging around on the internet would reveal even more information. You should have done this in the first place before applying to a VC.

link
alexl 5552 days ago
Yeah, but that whole single founder thing is so messed up. They don't really send you the message that they rarely take single founders on board. You have to find horror stories on the net. One of them is about a guy who had two other co-founders or so, but those couldn't just move for three months. They had families and lives. So the guy moves to SF and they tell him "we really hate single founders." So, if the other co-founders are not there, it's like they don't exist at all. I do have a guy, an engineer who would do a lot of the required work, but moving him to the US is an idea from another planet. He is part of the team. There's no doubt about that. He just doesn't want to be a legal co-owner. He doesn't want that responsibility. He's also much older than me and has a different perspective. But Y Combinator, suffering from ADHD, won't have the patience to consider all that. That was kinda my whole point. I'm still not sure you got it.
link
ericmsimons 5552 days ago
You would not have even written that paragraph had you ever tried to run a startup under either of these circumstances:

1. You tried (legitimately) running a startup as a single founder.

2. You tried running a startup where a majority of the co-founders were not working on location.

I've been in both situations multiple times, learned the hard way.

link
alexl 5552 days ago
Wow, we reached the limit of the sausage string. I have to reply to my own comment :)

I still believe I can do it "alone," i.e. with just that other guy. I'm just gonna go get the needed money elsewhere and forget about Y Combinator. That blog post or whatever you want to call it, is my opinion on them.

link
ericmsimons 5552 days ago
I would consider it slanderous but to each their own. I think there are more respectable (and polite) ways of protesting though.
link