Site Menu:
Introduction
Traditional Businesses
Opportunities Arise Online
Micro Seed Funding
Y Combinator Alternatives
ADVANTAGES:
- Starting Capital
- Ability to Sell Early
- Relocation to Startup Hub
- Weekly Dinners
- Knowledgeable Advice
- Demo Day
- Experience
DISADVANTAGES:
- Low Valuation
- High Risk of Failure
MY EXPERIENCE
HELPFUL RESOURCES
This website was created
by Dan Veltri, an entrepreneur
and founder of Weebly.
Advantage: Weekly Dinners
Every week during the 3 month program, Y Combinator hosts an informal dinner for all the startup founders. Paul Graham usually does the cooking. It gives the groups a chance to catch up with each other and demo their latest product features. Getting feedback and ideas from others during this early stage of development is helpful in shaping what the product becomes. The regular dinners also place a bit of pressure on the teams to continue to work hard, show progress, and impress others, because in the end, not all will make it.
Most dinners are complemented with a speech from a high-profile entrepreneur, investor, or potential acquirer. During the winter 2007 program, the speakers included:
Page Mailliard – Partner Lawyer at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Joe Kraus – Cofounder of Excite and JotSpot
Evan Williams – Cofounder of Blogger and Odeo
Greg McAdoo – Partner Venture Capitalist at Sequoia Capital
Mark Fletcher – Founder of Bloglines and ONElist
Paul Buchheit – Creator of Gmail
Ron Conway – Prominent angel investor
Sam Altman – Cofounder and CEO of Loopt
James Hong – Founder of HOT or NOT
Bradley Horowitz – Head of Technology Development at Yahoo!
Many of the startups will show off their products to the speakers before or after their talk and also exchange contact information for following up.