I don't think I'd call YC isolationist. We did something almost every week outside of YC with other groups. I still talk to the people from our batch. I don't think I'd want to work in a shared office space personally, it would encourage too much work/life separation for that stage of the company.
I don't think spending my first month in meetings with mentors sounds very good either. You enjoy your mentor dating, I'll stick to working on my product. Your customers will tell you far more than any mentors ever could, I'd rather spend the extra time with them.
We left Silicon Valley. I don't regret having made the decision at the time, it allowed us to stay afloat until we raised money and then hit profitability. Now that we're scaling (19 people and growing) though it makes it very, very hard to find good programmers. We often ask ourselves if we should possibly open up out there too. I'm not really sure if Tech Stars being located somewhere else is a good thing or a bad thing on the whole.
You might get more "attention, focus, and exposure" from/to the Tech Stars founders, but from the press and investors you're way better off in YC. I don't think I can even name one Tech Stars company, seriously. As far as I know nobody is giving Tech Stars companies convertible notes sight unseen.
I don't know where he got the impression that YC doesn't focus on demo day. I can't tell you how many times PG said it would be the defining moment of our entire lives. (I'm exaggerating but only slightly.)
They certainly aren't interchangeable. One is Harvard, the other is Sheboygan Community College.
I don't think spending my first month in meetings with mentors sounds very good either. You enjoy your mentor dating, I'll stick to working on my product. Your customers will tell you far more than any mentors ever could, I'd rather spend the extra time with them.
We left Silicon Valley. I don't regret having made the decision at the time, it allowed us to stay afloat until we raised money and then hit profitability. Now that we're scaling (19 people and growing) though it makes it very, very hard to find good programmers. We often ask ourselves if we should possibly open up out there too. I'm not really sure if Tech Stars being located somewhere else is a good thing or a bad thing on the whole.
You might get more "attention, focus, and exposure" from/to the Tech Stars founders, but from the press and investors you're way better off in YC. I don't think I can even name one Tech Stars company, seriously. As far as I know nobody is giving Tech Stars companies convertible notes sight unseen.
I don't know where he got the impression that YC doesn't focus on demo day. I can't tell you how many times PG said it would be the defining moment of our entire lives. (I'm exaggerating but only slightly.)
They certainly aren't interchangeable. One is Harvard, the other is Sheboygan Community College.