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Comment by cia_plant | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have advice for what to do if you are in Boston? Is it realistic to look for early-stage / seed funding, a la YCombinator, or do I need to get further on my own before seeking funding? Not that I'm opposed to moving to California, but I'll be in Boston for a while either way, and I might as well see what can be done here.

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It's never too early to apply to YC. That's the point of YC: it's first gear.

Really? So, if I'm doing wildly uncertain research in AI which I hope shall eventually (in 5 years) lead to a Unix killer... Applying before having actual technology to show for it wouldn't be too early?

If you're working on something that can't be launched immediately, then what you build during YC is a proof of concept. You just have to be able to make something good enough to convince the next round of investors to back you. That's the threshold.

The details of your plan worry me though. How much money do companies make from Unixes now?

You just have to be able to make something good enough to convince the next round of investors to back you.

That's the problem. I've been working on it for a while already, and it's unlikely that 3 more months would yield a convincing prototype. I'd still have to sell the idea and myself.

How much money do companies make from Unixes now?

I'm not sure I get what you mean. If someone came up with an OS that was much more powerful than Unix, I'm sure there'd be some people interested, and it'd be possible to snowball from there.

Do you actually need VC based funding? If so, maybe you should move.

If you can self-fund, bootstrap, or get funding from some individuals, then Boston is fine. There are lots of very good business and technical folks, mentors, and lots of individual wealth.

MOVE.

(I'm a former web IT banker at Broadview's Boston [Waltham] office who knows the VC shops there pretty well. Aside from CRV, no firm will invest seed stage. The angel groups just aren't comfortable with web technologies, unless they're attached to massive sales organizations selling to corporations.)

Techstars is running a program in Boston now. I know a few of the mentors and they are great folks involved.

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