[HN Gopher] The Y Combinator Experience - Remote Edition
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The Y Combinator Experience - Remote Edition
Author : mxstbr
Score : 150 points
Date : 2021-03-16 08:49 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (magicbell.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (magicbell.io)
| devops000 wrote:
| Did you give your equity just for this? it doesn't sound a good
| deal on your side.
| unamashana wrote:
| I probably didn't do a good job in listing down all the
| benefits. I skipped the biggest one - the YC network. It's an
| amazing network that's ready to adopt new products as well as
| invest in them.
|
| YC also gives you a lot credibility. If you don't have a
| pedigree (previous exit, FAANG network), it's your buy-in in
| the big league.
|
| Besides they invest 125k, which may not sound like a lot but is
| a good first cheque in that can get you pretty far on it's own.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Yeah, even if you got $0 it would still probably be worth it.
| If you company fails you still end up with an insane network.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| What's the current equity scenario again? I remember them
| saying it's not fixed but what is it? And what is it
| practically in your cohort?
| unamashana wrote:
| 7% for $125k with some pro-rata rights -
| https://www.ycombinator.com/deal/
| igammarays wrote:
| The hardest thing about implementing notifications for me is not
| the UI, it's the rate limiting (avoid bombarding users with
| duplicates), intelligently handling state changes, and figuring
| out when to escalate to an email/sms channel. The homepage
| doesn't convince they've solved the hard problems surrounding
| notifications.
| unamashana wrote:
| We handle state changes (and sync them real-time). We'll get to
| rate limiting and other features you mentioned in the coming
| months. We have a pretty extensive roadmap and would love to
| keep you posted - @magicbell_io.
| newbie578 wrote:
| I would love to hear experiences regarding Remote vs On-site YC.
| What is the magnitude of difference? How much does the average
| startup lose out on networking because of the lack of physical
| presence.
|
| And for people from Europe, is it a net positive that the batch
| is remote, or is the on-site still better?
| krrishd wrote:
| > Some people around me felt that my experience bootstrapping my
| last business should be enough to close seed funding, but the
| only thing that helps close funding is the fear of missing out on
| your deal. I witnessed this first hand after we launched to #2 on
| Product Hunt. We got some good inbound investor interest, but I
| couldn't create the pressure needed to close funding - there was
| no forcing function like the demo day.
|
| TIL, makes a ton of sense but for some reason not the most
| obvious thing to a non-founder / VC.
| Frodo478 wrote:
| So magicbell is a dropdown displayed with an API? $99 /month for
| 2000 users? I don't understand what problem is trying to solve
| your startup. To me it seems that you're trying to sell a library
| more than a service.
| unamashana wrote:
| It certainly looks deceptively simple. Once you factor in real-
| time updates with multi-device sync, things start to get
| challenging pretty fast. Also, that's 2,000 monthly active
| users. Happy to discuss on twitter @unamashana
| colesantiago wrote:
| push notifications and state management across devices is a
| very hard problem, try doing this yourself.
|
| I am glad that something like magicbell exists.
| mxstbr wrote:
| It sounds really simple to do, but we literally spent a month
| or two implementing a notification inbox, browser push
| notifications, granular settings and permissions, etc at
| Spectrum. Even with all that work it was still relatively
| buggy!
|
| I'm very glad MagicBell is tackling this -- I never want to
| build another notification system myself, I'd much rather pay
| them to solve this problem for me!
| ggambetta wrote:
| Had some trouble scanning through the article. You have this
| header
|
| > Tips on applying successfully
|
| And the next subheaders are
|
| >> Talking about my idea only from a customer's perspective
|
| >> Writing to sound impressive
|
| >> Stopping to apply after a couple of rejections
|
| Things were confusing, I had to go back and read the small print
| after the first header, which says "do NOT do these things".
| Maybe the first headers should read something like "pitfalls to
| avoid when applying"? Or rephrasing the sub-headers?
| unamashana wrote:
| Excellent feedback! I updated the article and used the heading
| you suggested. Thanks.
| switch007 wrote:
| I couldn't quite tell from the api docs but is the user's email
| required? Can I just supply an external ID? I'm just wondering
| from a privacy point of view.
| unamashana wrote:
| You can use (as you guessed) an `userExternalId` -
| https://developer.magicbell.io/docs/browser-
| js#identifying-u....
|
| That's how we built our HN Chrome extension that never asks for
| your email - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-
| news-notifi...
| shash7 wrote:
| A fully customizable notifications dropdown with a solid api
| sounds useful.
|
| Note to the author: please for the love of god increase body font
| weight to 400.
| unamashana wrote:
| Ah so that was it! Thanks for pointing this out. Pushing up a
| fix now.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| Nice write up on your experience in YC, thanks for that.
|
| How much do you think you get distracted by talking and listening
| with others in your YC network vs actually focusing on your
| product?
|
| As a lone wolf programmer, I avoid talking to people
| yaseer wrote:
| > As a lone wolf programmer, I avoid talking to people
|
| I've built things solo with my PhD (dropped out), and
| collaboratively in a startup.
|
| The biggest mistake we make is building the wrong thing. We
| need to talk to people, whether it's customers, co-founders or
| colleagues to correct all the incorrect assumptions we've made,
| but can't see.
|
| If you're building something new, there's likely to be many,
| many incorrect assumptions...
| allenleein wrote:
| > The biggest mistake we make is building the wrong thing
|
| I don't think talking to users can fix that. If you have the
| wrong vision about the product, you probably will talk to the
| 'wrong users' too. You're not in the market the users think
| you're in -- you're in the market you believe you're in.
|
| That approach will also lead you to very incremental
| solutions or even make you run around in circles achieving
| nothing. It lowers the cost of failure (downside), but also
| the potential impact of success (upside).
| rytill wrote:
| Can you explain your approach/philosophy, or is it
| intuitive?
| allenleein wrote:
| I believe the most successful companies don't discover
| markets, they create them. Visionaries like Steve Jobs
| and Elon Musk forge the macro (10x) jump and then ask
| customers for the micro improvements.
|
| I'm writing an essay about this topic, feel free to take
| a look the draft if your are interested :)
|
| https://ab0ve.substack.com/p/ec282c2c-95fa-4914-820f-7463
| cb5...
| tjs8rj wrote:
| It looks more symbiotic in my experience. Apple now has
| the power to "create markets" because they have a
| reputation, a brand, and lots of money. Steve Jobs was
| once a nobody working on a startup, and nobodies working
| on startups are at the whim of the market. He rode the
| wave of dramatically increasing enthusiasm for consumer
| computing, which had been a hobby industry for years at
| that point and had began to take off. The market already
| wanted it, he didn't create it.
|
| Likewise, Elon Musk has been a big personality for years.
| Now he can start a company drilling holes and attract big
| partnerships and investments. When he started, he was
| just a nobody making maps software, then still nearly a
| nobody making internet money transmission software. Both
| relied on the massive wave of internet popularity in the
| 90s, with PayPal riding eBays wave. In hindsight, victory
| seems obvious, it looks like they created their markets.
| In their time, they rode a market wave. Markets are
| people, and you can't make people want something they
| don't want.
| unamashana wrote:
| They try to minimize the distractions (and they recommend you
| do too). Personally, I like being distracted a bit and mingling
| so it worked out just fine for me. Other than the group office
| hours, they don't insist you attend anything up until the demo
| day preparation starts.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| Thanks
| dcolkitt wrote:
| I know from a personal perspective, I've considered applying to
| YCombinator in the past, but would never to the Bay Area.
|
| This is just one datapoint, but I'm sure there are many others
| like me. How many businesses never launched, because our society
| has insisted that startups must happen in a single, extremely
| unlivable part of the country.
| hashkb wrote:
| > The biggest one was that Ycombinator is all about raising
| money, and if you are not in the mindset of 'raise as much as you
| can, as often as you can,' you won't fit in.
|
| This must have changed. I went through YCF #2 and we were
| essentially laughed at each time we mentioned staying local or
| becoming profitable. Literally the only thing our advisor talked
| about was raising.
| yaseer wrote:
| I'm sorry you had that experience - I would hope it's an
| outlier.
|
| We're on the same W21 cohort as OP. I remember when we started,
| they hammered home frugality as a key trait of successful
| founders. One founder talk stood out - "If they have office
| snacks before product market fit, you know they're going to
| fail". W21 wanted to put that on a T-shirt.
|
| This advice seems to be repeated all over YC's manuals, partner
| office hours and culture generally.
| _0o6v wrote:
| Surely the one thing that should be on the Magic Bell homepage is
| a Magic Bell I can click on and see what this product is?
| [deleted]
| unamashana wrote:
| That's a fair point. We need to setup some examples with mock
| API calls so we can offer a consistent state to all new
| visitors. In the meantime, here is a quick demo -
| https://codesandbox.io/s/elastic-northcutt-9pcgv
| _0o6v wrote:
| I don't think you (just) need to set up some examples, you
| need to use your own product on your own homepage.
|
| Looks good btw.
| tasn wrote:
| I don't think they can. They do notifications for users,
| but website visitors are anonymous. It doesn't make sense
| to add it to the landing page.
|
| With that being said, I think a live demo is a great idea
| and would go a long way!
| artembugara wrote:
| Remote batch brought 1 more real benefit of YC: $125k.
|
| Before COVID when you have to relocate to Bay Area this is just a
| living fee for a low quality house + personal spendings.
|
| Now, 125k is almost a lot for pretty much any place on the
| planet. Therefore, many remote entrepreneurs can be more relaxed
| on raising capital. I'd say you even can decide to "bootstrap"
| with this money + GCP/AWS credits.
| unamashana wrote:
| That's right! I completely forgot about the AWS/GCP credits.
| Even in a realistic usage scenario, that's adding 25 - 50k to
| your funding over a couple of years. The legal fees waiver for
| upto 10k is another one.
| artembugara wrote:
| Indeed, we got 100k from GCP recently, and it will change a
| lot for our bootstrapped company.
|
| It basically makes us "ramen profitable"
| nowherebeen wrote:
| What's the criteria for getting 100k? The most I ever got
| was 5k.
| hashkb wrote:
| True! Where I live now, that would fund my whole neighborhood
| working together on a startup for a year.
| iagovar wrote:
| I can live off a bunch of years in Spain for that money.
| [deleted]
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Any suggestions? Spain has been a potential target for
| temporary relocation for me!
| reader_mode wrote:
| I got the impression that English level is really poor in
| Spain (when I was visiting Valencia, didn't go to
| Barcelona). Even with younger population - I was going out
| in the evening with some friends, we approached like 4
| groups of 20-something and none of them could even give us
| basic directions. In shops and tourist places it's better
| but barely.
| statstutor wrote:
| Valencia (the region) literally has a part which locals
| jokingly call "Little Britain", where residents primarily
| expect to speak and conduct business in English.
| mbesto wrote:
| I did the nomadic, startup-in-the-gargage, life in
| Barcelona and didn't speak a lick of Spanish.
|
| Barcelona is awesome and it's cheap (spent a total of
| $800 for the whole month on food, living, etc.). Highly
| recommend for someone on a budget who wants to hack away.
| ggambetta wrote:
| Can confirm, the average level of English in Spain is
| pretty bad. Even in Madrid, where I lived for a year.
| It's almost like they're _proud_ of it - AFAIK they 're
| very protective of their language, dubbing every movie
| (at least until recently), which in turn limits their
| exposure to English.
|
| On the other hand, living in Spain and speaking fluent
| English can be almost like a superpower in some
| circumstances.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| And why wouldn't they be proud of it? Countries that
| intentionally focus on their own language (e.g. Japan or
| France) have managed to maintain more of their own
| cultures, while smaller ones have been more easily
| gobbled up by global American culture.
| ggambetta wrote:
| Being proud and focusing on your culture, yes. Being
| proud of not speaking the lingua franca of the world, no.
|
| (And for the record, my native language is Spanish)
| Grustaf wrote:
| Unless you're planning to hire your neighbours, why is
| this relevant?
| reader_mode wrote:
| Going out and being unable to speak to people on the
| street/in the shops or even talking to waiters in
| restaurants is not really a great experience for me.
|
| Presumably you go to large cities for the social
| interaction.
| Grustaf wrote:
| If you move to Spain presumably you're planning to learn
| Spanish?
| bobf wrote:
| English is the most spoken second language in Spain, with
| ~35% of the population being able to speak it. Portugal
| is slightly worse at 27%, along with Ukraine (18%),
| Romania (31%), and Italy (34%). France (39%), Croatia
| (49%), Estonia (50%), Slovenia (59%), and Greece (51%)
| are all a bit higher. And then the Netherlands, Denmark,
| Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Luxembourg, and
| Switzerland are all between 60-70%+.
|
| And although I wouldn't worry too much about language too
| much if your focus is primarily on work, Spanish is
| perhaps the easiest language to learn as an English
| speaker. You can achieve professional level fluency in
| 600 hours of study. Certainly with 80-100 hours of
| concentrated study and continued practice after that you
| can learn more than enough to get by in daily life.
|
| Two big advantages with learning Spanish: 1)
| pronunciation is easy to learn and is the same for both
| written and spoken Spanish; 2) there are lots of
| cognates, so if your English vocabulary is good then you
| already know lots of Spanish words.
|
| Spain is great, but for the purposes of picking a country
| for working remotely and having a longer runway, I would
| argue heavily for Mexico over Spain if you're picking a
| Spanish speaking country. The overall cost of living is
| low, internet access can be great depending on the area,
| you'll be on a similar timezone as the US, and services
| (cooking, laundry, babysitting, etc) are very inexpensive
| - leaving you with much more time to work (or to use your
| downtime more effectively than running errands/etc).
| burlesona wrote:
| FWIW I'd argue Italian is even easier than Spanish as it
| has fewer conjugation rules to learn and the grammar is
| in many cases closer to English :)
|
| Both are pretty easy, though, and Spanish opens up a lot
| more of the world. But Italian is just so darn fun :)
| reader_mode wrote:
| Italy is the only place I've seen worse English than
| Spain :D
| reader_mode wrote:
| Maybe my impression of Mexico is wrong, but I would feel
| much safer living in Spain/EU than Mexico or South
| America.
| jjmarinho wrote:
| Someone from Latin America here.
|
| Your impressions are correct. While some violence is
| greatly exagerated to paint a picture (For instance,
| Chicago, St Louis, Baltimore, Washington are more violent
| than Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro), it still is MUCH safer
| in Europe or Sillicon Valley/New York.
| darkcha0s wrote:
| Maybe, just maybe, it's on you to learn the local
| language (even just basics) if you feel like relocating
| there?
| sodality2 wrote:
| He's not saying it's not his responsibility. He's just
| stating the difficulty level. Of course it's on you to
| learn the language, but you also should of course know
| the culture of where you are thinking of moving.
| matteuan wrote:
| If you don't need the sea, I suggest some cheap german city
| like Leipzig or Dresden. Another not so common idea is
| Bulgaria: cheap, very low taxes (flat 10%) and a lot of
| english speakers (expecially in Sofia). I've been there
| several times and it's also a very nice place.
| alexcnwy wrote:
| Dresden is amazing - one of my favorite cities in the
| world.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Barcelona is obviously amazing, but Malaga is very nice
| too, as is Seville. If you ever considered taking up
| kitesurfing or windsurfing, move to Tarifa, a fantastic
| place.
| ihaveajob wrote:
| I'm partial to Granada because I grew up there, but it's an
| awesome place. About 20% of the population is college
| students, so that tells you about the city life. It's close
| to the tallest mountain range in Southern Europe, 45m from
| the beach, food is great and cheap, and it's small enough
| that you can walk just about anywhere you want, or take
| transit.
| unamashana wrote:
| I live in Barcelona and love the quality of life. Happy to
| answer any questions. Twitter @unamashana
| LordAtlas wrote:
| What would rent be like for a 2-bedroom apartment?
| mox111 wrote:
| Live in Barcelona too. Can confirm!
| [deleted]
| iagovar wrote:
| My suggestion is that if you plan to open a business, go to
| Portugal instead of Spain.
|
| Spain is increasing taxes and they already were pretty
| hefty for Limited Liability companies.
|
| Portugal is similar on paper but it's easier to start, and
| their tax agency is not nearly as punitive and arbitrary as
| the Spanish one.
|
| And you'll have sun (in the south), contained prices and
| polite Portuguese, which tend to speak decent English, in
| case you need hiring.
|
| Portuguese infrastructures and utilities are still far
| below Spain, specially roads and highways, but Portugal is
| slowly improving while Spain has been declining for a while
| and it's basically walking to a cliff.
|
| Goin on a Travel to Spain is pretty easy too.
|
| I'm Spanish, if anyone thought I was advertising my
| country.
| fabiandesimone wrote:
| Good luck with taxes in Spain.
| artembugara wrote:
| what's the problem? Apart of a fact that you have to pay
| them
| koolba wrote:
| You could easily do that in the USA as well. Median income is
| $35K and that's _before_ taxes and without a corporate shell
| to transform some of the larger living expenses into
| corporate pre-tax deductions.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Where did you get 35K???
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-2
| 7...
|
| "Median household income was $68,703 in 2019, an increase
| of 6.8 percent from the 2018 median of $64,324 (Figure 1
| and Table A-1)."
|
| 35K is closer to the poverty line in much of the USA for a
| family than the median income.
| ptero wrote:
| I think it is household vs personal. The U.S. Census
| Bureau lists the annual real median personal income at
| $35,977 in 2019.
|
| For a startup founder, or in fact any single person,
| median personal income is a more relevant number.
| [deleted]
| throwawaygh wrote:
| Assuming parent meant median income _for a person_ , not
| _for a household_. $35K is correct. Here 's the data: htt
| ps://datacommons.org/tools/timeline#&place=country/USA&st
| ...
|
| Dual income households are pretty common these days, so a
| median household income of $65K with a median income of
| $35K makes sense.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Survive, yes. Thrive, no. The USA is an expensive place.
| robhunter wrote:
| Part of it are; parts of it definitely are not.
| iKevinShah wrote:
| Curious as an outsider, which parts are not?
| wheels wrote:
| The middle part.
|
| It's a little more complicated than that, but mostly,
| away from the coasts and famous cities (Chicago, Austin,
| etc.), most of middle America is pretty cheap -- by
| American standards. It's still a lot more expensive than
| most of the world, obviously. But there are lots of
| places you could live reasonably comfortably for 2-3
| years on $125k. Hell, there are a lot of places you could
| buy a house for $80k, and $45k buys a lot of food and
| internet. ;-)
| pmiller2 wrote:
| I can live at my current spending level in the Bay Area
| for 3-ish years on $125k. In my small, Midwest hometown,
| I'm sure I could stretch that to 6-8 years. The
| disadvantage, of course, would be living in a podunk town
| in the middle of nowhere.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Is that living in a shoebox? Eating comfortably? Raising
| a family? Having any fun?
| kcorbitt wrote:
| As another datapoint, my family of 4 has lived in the Bay
| Area for the last 4 years on an average budget of $62k.
| Rent is extremely expensive (60% of our total spend), but
| everything else can be had quite cheaply. It's true that
| we're more likely to spend the weekend camping in the
| Santa Cruz mountains than flying down to Disneyland, and
| prefer a charcoal barbecue at the park to dining in a
| restaurant downtown. Honestly though, that's how I'd
| spend my time even if the alternative were free. And we
| also take at least one international vacation each year
| -- even during COVID, we spent a month in the Mexican
| Riviera.
|
| My salary could support a much looser budget, but we find
| our life very fulfilling as-is and don't see a compelling
| reason to spend more. Different way of seeing the world I
| guess.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| That's living in a 2BR apartment by myself, eating well,
| and having a bit of fun here and there.
| coder543 wrote:
| I just played around with this tool some, and it seems to
| paint a reasonably accurate picture:
| https://howmuch.net/cost-of-living/ny/new-york
|
| In general, the more rural an area is, the lower the cost
| of living. Rural college towns are more likely to have an
| abundance of cheap apartments than the average rural
| area.
|
| However, it's all highly relative. San Francisco and NYC
| are the two most expensive locations in the United
| States. By comparison, everywhere else is cheaper. Lots
| of major US metro areas are extremely affordable by
| comparison, and $120k could probably last a frugal person
| for 2 or 3 years near those locations _especially_ if
| living with roommates... so you don 't _have_ to live in
| the middle of nowhere to be somewhere affordable.
| Compared to a lot of places outside the US, even the
| affordable parts of the US probably seem expensive, but
| my limited understanding is that most of Western Europe
| is relatively expensive... so probably not too different
| from the US in many places, but definitely outside my
| area of expertise.
| hctaw wrote:
| The places with higher supply of housing or land and
| lower demand.
|
| To be less snarky, about 80% of Americans live in urban
| or suburban areas. Those tend to be more expensive due to
| the higher demand. The other 20% live in rural or exurban
| areas where land is extremely cheap.
|
| However, access to education and healthcare outside the
| urban/suburban regions can be very bad.
| burlesona wrote:
| In a lot of the country, 125k is a lot of money, easily
| enough to live 2 years or more.
|
| To answer a sibling comment since we can't nest any
| deeper: so long as you're not on the west coast with its
| decades long housing undersupply, small towns almost
| anywhere in the country are pretty affordable. This even
| includes parts of the otherwise expensive northeast.
|
| In particular a lot of college towns offer a great mix of
| good quality of life with very affordable living.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Just so you know, you can nest deeper, you just have to
| wait a little while.
|
| HN has an anti-flamewar system which kicks in when
| there's too many comments too fast in one chain.
| MegaButts wrote:
| You can also click the timestamp of any comment to reply
| before there is a reply button.
| JoeOfTexas wrote:
| You know what's going to happen with that mentality brought to
| investors. They gonna demand lower pay rates, forcing people to
| move to lower income areas.
| artembugara wrote:
| VC want you to efficiently spend money. Grow. Raise more.
| Exit. Or die ASAP
| madamelic wrote:
| >VC want you to spend money. Grow. Raise more. Exit. Or die
| ASAP
|
| FTFY ;) Too many unprofitable / "pre-profit" companies have
| five figure monthly office rents for this to be untrue.
|
| Maybe I am biased but having heard and seen horror stories
| of founders losing their companies because of _having_ to
| raise money: no thanks.
|
| Bootstrap and if it doesn't hit ramen profitable, no
| biggie. If it does, go raise at favorable terms because you
| don't need their money.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| Investor money used responsibly can be a huge boon. The
| main benefit is speed and focus. Bootstrapping often
| means you need to do side jobs, and that faster
| experimentation can be cost prohibitive. That means
| raising, but living cheaply, is probably optimal. If you
| can get to a million ARR or die in 3 years instead of 8,
| take it.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Not really. The investors will want you to use capital
| efficiently. If that means hiring remote developers in the
| Philippines then that's what they will want but for other
| applications, hiring away the $500k engineer from Google is
| the only way to accomplish the task.
| shuckles wrote:
| I don't understand this point. YC lasts for 90 days. 3 months
| of rent in the Bay Area isn't more than $15k more expensive
| than the counter factual, even ignoring ramen profitability
| ethos. Would you be indifferent between in person and remote YC
| if the remote version invested $110k at the same terms?
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