[hassy]

Did YC S21 which was an all remote batch. my 2c.

YC is 100% what you make of it. It's not a lean back experience.

I did not meet most of the companies in my batch but I've gotten to know many founders through YC that I would not have otherwise. Founders that have been source of advice and support.

Network of clients - yep don't go into YC expecting to sell to other YC cos. It is easier to get warm intros through the network though.

YC advice, office hours specifically - it's what you make of it too. Expecting a group partner to know your space in great detail is unreasonable but if you recognize that they've seen hundreds of companies with similar problems and make use of that pattern matching, you can get very valuable advice. Some of the advice I did not take and did the opposite and it was the right decision. And some advice that I did not take was exactly right, but I only saw it in retrospect months later.

Fundraising - being a YC company definitely opens doors, and also helps protects you from bad actors who have to think twice before fucking with a YC co. Very valuable for any first-time founder. You have someone to sanity-check everything, terms you're not sure about etc. The bump in valuation is real too.

I'd do YC again in a heartbeat.

[itsoktocry]

>Some of the advice I did not take and did the opposite and it was the right decision. And some advice that I did not take was exactly right, but I only saw it in retrospect months later.

Sometimes their advice is right, and sometimes it's wrong? That doesn't sound particularly valuable.

>Fundraising - being a YC company definitely opens doors, and also helps protects you from bad actors who have to think twice before fucking with a YC co. Very valuable for any first-time founder.

I'd love to see this substantiated.

[JohnFen]

> Sometimes their advice is right, and sometimes it's wrong? That doesn't sound particularly valuable.

This is true of literally every source of advice you'll ever encounter.

It's not that the advice is right or wrong in an absolute sense, it's that how good the advice is depends on the context of it. So you always have to evaluate the advice according to your own circumstances. Some of it will be appropriate to you and some will not.

[Dylan16807]

> This is true of literally every source of advice you'll ever encounter.

Right, that's the point. If the main thing you have to say about some advice is a thing that's true about all advice, then that's not a good endorsement.

[lazide]

that you got advice for the particular areas you needed and it was not always bad is actually a pretty major step up from what you’d otherwise be dealing with, in my experience.

[Dylan16807]

If you could find a source of advice for areas you need that is always bad, that would be amazingly useful. Each piece of advice is another pitfall you can confidently avoid.

[lazide]

The Inverse Cramer strategy has been doing pretty good I hear.

Unfortunately, real life advice is rarely something you can short. :(

[solveit]

Eh, I know you're being facetious but the opposite of bad advice is not good advice. Things are more complicated than that. Which is why even a 20% hit rate (say) could be very impressive.

[hassy]

The main thing about the advice comes immediately before the bit you’re zooming in on. Want to talk to people who have seen hundreds of companies deal with what you’re dealing? YC is great for that.

[Dylan16807]

> Want to talk to people who have seen hundreds of companies deal with what you’re dealing? YC is great for that.

The way I read your post, saying you "can get" very valuable advice immediately followed by saying some advice was wrong undermines that "can" pretty solidly. I'm not just looking at that sentence in isolation.

Could we get an estimate of how much of the advice was right, weighted by how non-obvious each thing was and how much of an impact it would have to follow or not follow?

[JohnFen]

> The way I read your post, saying you "can get" very valuable advice immediately followed by saying some advice was wrong undermines that "can" pretty solidly.

I disagree. Getting advice from subject matter experts is almost always of great value. The chances of that advice being on-target for you are never 100%, but that doesn't mean the advice is without value. It just means that it's not infallible.

In the end, as with literally everything about running a business -- VC backed or not -- you need to take in all of the quality information you can get and decide what's important/relevant and what's not.

Having access to more information is a Good Thing, even if some particular bit of information isn't helpful.

Also, while access to subject matter experts is one of the benefits of a group like YC, it's not necessarily the most important. Even if that's not useful to you, the other benefits may very well be.

Disclaimer -- I'm personally not interested in doing VC-backed ventures. For me, the juice isn't worth the squeeze, so I'm not asserting that YC is some sort of panacea that is valuable to everyone. But it is obviously of great value to some. Part of what an entrepreneur needs to learn how to do is how to determine what is of value to your startup and what is not. Every venture is different, and has different needs.

[jxramos]

Yah, seeing that is a signal from others personal experience that you’re now entering into non-formulaic territory and need to put on the appropriate hat.

[lobocinza]

Was it 50/50?

[jjeaff]

No idea about whether bad actors would think twice, but if you are asking about whether having YC attached to your business opens doors, absolutely. I did a startup with a much less well-known incubator VC and that alone got us in so many doors compared to when you are trying talk with VCs on your own. Honestly, I think that is the one and only major benefit to doing an incubator. Unless you are just really green and need the support for things that maybe aren't on your radar like taxes and payroll and compliance, etc., the unknown unknowns.

There are a lot of businesses with a great deal of traction that do incubators because it simply opens a lot more doors for VC investment. You would be surprised how little due diligence many investors actually do. Many will just invest in whatever $respected_vc is investing in. Assuming that $respected_vc has already done the due diligence.

[gumby]

> Sometimes their advice is right, and sometimes it's wrong? That doesn't sound particularly valuable.

As others have commented, all advice is like that. The person offering it cannot know your precise situation, but just pattern match on what they hear. That's life.

I turn this around the other way: if I am asked for my advice but the asker uses none of it, I don't feel bad, but stop offering advice. I'm clearly not the right person to be helping them.

But the opposite is true too: if the asker takes 100% of my advice then they aren't thinking about their business (or whatever they're asking about). And so I won't offer them any more advice either.

[jseliger]

As Gildor says in The Fellowship of the Ring:

    ” ‘… The choice is yours: to go or wait.’ [Gildor said.]
    ‘And it is also said,’ answered Frodo, ‘Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.’
    ‘Is it indeed?’ laughed Gildor. ‘Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill. But what would you? You have not told me all concerning yourself; how should I choose better than you? But if you demand advice, I will for friendship’s sake give it.’“

[xiphias2]

Whenever I see interviews with YC advisors, they blame mistakes of founders of not taking their advice as the biggest as mistake.

I don't have a strong opinion on this, and I believe YC is worth it, as 7% of nothing is still nothing, so any way a startup can decrease its risks is great.

[indymike]

> Whenever I see interviews with YC advisors, they blame mistakes of founders of not taking their advice as the biggest as mistake.

This is normal human behavior. You did X and failed. If only you had done Y as I had suggested... Monday morning quarterbacking at it's finest.

[im_down_w_otp]

My experience is usually more like being told to do X, me saying X probably isn’t worth the time and energy, doing X anyway at their prompting assuming they’ll take some accountability for it going sideways, it ultimately going sideways because it was a bad idea, and then them taking zero accountability for their bad idea and not helping with the fact we’ve now been materially set back by the attempt.

I’ve since learned to align our incentives around advice. If they’ll put their money where their mouth is to stand behind their advice, then it’s good advice. If they won’t, then it’s bad advice and I’m just their lab rat.

[mahmoudimus]

As someone who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for venture capital backed companies, I can tell you that this absolutely does not change even at the highest level of the company.

My advice from experience - if the advice you're receiving is wrong and you know it's wrong, explain why it's wrong and if you're pressured to go against your advice, then that person is not a fit for you and you should part ways.

[pbhjpbhj]

>>Some of the advice I did not take and did the opposite and it was the right decision. //

FWIW that does not mean the advice was wrong. Trivial example: "head East, there's a great bakery there", "I went West and found a place for a lovely lunch".

Unless the parent elucidates (and maybe even then) you can't tell if the advice was right or wrong.

[quest88]

Then why do you need the VC

[JohnFen]

Honestly, maybe you don't.

But, as a serial entrepreneur for more decades than I like to think about, I can confidently say that there is one thing that you really do need: you need access to people experienced in business, preferable a similar sort of business to yours. You need their advice.

YC can provide that, and has paved the path for it. You can also get it through many other avenues. But whether through YC or not, your business will be more likely to succeed if you can learn from what other people have already done.

[groby_b]

As much as I think VC is problematic: Those folks have a host of previous experience. When they share advice with you, it's a distillate of seeing lots of companies go through similar things.

And that's all any advice is - "based on what I've experienced before, here's what I see". You never should take advice unevaluated, but it's additional data that might help you to come to a better decision.

If that additional data is worth enough to you is a separate question, but there's certainly value there.

[vmatsiiako]

VCs are not gonna help you build your company (doesn't matter if it's YC or anyone else). As a founder, you're the only one responsible about what advice to follow or not (and very often you get conflicting advice from two very credible sources)

[hindsightbias]

Because a lot of first-time founders have no idea what they're doing and other experts are at least experts whether they're 100% right or not. Anyone on Sand Hill is probably a better resource than some guy down the alley.

[chimineycricket]

You can't expect them to be oracles though, right? Even the most experienced can give not-good-enough business advice, they don't do it on purpose I imagine.

[sp332]

Sure, but the question in the thread is whether it's worth the money.

[JohnFen]

And the answer, as with all "is it worth the money" questions, is "it depends".

[lazide]

I can’t speak for if it is better or not in YC land, but I can vouch for a truly amazing amount of scammers that salivate when they hear startup. It’s mind boggling.

If someone makes a YC company legitimately happy, then using them with other YC companies would be both natural and a good way to filter out the scammers.

[JohnFen]

> I can vouch for a truly amazing amount of scammers that salivate when they hear startup.

It really is amazing, isn't it? Over the years, I've developed a few coping mechanisms. One of which is that I never tell people I'm an entrepreneur, and I never use the word "startup".

I work for a business, doing <whatever the business does>. Outside of potential investors, nobody needs to know that the company is a startup running on my sweat and blood.

[lazide]

That is excellent advice, thank you.

[vmatsiiako]

The advice can't always be right. As a founder, I get a lot of (also unsolicited) advice every day, and it is the founder's responsibility to decide what advice makes sense in the current context. YC partners always emphasise that, and I really appreciate that.

In general, I can only say positive things when it comes to YC advice (especially on the fundraising side - YC partners know A LOT about fundraising)

[lr4444lr]

Substantiating as an early employee of a YC company. There is much honor among thieves, so to speak.

EDIT - but to the OP's point, yeah, it's what you make of it. I would suspect that word could get out about founders who are rude or combative to important people as not being worthy of any veil of protection.

[Forgeties79]

Does it really need to be stated that you can learn a ton from advice you don’t directly take? It could be relevant later, get you to think up a different solution, help you understand a competitor’s business model or decisions, improve your understanding of the industry you’re in, etc.

[mrobins]

Hearing both good and bad advice and making smart decisions is what a CEO’s job is. Get as much advice as possible but understand no one knows your business like you do. Being able to hit go hard on the right advice and go slow/ignore the bad is what makes a good leader.

[hungryforcodes]

Ah it could be if you learn from it-- which it sounds like they did. They would have learned mire imagine than if they had never had to make those choices and live with the consequences.

[Dylan16807]

Only if what you learned is better than what you would have learned without that advice.

[JohnFen]

"Better" can mean a bunch of different things, too. For example, if your business is headed for the rocks, mediocre advice that you get in time to enact it is much better than perfect advice that you get too late.

What advice isn't, and can never be, is ironclad rules that you can just accept without consideration and expect to provide value. The real value of almost all advice isn't the part where it's telling you what to do -- it's the part where it's providing you with a new way of thinking about the problem.

[hungryforcodes]

We can't accoubt for stupidity true. Almost every situation I encounter is a learning opportunity. Even a repetitive one where you learn : "Gee, I shouldn't do that again." : is a lesson.

[iab]

This is the nature of all advice. If there was a surefire playbook to do X and get Y result, then everyone would do it surely?

[rco8786]

> Sometimes their advice is right, and sometimes it's wrong? That doesn't sound particularly valuable.

That’s how all advice works.

[archgoon]

Advice does not need to be correct to be valuable. Simply getting a perspective on a problem, and a proposed strategy, can improve your ability to reason about your problem domain. If advice is wrong, and you choose not to follow it, then you know that people will ask about it later and you will be prepared to explain why you thought it was wrong; which is a better situation then saying to potential investors "Gee, never thought about that option."

That is to say that advice, right or wrong, gives you information about the problem space and perspectives on it; which can be valuable if you evaluate said advice critically.

As an example "You should always unit test your code" may not be applicable, but being able to say something like "This code is almost 100% dealing with External systems so a pure unit test would not be the appropriate way to test this code" is a better answer than "What's unit testing?" (Yes, I'm sure someone is going to quibble with this example :) )

[r12343a_19]

> YC is 100% what you make of it

This is 100% what survivor bias sounds like.

Every party is what you make of it. Every job. Every business. Every interaction.

Except, you know, when this other thing is overhyped and one hopes getting there helps and it turns out... it's not any different than anything else?

[cj]

> This is 100% what survivor bias sounds like.

Absolutely. Except, YC is designed to maximize your odds of "surviving"

It really is like college/university. You can skip class every day and no one cares. You can also attend every class, leverage every resource, and work really hard to be successful.

YC absolutely does not guarantee success (speaking from experience. my YC company failed). It absolutely increases your chances of success, particularly if (or perhaps only if) you don't have a strong professional network and/or network of advisors.

[seshagiric]

I could not help but notice the similarity with another popular question "Is MBA worth $100K+" and the equally similar answer "MBA is what you make of it".

[abfan1127]

this seems obvious, but its not for some. Should you get an MBA from Harvard? the material is probably very similar to other materials in other programs. But, the contacts you can make are probably priceless. Are you a shy individual who isn't going to put effort into meeting people, growing a network? probably not worth it because the actual advantage is the people, not the degree.

A classic example I use is I attended Arizona State for a bachelors and masters in electrical engineering. A friend of mine attended Arizona State for bachelors and Stanford for a masters. We both learned the same material. He had more opportunities to meet good contacts and use those resources to expand his future. Did he? no, he ended up at a defense contractor back in AZ. Instead he had larger student loans to pay back. The big fancy schools have big fancy networks of people, but if you're not going to leverage it, its not worth it. Sounds like YC is very similar.

[yonz]

I recently finished my MBA at Harvard and I have a lot of connections but surprisingly finding it hard to get the first check from institutional VCs.

P.S this is not a recent market phenomenon

[tester457]

Is being a defense contractor that bad?

[carom]

No but you don't need a Stanford degree to do it. They hire out of local areas. My girlfriend is attending ASU virtually right now and I've been really impressed with their program. When she said she was learning Matlab in a fairly normal math course I had a bit of a revelation about the defense partners of the school.

[red-iron-pine]

Plus what's the long term on that?

5 years out he's doing defense work in AZ... but 20 years out he's flexing that Master's to get CTO roles, and making connections at the local Cornell / Stanford / MIT club, etc. etc.

[cj]

> I'd do YC again in a heartbeat.

I think this captures my opinion too, in spirit.

That said, there's definitely diminishing returns doing an accelerator for a 2nd time. I did Techstars NYC 3 years after doing YC, and no complaints but once you're part of the YC (or Techstars) network, you're in and you know all the core teachings / philosophies - sort of like a college degree.

Plus, you already have the experience of starting and running a company.

100% do an accelerator at least once. But doing one twice, I would really consider the cost/benefit.

[MuffinFlavored]

> Founders that have been source of advice and support.

What are the specific logistics/semantics of reaching out to a group of "founders" with targeted questions? Is it an e-mail chain? Is there a group chat? Discord? WhatsApp? iMessage?

I feel like if you were to ask 10 different "founders" general questions about "should I do XYZ in business?" (pivot, grow, measure how much you should listen to or ignore existing noisy customers, raise prices, don't raise prices, offer a free tier, don't offer a free tier), aren't you possibly going to get 10 different answers given that business isn't an exact science? Or... is it?

[strangattractor]

VC's have pitched their "value added" other than funding forever. I suspect it is no different with YC. From my own limited experience as a startup founder VC's can be detrimental as well as helpful. Ultimately if they provide a stable source of funding and lend credibility to your venture consider yourself lucky. The valuations are just a reflection of the mood of the day.

[77pt77]

>helps protects you from bad actors who have to think twice before fucking with a YC co

Probably the best thing they get out of this.

[bell-cot]

> YC is 100% what you make of it. It's not a lean back experience.

THIS. Running (or even being the lowliest employee of) a maybe-not-yet-viable new & hopefully-fast-growing company is so, SO what you make of it.

[paulmendoza]

The fundraising aspect is understated. If you build a company on your own lots of investors don’t really care. But if you graduate from YC you get a huge reputation bump.

[EGreg]

How can one do an all-remote batch ??

[acecreamu]

It's been an only option during Covid times. I believe now the program is still remote-friendly, tho everyone is encouraged to come in-person (particularly because it became crystal clear how harmful the remote experience is)