So the reason we did this is not because of deal flow. Over 7500 companies apply to YC every batch and only 100-150 get in. The reason why we did this is cause the number one reason why companies don't apply to YC is because they don't think they can get in and the number one myth about getting into YC is that you need an alum to recommend you. We thought that opening up the recommendation system would allow any founder to ask anyone who believes in their company to recommend them (even if they don't know a YC alum). Also, it allows anyone working with a good founder to give them some additional confidence when applying to YC.
"the number one reason why companies don't apply to YC is because they don't think they can get in" - and 98% of them are correct to think that in each batch. It's certainly in YC's interest to encourage as many applications as possible, as YC's option to say 'yes' or 'no' is always worth >= 0, but I suspect that for many startups, it's not worth the distraction. So YC can have lots of applicants, a very small admit %, and still be better off with even more applicants.
"54.7% did not have a recommendation." (regarding accepted companies) - founders who are applying are not interested in the "percentage of accepted founders who had a recommendation", it's "what is my chance of acceptance with a recommendation?" vs "what is my chance of acceptance without a recommendation?" For example, if say, 50% of 150 'recommended' founders are accepted, while 1% of 7350 'unrecommended' founders were accepted, you would get similar numbers to those published.
Ok, but if that's what you're trying to solve, how about the full anonymized dataset available for everyone to crunch instead of letting marketing produce a few cherry-picked stats?
Might be just me, but I've met my own fair share of deluded founders and very bright ones. It would be a public service for everyone out there if they could see a VC's deal flow exposed as it is, and be able to crunch a few numbers before they apply.
Might you get less deal flow if you did that? Maybe. Might the deal flow be more interesting? Might also be...
Either way, though, you'd be a very interesting source of data for anyone trying to figure out "Do I tick most of the boxes to get funding or am I just wasting my time?" Raising funds takes lots of enery. Even Paul Graham says so here:
Comments
So the reason we did this is not because of deal flow. Over 7500 companies apply to YC every batch and only 100-150 get in. The reason why we did this is cause the number one reason why companies don't apply to YC is because they don't think they can get in and the number one myth about getting into YC is that you need an alum to recommend you. We thought that opening up the recommendation system would allow any founder to ask anyone who believes in their company to recommend them (even if they don't know a YC alum). Also, it allows anyone working with a good founder to give them some additional confidence when applying to YC.
"the number one reason why companies don't apply to YC is because they don't think they can get in" - and 98% of them are correct to think that in each batch. It's certainly in YC's interest to encourage as many applications as possible, as YC's option to say 'yes' or 'no' is always worth >= 0, but I suspect that for many startups, it's not worth the distraction. So YC can have lots of applicants, a very small admit %, and still be better off with even more applicants.
"54.7% did not have a recommendation." (regarding accepted companies) - founders who are applying are not interested in the "percentage of accepted founders who had a recommendation", it's "what is my chance of acceptance with a recommendation?" vs "what is my chance of acceptance without a recommendation?" For example, if say, 50% of 150 'recommended' founders are accepted, while 1% of 7350 'unrecommended' founders were accepted, you would get similar numbers to those published.
Ok, but if that's what you're trying to solve, how about the full anonymized dataset available for everyone to crunch instead of letting marketing produce a few cherry-picked stats?
Might be just me, but I've met my own fair share of deluded founders and very bright ones. It would be a public service for everyone out there if they could see a VC's deal flow exposed as it is, and be able to crunch a few numbers before they apply.
Might you get less deal flow if you did that? Maybe. Might the deal flow be more interesting? Might also be...
Either way, though, you'd be a very interesting source of data for anyone trying to figure out "Do I tick most of the boxes to get funding or am I just wasting my time?" Raising funds takes lots of enery. Even Paul Graham says so here:
http://paulgraham.com/fr.html