This is silly. And by silly I mean moronic. You can't outsource an entire start-up, especially without more than $15,000. Hell, we couldn't manage to successfully get a Wordpress template created when we supplied a full PSD and offered $300 for it. Talk about epic goddamn fail.
You realize the whole "Clone Amazon for me, $100-500" thing doesn't actually work, right? And look at the last batch of YC companies, will you? There's a lot of diversity there.
Maybe the only thing you got right here is that some of the start-ups YC doesn't fund will likely go on to succeed. Since YC themselves admit that, it wasn't much of a point though, was it?
I definitely see your point and by no means am I advocating for your typical "send it to China or India for $100" gig. My point is that if you are not a programmer and trying to enter this arena, it's not the end of the world. The value is in your idea, your ability to network, market yourself and create a solid team with well-rounded skills.
Ycombinator definitely has some diverse ideas many of which are fantastic. Like any start-up catalyst, sure, they have backed some ideas that have already been out there to some degree or are no longer around--but that is totally to be expected. There will always be some overlap and like any regular distribution bell curve will show us, some will fail, some will surpass our expectations and rest will be in the middle. I have a great deal of respect for all that Ycombinator does and the people involved. Good luck guys!
You realize the whole "Clone Amazon for me, $100-500" thing doesn't actually work, right? And look at the last batch of YC companies, will you? There's a lot of diversity there.
Maybe the only thing you got right here is that some of the start-ups YC doesn't fund will likely go on to succeed. Since YC themselves admit that, it wasn't much of a point though, was it?