Today Acunote officially launched as a Y Combinator company. Thanks Ingrid/TC, great article! That's exciting for us and our customers, and we'll have more fun stuff to report on this in the weeks and months ahead. But this post is not only about that. It's about a question that people always ask me - "Why did you go into YC?" Or what they really mean - "Why would a profitable business go into YC?"
We went into YC as a successful small business because we saw an opportunity to turn it into a huge business. This is a hard thing to do. Looking back at it the biggest thing YC gave us is alumni network. And this goes beyond access and advice. Being around YC alumni sets your expectations higher. It redefines the normal. If you want to do hard things - nothing helps more than believing that getting hard things done is normal.
Another non-obvious benefit is that it gives you a large network of companies you trust implicitly. As Tony Soprano said "It's hard doing business with strangers." YC companies are no strangers, same batch or not.
It's easy to focus on value of YC brand and advice from the partners. And these are super - no doubt. But the real gold is in the network.