Startup School is going global

http://blog.ycombinator.com/startup-school-is-going-global

by katm • 12 years ago

252 95 12 years ago

blog.ycombinator.com

johnpt• 12 years ago

This is great news for us in Europe. Thank you!!!

krat0sprakhar• 12 years ago

We're starting with New York and London, but in the coming years we hope to head to Asia, South America and Africa.

I hope they have India on their radar! It would be awesome for the Indian Startup scene to hear all those great speakers live!

ing33k• 12 years ago

+1 but we can only hope

techaddict009• 12 years ago

Same here. Eagerly waiting for YC in India. Hope they start soon in India.

bjelkeman-again2• 12 years ago

Just taking an Indian startup and merging it with our organisation, I know there are some fabulous local Bangalore speakers that have great stories to tell. I could fill half a day with just some of my contacts/friends/colleagues.

ig12• 12 years ago

Why not just organize an event yourself then ?

prayag2• 12 years ago

I doubt YC would want to enter India market. For all the talent and entrepreneurial spirit that Indians have our startup culture sucks. There are several reasons:

1. The infrastructure: India doesn't have the tech infrastructure. Take the 3 major e-commerce requirements for example: internet access, online payment and delivery. Even the basic internet infrastructure in India sucks. Most people access the internet over their phones because getting home internet is still a pricey affair for most people. A pretty small number of people have access to credit cards and for those who do, processing payment online is a huge pain. The postal infrastructure is also pretty bad. India post is flaky and other courier companies are pretty bad or expensive or both.

2. Government interference: Indian government is inconsistent, heavy-handed and has very little interest in improving the tech sector. Most state governments are downright hostile.

3. Lack of exit opportunities: Indian tech sector lacks big players who can provide the entrepreneurs and investors meaningful exits. The culture of acquisitions as a meaningful way to get market advantage is not there. Your only hope is sell to a American or a European company looking to gain a foothold in the region (rare) or IPO (even rarer).

4. Corruption and general apathy: To get anything meaningful done in India is a struggle. From getting setup as a company to getting a good internet connection. You have to fight corruption and apathy of the organizations (both public and private) you are dealing with.

5. Labor laws: Labor laws in India are a joke. They are a relic of the socialist times and are heavily biased on the side of the employees. Setting up any type of manufacturing or operations in India is a legal nightmare. If that's not enough, the trade unions operate as a mafia and its downright dangerous to deal with them.

There is a lot of opportunity in India too but until we overcome the problems that entrepreneurs and investors face, Indian tech startup scene would never take off.

rdl5• 12 years ago

I thought the idea of Startup School was to "sell" YC to founders there, along with the implicit idea of moving to SV. Seems like a stronger case for India than a lot of other places (great founders, but fucked up environment, so they have the most relative advantage to moving, especially if they can keep enough connections to India to continue to recruit for remote or relo.)

onion2k• 12 years ago

That looks like a shopping list of opportunities to me. Exactly the sort of place you'd want to be investing in startups...

imrehg• 12 years ago

How about Taiwan? :) Would be good to have some real-impact project like this over here...

strobe• 12 years ago

Oh, it looks very close to situation in Russia except internet connection and online payments. But other is looks close, I guess that setup and operate IT company from Russia is much simple, safe and cheap as offshore (in Cyprus, Belize, New Zealand etc) than local (especially if you would like to build products development oriented business).

mvembu• 12 years ago

Won't this list be true for every country at some point of time ?

We have to start somewhere.

pskittle2• 12 years ago

Thanks for the update! is there a list to get on for other countries?

katm3• 12 years ago

You'd likely hear the news here first. But you can sign up for YC's mailing list: http://eepurl.com/G3Aiz

pskittle2• 12 years ago

Just did , Thnx!

HorizonXP• 12 years ago

I've made the trip out to Startup School for the past few years. I'll still go to the original one, but now that I'm back on the east coast, it'll be nice to hang out in a similar event with a different crowd. Excited!

dalek2point3• 12 years ago

are videos from previous startup schools available online?

katm3• 12 years ago

Videos from SUS 2012 and 2013 are on YouTube. Playlists for each are here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcefcZRL2oaA_uBNeo5UOWg/pla...

tomek_zemla• 12 years ago

Montreal is a beautiful city to have a Startup School in...

vjvj• 12 years ago

It seems like it's aimed purely at developers & designers, but from past sessions, this would be useful for any kind of founder.

What's the deal for technically minded founders that aren't devs/designers?

amirmc3• 12 years ago

Just apply. The form is pretty simple and will only take a few mins to fill out. There's no need to 'pre-reject' yourself.

mobiplayer2• 12 years ago

Just applied for the London event. For a second I was surprised to see that "going global" meant "New York" until another second later I've read "London", which still isn't global but a step forward. Very happy to see you guys coming around!

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

UK is too far for most of Europe. Berlin would've been a more optimal choice. UK has pretty poor/insane border policies, too, as we all know by now, and not too eager to visit it.

ardit33• 12 years ago

Yep. Germany is part of the Schengen accord, and most people from Europe can travel there without a visa (even if they are not part of the EU yet). While England requires visas for most countries.

Also, London is not really a tech center anyways. Poor choice.

amirmc3• 12 years ago

"Also, London is not really a tech center anyways. Poor choice."

A lot of tech companies have made London their base, including some prominent YC companies. London is so big that it's many things to many people so if you think it's 'not really a tech center', please elaborate why.

hazz• 12 years ago

Any citizen of an EU member state can enter the UK without a visa. Additionally, you don't require a visa if you're a citizen of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or any of over 50 countries on other continents. It's really pretty open, especially for Europeans.

untog• 12 years ago

England (or, more correctly, the UK) does not require a visa for any EU country.

And while London isn't a tech center on the level of US cities, it still is one.

DanBC• 12 years ago

I get the impression that London would be a lot more expensive than many other European locations.

Is there a sensible price comparison website that compares costs of cities for things like eating out; drinks; renting apartments; hotel rooms; public transport; etc etc.

k-mcgrady• 12 years ago

> "I get the impression that London would be a lot more expensive than many other European locations"

Seeing as it's a 1 day event I don't think this is too big of a problem. If cost is an important factor in your decision to come (it would be for me) I'd suggest getting an early flight to London, attending the event, and flying home.

adrianhoward• 12 years ago

Still easier than the US though - barely ;-)

jt2190• 12 years ago

I'm guessing that this is largely meant to market YCombinator. Companies accepted to YCombinator are strongly encouraged to relocate to Silicon Valley. If you're not willing to travel to London, you may want to consider whether it makes sense to attend in person, or just wait for the videos to be posted online.

(Someone please correct me if this is wrong.)

emmett• 12 years ago

Closer than California though, isn't it? One step at a time...

patrickk• 12 years ago

Ryanair and the other cheapo airlines have good links[1] between London and much of Europe. I can literally get a return flight between my home city and London for less than a taxi home from a night out on the town.

[1] http://ryanair.com/en/cheap-flight-destinations/

tomp• 12 years ago

Not really. It's easier to get to London (30 min drive + 2 hr wait + 2 hr flight + 1 hr train) from Ljubljana than to Berlin (10 hr drive), and not much more expensive. I believe it's similar with many other European cities.

UK is not in the Schengen, that's true, but IMO compared to all the hassle of airport security, it's a joke, at least for EU nationals (if you're not from the EU, you'll have to pass the border coming to Berlin as well).

rdl5• 12 years ago

UK is much easier for a US based team to organize an event, especially remotely, IMO Without a solid person on the ground in Berlin, it's still really difficult for a US team to do anything there.

Berlin blows London away from a cost perspective (YC is ~rich, so the only relevant cost is hotel/etc for attendees who are non-local), and land-travel for a lot of people, but London probably has more local founders than Berlin, especially who know of and would be interested in YC/SS.

markovbling• 12 years ago

Please come to Cape Town! :)

zck• 12 years ago

What's the recommendation on applying to multiple Startup Schools? I've been to the last two, but I live in NYC. Do you consider it rude to apply to NYC now, and the Valley one in the fall, and take up two spots?

jl• 12 years ago

I'd recommend limiting your attendance to one. Our goal with SUS has always been to share a lot of useful and inspirational advice from startup experts. We'd like to keep as many seats open as possible for people who've never been.

tonyhb• 12 years ago

Is it OK to apply to both? I'm living in NY but am from London so I checked both on the off chance that one was full.

dlp2112• 12 years ago

I never new about this, but I would love to go. And they are coming to NY which is awesome because that is where I am, except for about 4 days in June (one of which is the 18th) when I'll of course be in Mountain View. Maybe next year :(.

erikb• 12 years ago

So yes, I would like to join "SC Europe" but I won't be able to make it to "London". Maybe call it "SC London"?

hershel• 12 years ago

I wonder , is this a part of an effort to scale YC globally ?

jfoster• 12 years ago

Could be testing the waters for that. Could also be prep work for a contingency plan if US startup visas don't happen.

kintamanimatt2• 12 years ago

I'm under the impression that the UK will grant a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa to founders that have access to £50,000 in VC funding[0]. It would make a lot of sense of YC to open up shop here in the UK.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/tier-1-entrepreneur/access-to-50000-inves...

rainboiboi• 12 years ago

Good to know that I'll be able to make it to the one in London during my trip to Europe. Anyone knows the invitation rate or how they assess the attendees?

graycat3• 12 years ago

Interesting that Silicon Valley believes that going to NYC is "going international"!

kn0thing• 12 years ago

heh, we're a rather diverse & cosmopolitan city!

graycat3• 12 years ago

Never been there, but I heard about warm beer! England did one heck of a job in WWII, a big step up from what they did here in the colonies back in the last of the 1700s! There our George beat your George!

At times, it appears that some people in England use the language so well it's almost as if they had invented it. But then they mess up their success with some outrageous errors in spelling!

mobiplayer2• 12 years ago

Watch out mate, I've been voted down into oblivion for saying the same (and adding that with London it's okayish to say "global").

Obviously the idea is to attract European and Middle East attendance in the London event and I think it is a good choice. Pretty much any airport in Europe flies to London and there are plenty of low cost flights (Ryanair, Wizzair, Vueling, Norwegian, Easyjet, etc) as opposed to e.g. Berlin.

graycat3• 12 years ago

Yes, a post like mine, intended to be comedy, can be too close to the line of nasty criticism and look mean. But it was fun to take the opportunity to crack a joke suggesting that Silicon Valley is so insular that they regard NYC as going international!

That's a lot of air traffic just for warm beer! But, where do people in London live? I mean with all the Russian and Mideast money buying up all the properties, a little one room condo goes for, what, $20 million?

And, England is a huge step down from where it was when Di was alive.

misterbwong• 12 years ago

What about London....?

larrys2• 12 years ago

"Startup School is a free, one-day event where you'll hear stories and practical advice from founders and investors."

Not being a fan of rah rah one day type seminars [1] I'd like to know the percentage of people who attend these types of 1 day events and actually go away with something tangible that allows them to create something as opposed to just feeling good or pumped up for a short period.

Separately, the act of actually traveling somewhere to attend is a bit different [2] than not traveling or not being able to (for reasons other than money). I wonder how that will change the benefits of the material presented.

[1] Forgetting the quality level, which I'm sure is high, it reminds me of real estate or investment seminars that go from town to town. (Of course those also have another ulterior purpose (to sell books or dvd's)).

Edit [2] I mean the level of commitment would seem to be higher for someone who actually decides to make a journey and attend to better their future vs. someone who doesn't (not that people who attend locally wouldn't travel of course..)

stingrae3• 12 years ago

I attended the last startup school. I can say it is much more valuable than those investment seminars. I got some interesting/inspirational stories that may push me to become more entrepreneurial than I might otherwise have been. The talks are all on youtube so you can judge for yourself. I particularly enjoyed chase adams talk.

alain94040• 12 years ago

I see the value as twofold:

a) being inspired [by the right kind of founders, not get-rich-quick schemes] and pumped up. It could mean the difference between launching your startup and staying in your comfy day job

b) random encounters of other people who are more like you than most people you meet everyday. That also has tremendous value. But you'll never know if you never show up.

melindajb4• 12 years ago

95% of the best founders are outside the US? Really? if that were the case we'd have seen a lot more publicly traded companies of the size of Yahoo, Microsoft, Intel, eBay, etc. If it could have happened, it would have happened. We aren't even tapping the founder set we have in the US proportionally.

I applaud the concept of adding diversity to the pool (even-gasp! people with accents--) but I have a sneaking suspicion this is really about finding cheaper labor for the us based companies in the end. What investors are really going to put money into companies in countries in Africa and Asia where property rights, IP, and other laws don't protect companies as well as the US? What about places that demand even more corporate taxes? Color me skeptical.

stingrae3• 12 years ago

I think this statement is just a matter of probability. 95% of the worlds population isn't American.

melindajb4• 12 years ago

except that many, many of those folks have no access to running water or even a basic education. China, Africa, India. Let's start there.

Now let's remind ourselves that >50% of the US population, specifically women and people of color, have been systematically excluded from the US based system.

I'm not saying that the USA is Best, by any means. A lot of people from outside the US work harder, longer and smarter. I welcome them to our community.

But the facts remain that the USA is where this phenomenon was originated, born of a complex brew of culture, investment, corporate freedom, property rights, and so on. Many have tried and most have failed to recreate this.

I predict this will be more of the same: white male and asian/southeast asian programmers. The idea that YC would choose african founders in africa after systematically excluding african founders in the US just seems impossible to imagine. If A US based African entrepreneur is scary, what's it going to be like when they go to Nairobi? The corruption in those countries is rampant. it's not as easy as it sounds.

Again, don't misinterpret my comments as xenophobia or American exceptionalism. They aren't. I'm observing significant challenges. That doesn't mean no one should try, but we all shouldn't applaud this until we actually see it happening outside of predominantly white, western countries.

jackgavigan2• 12 years ago

US Population: 317,987,522 World Population: 7,164,066,667

Source: United States Census Bureau - http://www.census.gov/popclock/

By those estimates, the United States accounts for less than 4.44% of the world's population. Or, to put it another way, more than 95% of the world's population is outside the US.

So, unless you believe that there is something special about people in the United States that makes them better founders than people from other countries, it's not a massive stretch of the imagination to conclude that there are 19x as many good founders outside the US as there are inside it.

dlp2112• 12 years ago

Actually I would argue that it is a big stretch of the imagination that there are 19x as many good founders outside the US. The problem is by the opportunity provided of where people live, their status is society, and a variety of other factors such as available education, access to technology etc. For that reason the multiplier has to be much less.

mikeg82• 12 years ago

I totally agree with you from a statistical view-point but there are definitely cultural, social, educational differences between Americans and non-american that may give us the upper hand in founding companies (as evidence by the founders of many large tech companies). I definitely DO believe that that we have a larger relative portion of our population that poses more of the characteristics required to be a successful founder.

See also PG's comment on founders with strong accents.

garry2• 12 years ago

You are ascribing malice to an entity that has good intent. 45% of the world's market cap for public equities remains in the United States, and that's something that is a function of governance, rule of law, court systems, financial reporting, and measures against corruption. As a result, capital is more readily available in the United States.

Founders, on the other hand, are from all over the world. They come to the United States to build their businesses. Some will return to their home markets. We want to make both of those things happen a lot more. It really is all aligned.

KeepTalking• 12 years ago

I appreciate the idea of making startup school a more global event. Frankly speaking for a lot of entrepreneurs making a trip to the bay area can be a substantial dent on their pockets. I attended the previous year's startup school and the experience and outcomes was phenomenal. I hope the quality of speakers continues to maintain the current high standards and provide deep and much needed insight.

larrys2• 12 years ago

Question for the OP, YC, PG, dang, or anyone else.

YC owns both startupschool.com and startupschool.org but you have the .com redirecting to the .org

While .org can be (and often is used) for anything it is typically associated with organizations and more specifically non-profits [1]. So I'm curious why you don't simply have this info under the .com since obviously the overwhelming majority of your involvement is on a for profit basis (the companies you fund are almost always for profit) and the school, while free, is really a marketing feeder for YC which is for profit.

[1] Source: Me, I've been doing this "domain thing" since the mid 90's.

loceng• 12 years ago

Wow. This will be interesting to watch. :)

jw2013• 12 years ago

Yet another respectable move for YC. Hopefully this will spur more global interest in starting a startup. One thing I really appreciate YC in recent year is making the startup school videos online so those can't attend will not miss the talk. Of course those attend will meet tons of amazing people. Bringing in smart and talented people into one room just sparks insightful conversations. First in valley, and now globally.

Thanks, YC. That is so unselfish.

wololo_• 12 years ago

YC has been undergoing some real good changes and new features ever since Sam came in.

davidw• 12 years ago

One thing I really appreciate YC in recent year is making the startup school videos online so those can't attend will not miss the talk. Of course those attend will meet tons of amazing people.

Conferences in this day and age are strange beasts. The value of going to listen to someone is, IMO, lower relative to the past because of videos, and, even better, transcripts and notetakers who summarize and eliminate all the blah blah blah. The value of talking to people in person though, is still pretty high, as well as serendipitous meetings and discussions. I'd love to see people experiment with different formats that involve less of the former and maximize the latter.

grrowl• 12 years ago

I go to conferences because the level of passion and excitement in the discussions (and friendly arguments) had there greatly surpasses anything I've come across at a meetup. It's a shame they usually cost almost $1000 or more apiece.

rdl5• 12 years ago

This is a great idea!

I wonder how YC could do a "Startup School Asia" -- in general, for a larger percentage of Asian founders, travel between countries in Asia is difficult, compared to European founders (where IMO you could have SS in virtually any major city and be no worse than 50% as good as any other in terms of access; London is great but expensive, Berlin would be my pick.)

Singapore is probably the easiest and best choice for Asia, but there are strong arguments for HK/SZ, Beijing, Shanghai, one of ~10 cities in India, etc.

katm3• 12 years ago

There was a lot of debate over whether we should do the first European SUS in London or Berlin. Both cities are great and each has its benefits.

We have some awesome YC alum in London (and the YC community there is growing), and we're excited that they'll be joining us in July. We'd love to do something in Berlin as well.

rdl5• 12 years ago

IMO the best way for YC to do something to start with in Germany would be to get involved in CCC/31c3. (CCC is a weird combination of IEEE/ACM and hackerspaces, and huge in Germany)

A "how to turn your project into a company? should you, and why?" talk by YC (ideally, with European YC company founders, ideally in the product spaces most interesting to CCC hackers) would be awesome. The downside is it's 27-30 DEC in Hamburg.

mstroeck2• 12 years ago

Both are a great choice, both are easy enough to travel to. It's awesome that this is happening. Berlin would draw more people from Eastern Europe, IMHO.

Here in Vienna, we'll have an event with quite a few YC alumni on May 29: http://foundertalks.org

We do not have the means yet to make it free, however. We basically started this a few weeks ago, because we felt that something like startup school is missing in Central Europe. I guess you must have felt the same :-)

EDIT:

P.S.: After our event, I'd be happy to give you some feedback regarding what kind of questions/interestes/etc. European founders voice in such a setting. It's an awesome experiment, I'm really looking forward to it.

wheels• 12 years ago

There are at least 4 YC alumni in Berlin off the top of my head. Get in touch if you guys are looking for some on-the-ground support at some point in the future.

jackgavigan2• 12 years ago

London is great but expensive

There's a great startup community here in London and I reckon that plenty of people will be willing to help make things a little bit cheaper by letting SUS attendees crash on their sofa.

I've dropped Sam an email to see if YC's interested.

ig12• 12 years ago

It's worth noting that it's a national holiday in the UK today so many of the local HN regulars are likely to miss this announcement so it might be worth making another one at some point prior to the deadline.

kintamanimatt2• 12 years ago

It worked out for us — it's 10am the next day and it's prominently placed, so we won't have missed it!

samdb• 12 years ago

Proper addicts check HN on Christmas day.

AndrewKemendo• 12 years ago

I am looking to apply to the New York instance, as it is close to where I am located, however I am not exactly sure what someone would get out of going. From the outset it seems as though it would be very valuable to go, but I can't really tell what the tangible benefits are from going.

It is clear that I would be able to see world class speakers - but I can also do that online as I did last year when I watched a large portion of the talks posted. So is it also a networking event (obviously all these are that to some degree)?

I guess I am just trying to figure out if it is worth taking a day away from my startup, and spend money to get up to NYC to go (assuming I even got in). Can anyone with experience having gone to one of these give some insight? Thanks.

novaleaf2• 12 years ago

If you are in the "in" group, there's an invite-only event the night before. That is obviously valuable as you will have been vetted in some way thus draw more attention from vc's etc.

Otherwise, if you've seen the videos of previous years, you'll get exactly the same (which is quite good), however I am disappointed in the lack of slides to go with the presenter video recordings.

So if you don't have an in for the pre-event, there's not a whole lot to be gained by a physical presence.

bra-ket• 12 years ago

God, this is obnoxious, why do you need to desperately try to draw attention of the freaking VCs? They will come to you and beg on a doorstep for a precious minute of your time if you have a working business. Talk to users and iterate on your product, don't waste your time listening to god damn inspirational talks and schmoozing with investors.

workoy• 12 years ago

Stepping out of your hometown to do a one day workshop is going global ... yay.

Keats• 12 years ago

Right during the Europython for the London one.

That's annoying.

Startup School is going global

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