This doesn’t mean the model doesn’t work and the conflicts created by the financial relationship are not unlike those experienced between an entrepreneur and conventional venture investors, but these two issues do detract from the mission of attracting launching great companies.

When colleagues and I created GoodCompany Ventures (www.goodcompanyventures.org), an incubator for forprofit social and evironmental entrepreneurs, we decided to operate the incubator itself as a nonprofit and raised enough funding to operate without an equity kicker. We are asking our companies to commit to various forms of social re-investment and are offering our sponsoring VCs a right of first offer, but there is no “pay-to-play” aspect. Not only has the it made the recruitment process easier, but the lack of conflict between the incubator and its mission has attracted lots of support. In terms of content and community building, our experience so far is that we are getting a lot more effort and commitment from really qualified experts who share our sense of mission than we would from paid staff. Our first residential incubation session begins this summer, so we’ll see how the model works soon enough.

And the questions go on and on…

If you put yourself in a situation where without this specific VC giving you funds, then I am sorry, you have mismanaged this business. No one owes you a term sheet. If you think it is unfair, and your company is good enough to get a better one, then do it, instead of whining about it.

If you cannot get a better term sheet, the the free market has rendered its verdict on your company.

No one owes you funding.

As for real entrepresneurs, these guys definitely are not whiners: http://smartbab...learn-from.html

Is there any evidence that startups that receive mentoring from YC perform better that startups that get seed money from elsewhere or bootstrap?

The point of the article is about unethical clauses in a term sheet. An unreasonable time-line for acceptance and a no-shop clause being two such examples. The point isn’t whether you are owed a term-sheet or anyone forcing you to accept.

Look up the conversion metrics for companies started : angel funded : addl rounds of funding. And you will see why any smart entrepreneur holds on to a decent shot of keeping her/his company alive.

And perhaps I see your point in a theoretical (sort of) debate. but the reality of a start-up is very different. Which brings us to the real question – exactly how many companies have you founded, m’aam?

Maybe you need to buy some street-cred with these kind of profile details on your blog instead of just spamming TC with inane comments.

Nice.

For the big final release, you pull the plug on all of them except one and move along, from this assuming you get funding from just YC, TechStart and DreamIt for a 3 person company you could easily be looking at roughly 75-100k cash in hand, plus all the services and contacts each of those companies provide, trick is to make sure your face from the startup to the VC is different for each VC.

Just an idea….

It’s a good thing that there aren’t any Ycombinator former employees to be paid because Boleros isn’t the currency of Bolivia. (Bolivia uses the boliviano.)

Not entirely true — AlphaLab (http://alphalab.org) has a deadline after YC.

2. Your comments point out that Ycombinator in fact was the architect behind the concept of
Expoding Term Sheets years ago, yet that is NOT mentioned in the story.

3. A Ycombinator Hack comes on anc confirms this, saying a smart person would have come to immediate decision on what acceptable valus or not. So why not 5 days? The shill doesn’t explain, nor should he.

4. This story illustrates how TC is so in bed with the VC not the startup. How can you credit Ycombinator with warning against this behavior that THEY invented?

5. Incredible. Carelesss. Irresponsible. Dangerous.

6. Mike: What’s next. An story on the dangers of executive bonuses with quotes from your buddies at AIG?

Dear God.

Um … I’m sorry, no one owes you a term sheet. If you are running low on cash, no one owes you a bailout.

If you want to succeed in a free market, and in a world on competition and creative destruction, and you cannot manage to find another funder, then I would say the fault is with you. Of course, the way that the world is heading these days, free markets may not be around much longer, but that is another story.

Instead of whining about a contract which no one is forcing you to accept, maybe you should build a better company?