[seabass-labrax]

One thing that makes me sceptical about Y Combinator is their emphasis on in-person meetings and USA-centric approach in general.

Firstly, unless you and your co-founders permanently relocate, you could start to burn through that $500k pretty quickly in travel costs. Is relocating to the USA legal for you? Will it cost you more money compared to your current cost of living? Do you have existing staff or facilities that you would be unable to supervise or move?

The article mentions how useful to them YC's resources and team were to answer questions about business operations like finance and paperwork. How applicable would these be if you're not registered in the USA, even if not in a particular state? Would YC's advice with, say, employment law, have any value if you were incorporated in Switzerland?

The same points would probably apply to the benefits offered by any further early investors that YC could introduce. All in all, after taking away the 'overcoming imposter syndrome', 'answering boring questions' and 'founder community' reasons, it looks to me like an expensive way to get a bit of capital and credibility for those outside of the USA. I would be especially interested to hear from non-American YC founders who would beg to differ.

[nemothekid]

IMO, those are filtering functions for YC. If you aren't willing to move to the US, then your company probably doesn't make sense for YC's business model.

YC isn't some philanthropic business program - its a Venture Capital fund. They make money when the companies they invest in go on to be worth billions of dollars. That almost always means the best possible outcome is you end up as a company registered in Delaware and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. If that isn't on your horizon, I'd argue that venture capital isn't attractive at all.

The USA-centric approach makes sense once you understand the expectation is for your company to be worth billions.

[johnrob]

If you look at it from 10k feet, it’s a credible investor promising a pre-stated amount of money and a quick yes/no answer, with minimal song and dance. This is practically non-existent elsewhere. The high equity cost is the premium for skipping the traditional process.

Edit: I should also add that YC is trustworthy as well (easy to underestimate this part).

[creamyhorror]

Back in 2012, partly to address the non-US HN audience and bring them together as a community of startups, "N Combinator"/nReduce launched: https://venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/nreduce/

It shut down over a year later, but it was an interesting effort.

[ulfw]

If one could as easily locate to the US as to many European or Asian countries, then I don't think people would have an issue with it. The reality of US immigration being such a f up means most founders (especially us older ones) just can't be bothered.

[constantly]

“Can’t be bothered to do the legwork asked if you to get accelerated and funded by YC” is honestly a wonderful filtering function.

[ulfw]

Good. I have no problem with said filter. I'd much rather focus on the business not on bureaucracy that is working against me.

[s1artibartfast]

YC is not trying to be a best fit venture capitalist for every startup in the world. They have a niche focus and applicability. It still might be the best option for some people on The Fringe of that niche. For some startups, it might be a terrible fit, but still the best option on the table.