Yes, it lends credibility, but it's not necessarily the primary purpose...at least not of YC. There are a lot of good benefits to YC...it's an educational experience, a community-building experience, and more. Of course, it doesn't hurt that dropping the YC bomb in a discussion with an investor is an automatic upgrade to "vetted" in the investors mind (works with valley press, as well, apparently).
I was thinking more along the lines can these people starting a "YC Clone" bring real investors who might invest on "demo day". I should have said that, but it all comes down to credibility (on many different levels, the process, the people running the process, the founders, etc).
It seems to me, and I may be wrong, that the YC system has an extra bit of credibility that can be spent even if a person isn't successful with what they built in YC they can build something new and still have a better then average chance.
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The primary purpose is to lend credibility. As long as the others doing similiar things have credibility to lend, they seem acceptable.
Once you have your product and their credibility then you need to wield it carefully to get to your destination.
Yes, it lends credibility, but it's not necessarily the primary purpose...at least not of YC. There are a lot of good benefits to YC...it's an educational experience, a community-building experience, and more. Of course, it doesn't hurt that dropping the YC bomb in a discussion with an investor is an automatic upgrade to "vetted" in the investors mind (works with valley press, as well, apparently).
I was thinking more along the lines can these people starting a "YC Clone" bring real investors who might invest on "demo day". I should have said that, but it all comes down to credibility (on many different levels, the process, the people running the process, the founders, etc).
It seems to me, and I may be wrong, that the YC system has an extra bit of credibility that can be spent even if a person isn't successful with what they built in YC they can build something new and still have a better then average chance.
The primary purpose is to lend credibility.
I thought the primary purpose of YC was to instill morale.
http://www.google.com/search?q=+site:www.paulgraham.com+%22y...
Morale is tremendously important to a startup—so important that morale alone is almost enough to determine success.