Tag Archives: startups

Y Combinator: ambassador to the east

Today Y Combinator ambassador to the east Alexis Ohanian came by our office’s.

He spoke about how YC helped him with his startup Reddit and how he is now working on breadpig.com.

There was one thing that Alexis mentioned that really made me think why they are so succesfull at what they do. I think some of the secret sauce that YC has is a weekly dinner. I don’t think it is just the dinner that drives startup product but the demos. Demoing to peers who judge, drive Startups to work a little harder. But it isn’t just that, imagine demoing to the founders of google, or the founder of facebook. Now that is pressure… That drives home a secret message. Get product out fast. Period. You don’t want to look like the startup who didn’t do their homework.

Startup School

This year I had the honor of attending “Startup School“. It was an awakening, seeing the truth behind building a great company. I come from the east cost, I think we have great support like NextNY, the New York Tech Meetup, great incubators, and great advisors but the West Coast has some true gems. Support coming from Y Combinator and the startup schoool is amazing. Paul Graham gives great direction. It is eye opening.

I listened to founders talk, like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, it was worth the trip to CA. I recommend if you ever have the chance to go, take it.