TechStars, as bizarrely and counter-productively obsessed with YC as they seem to be, has actually produced a couple of winners now. It's not the kind of hit rate that YC has exhibited...or had exhibited at this stage in YC's life. But it, at least, has some measurable success.
Given that there are cheaper sources of funding, and most of them have no track record and extremely limited credibility, I would look much deeper...and consider other alternatives. Charles River has an early stage arm that does a lot of deals, for example, and has a good reputation. Angels are another option. While this "new model" of investing is compelling for its high success rate, when executed by YC, it's not necessarily the best way to raise money. We took money from YC and have never had any regrets about it...but I can't think of any other situation where we'd give up that much equity for that little money. But, you'd have to decide that for yourself.
I would avoid TechStars due to that obsession, which is a nice word for it BTW. They really do consistently act like ass-clowns.
They do seem to have the second most well-attended demo days though. I don't know about how their connections compare to the others on that list. That might be the deciding factor for me.
I already mentioned TechStars hit rate, as far as I know it: "has actually produced a couple of winners now", in the form of two small acquisitions.
YC has had a couple of pretty big acquisitions and five (I believe) small acquisitions. More importantly, I think there are at least three or four still on-going companies that will be very large successes for YC. I won't name them, as it might imply that I think others won't be big successes or it might start a flame war over "no way that blah blah idea can generate significant revenue, no matter how many million hits they get", or whatever.
And the "at this stage" bit was in reference to the fact that about 50% of the first batch of YC founders are now rich, by a reasonable definition of "rich". Each batch since then rolls off a bit, in percentages, but the bets are getting bigger and take longer to play out (our company, for example, would not be for sale for a low millions acquisition offer...but the vast majority of the exits for YC and TS companies have been in that range...and I know that a few other YC companies are also looking to build larger companies than that).
Anyway, by any metric YC has a lot of successful companies in their stable. Traffic for a few YC companies is just through the roof (Scribd, Justin.TV, Weebly, Reddit, Disqus, probably others). A couple of others have really impressive reach outside of the usual Web 2.0 set and into the "real world" (Loopt, in particular, though Inkling Markets is everywhere, too...my dad has used Inkling's product, and he just got broadband for the first time last week).
Comments
TechStars, as bizarrely and counter-productively obsessed with YC as they seem to be, has actually produced a couple of winners now. It's not the kind of hit rate that YC has exhibited...or had exhibited at this stage in YC's life. But it, at least, has some measurable success.
Given that there are cheaper sources of funding, and most of them have no track record and extremely limited credibility, I would look much deeper...and consider other alternatives. Charles River has an early stage arm that does a lot of deals, for example, and has a good reputation. Angels are another option. While this "new model" of investing is compelling for its high success rate, when executed by YC, it's not necessarily the best way to raise money. We took money from YC and have never had any regrets about it...but I can't think of any other situation where we'd give up that much equity for that little money. But, you'd have to decide that for yourself.
I would avoid TechStars due to that obsession, which is a nice word for it BTW. They really do consistently act like ass-clowns.
They do seem to have the second most well-attended demo days though. I don't know about how their connections compare to the others on that list. That might be the deciding factor for me.
What is YC's hit rate? What is TechStar's hit rate?
I already mentioned TechStars hit rate, as far as I know it: "has actually produced a couple of winners now", in the form of two small acquisitions.
YC has had a couple of pretty big acquisitions and five (I believe) small acquisitions. More importantly, I think there are at least three or four still on-going companies that will be very large successes for YC. I won't name them, as it might imply that I think others won't be big successes or it might start a flame war over "no way that blah blah idea can generate significant revenue, no matter how many million hits they get", or whatever.
And the "at this stage" bit was in reference to the fact that about 50% of the first batch of YC founders are now rich, by a reasonable definition of "rich". Each batch since then rolls off a bit, in percentages, but the bets are getting bigger and take longer to play out (our company, for example, would not be for sale for a low millions acquisition offer...but the vast majority of the exits for YC and TS companies have been in that range...and I know that a few other YC companies are also looking to build larger companies than that).
Anyway, by any metric YC has a lot of successful companies in their stable. Traffic for a few YC companies is just through the roof (Scribd, Justin.TV, Weebly, Reddit, Disqus, probably others). A couple of others have really impressive reach outside of the usual Web 2.0 set and into the "real world" (Loopt, in particular, though Inkling Markets is everywhere, too...my dad has used Inkling's product, and he just got broadband for the first time last week).