But YC is in the business of hopping aboard every rocket ship it can find. Sam & Co do not want to invest in small business. They want massive payouts. It's the only way the VC game works.
If you're dedicated to getting funding, you have to keep knocking on tons of doors until you find an investor that matches your particular payout goals.
The West Coast / SV venture capital scene makes a ton of noise about massive successes to entice many otherwise-profitable small business ideas to try and become huge. When they don't reach a hyperbolic trajectory, it's a VC failure, but the same business could have easily done well for the founders and early employees as a lifestyle business. A stable orbit if you will, but not going to the Moon.
Find investors who want reasonable returns from your business at your scale. Don't think that the SV VC approach is the only way to get your business idea funded.
Oh I understand, but in this case making such a public post about "come on, join us, we can do it" and then targeting essentially stud 'just graduated, have other backing' type teams in massive fields is conflicting to me. I'm basically under the assumption that any serious venture in AI, biotech, or energy can actually compete for investments outside of the YC sphere. As in, YC actually has more competition than these teams have to sacrifice to get started. It is common knowledge capital is sloshing around everywhere looking for yield and returns.
I do understand VC might not be the proper target in the purest sense but it's a similar story for most small businesses if I'm not mistaken. Like in hard bench science research - funding goes to those already being successful. Is it really practical to "boot strap" a hard tech company? I draw a lot of inspiration from the Wright Brothers, but I'm still pragmatic.
If there's a 'ground floor' arena where cottage industry would be best served, I'm all ears and would love links, guidance and direction to make progress. Not kidding, it's already been a few years and I've got another half a lifetime to keep plodding away.
But YC is in the business of hopping aboard every rocket ship it can find. Sam & Co do not want to invest in small business. They want massive payouts. It's the only way the VC game works.
If you're dedicated to getting funding, you have to keep knocking on tons of doors until you find an investor that matches your particular payout goals.
The West Coast / SV venture capital scene makes a ton of noise about massive successes to entice many otherwise-profitable small business ideas to try and become huge. When they don't reach a hyperbolic trajectory, it's a VC failure, but the same business could have easily done well for the founders and early employees as a lifestyle business. A stable orbit if you will, but not going to the Moon.
Find investors who want reasonable returns from your business at your scale. Don't think that the SV VC approach is the only way to get your business idea funded.