Comments on: Considering Y Combinator (or any seed funding)?

By: Tony Wright

Tony Wright — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:23:52 +0000

Fixed– thanks Scott! That's why I'm a blogger and you're an author.

By: Scott Berkun

Scott Berkun — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:19:53 +0000

Just fyi: you have a typo in the first bullet

"NOT the magnitude of your it should it happen."

By: Tony Wright

Tony Wright — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:23:52 +0000

Fixed– thanks Scott! That's why I'm a blogger and you're an author.

By: Scott Berkun

Scott Berkun — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:19:53 +0000

Just fyi: you have a typo in the first bullet

"NOT the magnitude of your it should it happen."

By: webwright

webwright — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:20:16 +0000

Hey there-- YC is strictly Silicon Valley, though I'd guess that 50% or more of the founders fly in and set up shop to do it (we relocated temporarily from Seattle). It's very much worth it.

Lots of details are available at http://www.ycombinator.com

By: premierinterns

premierinterns — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:52:44 +0000

My business partner and I launched PremierInterns.com in the fourth quarter of 2009 and have been growing in a snails pace. The reason being is because we have been bootstrapping the entire project. We're at the point of maybe trying to reach out to angel investors or joining an incubator. I'm kind of curious to see if PremierInterns.com will qualify to be part of Y Combinator. If so, I hope they have a branch in San Diego, CA.

By: MicahWedemeyer

MicahWedemeyer — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:37:41 +0000

I'm proud to count myself as a “lifestyle entrepreneur” these days. I once dreamed of VC funding and those sort of things, but now all I want is to work on what I like. My chances of getting rich are pretty low, but my chances of permanently saying goodbye to the average work world are looking better every day.

By: webwright

webwright — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:08:40 +0000

Rock on, Micah! I hope you didn't take my remark as disparaging. I'm an
old-school pen and paper guy myself (though it's been a few years). It's a
cool space.

I think there are two spectrums to worry about as an entrepreneur. Chance
of viability and chance of “blow up to be HUGE”. Lots of very viable
businesses have functionally zero chance for venture-sized returns. Lots of
monster-potential startups have nearly zero chance to be viable (they are
“all or nothing” plays). VCs would rather fund 10 companies and have 9 fail
(but the other one be Google) than funding 10 companies and have all 10 look
like your company (or mine– right now! ).

Check out the end of this second:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seomozs-venture-capi… for
a great rundown about this. The whole post is fabulous if you have the
time!

To say that a business isn't right for venture financing isn't a bad thing.
In fact, a lot of high-chance-of-viability business are a helluva lot more
admirable and impressive to me than a lot of “shoot the moon” bullshit
startups.

Grats on your success!

By: MicahWedemeyer

MicahWedemeyer — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:19:00 +0000

I’m the guy who runs the D&D management website – http://www.obsidianportal.com. Like you say, we actually did find a business in this area and we’ve bootstrapped ourselves into a good spot.

We may not change the world, but we’ve definitely change the RPG world. That’s enough for me

By: webwright

webwright — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:14:42 +0000

Great to hear! There are a lot of posts like this out there– I tried to add a few tips/thoughts I hadn't read before. Holler if there are other niggling questions.