Re:Ask HN: Copying Y Combinator - If there's a right way, wh...
by pegobry on Friday July 17, 2009 @08:27AM
(#709730)
Great points. I think the bigger point is that it's not so much the formula (how long the program is, how much do you invest, is it a seed fund or an incubator, etc.) as the people who are doing it.
I'd travel halway around the world for ten weeks with pg & a bunch of brilliant YC geeks. There aren't many venues that have the same appeal.
I don't think it will work to copy anything, I'm always going to give 6% to Paul Graham in the valley before I give 6% to Opie Taylor in Mayberry.
I think there might be an opening on the lower end of the market. Right now these groups are making total investments in companies around 50k (after program costs). That still requires a serious potential return to make a profit. So while they will tell you otherwise, they will rarely invest in an idea unless it has a very large potential market size. They will take 1% chance at a billion dollar return over a 50% chance at a million dollar return. Which leaves a decent number of smaller ideas on the table. The truth is that a company providing great software to dentist's offices will probably be ramen profitable before an idea like tipjoy -- but obviously the potential returns are a lot lower.
Intellectual capital is also a big problem. If you are ambitious and talented you have probably already moved to a tech hub. That said...
I would buy a giant house and go Heaven's Gate style. Recruit local talent that hates their demeaning code-monkey job and sell people on the vision. They get free rent and a very small stipend. Dig up 10 people like this in a secondary town and now you've got a little community going... Hackers in these small towns are usually really hungry for people who "get it" so it's not about the money. Snag really sharp kids right out of high school or college and spend some time building into them in a really intense way. It's really talent development in a lot of ways, but it could potentially be a great funnel for getting people connected.
And just to soapbox for a second, post-industrial age-graded education is dehumanizing and bureaucratic -- although it's been great for making mindless factory workers. But it's not working anymore, so sooner or later we'll move back toward an apprenticeship model where people learn in a holistic relationship-driven context. That's what these seed stage funds are doing right now -- and it seems to be working.