Raising money is not fake work if you don't know how you are going to pay your team in 6 months, or 3 months, or next month. Twice I have taken out a second mortgage on my house to pay my team, its not a good idea.
Press seems to be a necessary evil, again I have made the best product on the market, only to go unnoticed because of lack of press coverage. Its not like 99.9% of the press are out looking for a great product, they are being lead by the PR agents.
I agree raising money and getting press are "non productive work" as far as product advance goes. But so are things like washing the dishes in your house, they don't help you get more work done that day, but it is a needed part of the system.
So maybe y-combinator should take those two VERY important survival aspects over for the 25% of companies that they feel are the unicorns. For another 10% they will make sure they have enough money for the next year, and that they will get the press they need. Seems like a natural extension....
Agree with the first part, less so the second. YC is (rightly) worried about signalling risk. If they exposed who they thought the 25% were, the other 75% would struggle to get funding.
Raising money is not fake work if you don't know how you are going to pay your team in 6 months, or 3 months, or next month. Twice I have taken out a second mortgage on my house to pay my team, its not a good idea. Press seems to be a necessary evil, again I have made the best product on the market, only to go unnoticed because of lack of press coverage. Its not like 99.9% of the press are out looking for a great product, they are being lead by the PR agents.
I agree raising money and getting press are "non productive work" as far as product advance goes. But so are things like washing the dishes in your house, they don't help you get more work done that day, but it is a needed part of the system.
So maybe y-combinator should take those two VERY important survival aspects over for the 25% of companies that they feel are the unicorns. For another 10% they will make sure they have enough money for the next year, and that they will get the press they need. Seems like a natural extension....