Is Y Combinator Obsolete (For the funding portion at least)?

4 points

16 years ago

After applying, getting called in, and finally being turned down for an early round of YC funding, I emailed Paul Graham last spring about a new project I was working on.. I already had a prototype and some Alpha testers and was looking to form a company so I asked Paul if I could get YC a la carte.. Hold the cash and the move to the Bay area.. Extra on the top lawyers and maybe sprinkle on some sage advice.. Paul said the project looked interesting and encouraged me to apply to the formal program as the YC system only scaled when done in batches..

So I applied, (lonely single founder at the time) and got back a response turning down the project.. At the end of the email was the following: "We're trying to get better at this, but it's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes."

Now of course, I plan to send Paul that email one of these days, but the recent Kickstarter phenomenom has me wondering if it is my project that they got wrong, or is the whole idea even necessary any more?

A little networking and I got a good firm to defer our legal fees for company formation and I'm not too far removed from some pretty successful entrpreneurs who offer sound advice whenever I ask, so I think that just might happen naturally.. But now with Kickstarter, we were able to raise $6k and counting with no strings or equity lost: http://kck.st/9Kgf6O.. And this is from the only investors that really count.. Users!

What do you all think?

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