Twice a year, every tech website seems to devote lavish coverage to just what startups made it into Y Combinator’s latest class. It’s the tech world’s version of covering the presidential primaries: Plenty of these companies aren’t going to exist in a few years (or perhaps even in a few months), but some may go on to do great things.
For those of us actually bent on founding our own startups, the coverage creates mixed feelings. It’s great to see people actually making it. But all the press also reinforces the feeling that every startup needs to go through an incubator in order to succeed. That can be incredibly frustrating for startup entrepreneurs. Not only do we need to come up with a great idea, we have to make sure that it’s something that works for an incubator.
