Saad Bencherif

🟧 Is YC Really Worth It?

February 11, 2025 (4w ago)38 views

Following my latest article on how to apply to YC, many of you asked if we got any benefits from YC.

So...

Is YC really worth it?

Yes.

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to like and share.

Okay, okay—I’m just kidding.

But seriously, let me walk you through the five reasons why Y Combinator (YC) was a game-changer for Presti and how it helped us 8x our MRR in just three months.

And just before that, let me give you a bit of context.

Before YC: Were We Making the Right Decision?

I’m Saad, co-founder and CPO of Presti, an AI solution that helps furniture companies create product visuals in seconds. I share this journey with my three co-founders and friends Nabil Toumi, Hamza Bennis and Abdellah Lamrani.

After four attempts, we finally got into YC. It was exciting, no doubt. But once we moved past the excitement, a question loomed: Was this really the right move for Presti?

Why We Were Skeptical About YC

  1. The Standard YC Deal Didn’t Fit Us
    Don't get me wrong. The YC deal is great: founder-friendly and $500K to kickstart your company is more than enough. But we had just raised a $3M seed round with Partech. Our valuation was much higher than the standard YC deal, making it less of an obvious decision.

  2. Our Business Didn’t Target YC Companies
    Many YC startups get their first customers from within the YC network. That’s great—if you’re selling dev tools, product management software, or analytics platforms. But we sell AI-generated visuals to the furniture industry. And let’s be honest—furniture companies don’t give a sh*t about YC. They don’t even know what it is. They just want their stunning product photos (and that's exactly what we deliver 😉).

  3. We Wouldn’t Leverage Demo Day
    YC’s Demo Day is legendary for raising capital. Instead of chasing investors, they come to you. Outbound turns inbound. SF is crawling with investors hunting for the next unicorn, and with that YC stamp, you’re looking real good. But here’s the thing—we had just raised a $3M seed round with Partech. And our philosophy? Don’t waste time raising money you don’t need. We had at least two years of runway ahead. Plenty of time to build, grow, and hit true Series A metrics before stepping back into the funding ring.

So with these doubts in mind, why did we still go?

Because…

it’s YC, man.

It’s the most prestigious accelerator on earth. Three months in San Francisco, grinding alongside my co-founders and an incredible team, pushing Presti to its limits. It was the dream for any first-time founder.

Did we regret it?

Not even for a second.

Why YC #1: Intensity, Intensity, Intensity

Let me spill the biggest YC growth secret.

It’s not in the YC offices.
It’s not with the YC partners.
It’s not even within the YC ecosystem.

It happens in your hacker house. With your co-founders. With your team.

For three months, our minds were 100% on Presti. Morning coffee? Presti. Breakfast? Presti. Lunch? Presti. Dinner? Presti. Playing tennis? Presti. Even in our sleep? Presti.

In SF, distractions don’t exist. The city is dead. When you go out, you meet OpenAI engineers, Uber engineers, and Brex sales reps pitching you on their fintech solutions. YC forces you into an intensity that’s nearly impossible to replicate elsewhere.

What we accomplished in three months at YC would have taken us 12 months in Paris. And when you’re a startup, velocity is everything. Slow growth kills motivation. And once motivation dies, so does your startup.

Why YC #2: Weekly Dose of Inspiration

Every week, a founder of an immensely successful company would speak. Most of them ex-YCs.

Brian Chesky (Airbnb). Brian Armstrong (Coinbase). Patrick Collison (Stripe). Howie Liu (Airtable). Aaron Levie (Box).

Yes, you can watch motivational talks on YouTube. But this was different.

These people weren’t just success stories—they were once in our exact shoes. They too struggled to get their first customers and questioned if their startup would even work.

They too heard the YC advice and applied them to their startup.

Hearing their raw, off-the-record stories made their success feel within reach.

Why YC #3: The YC Dogma

YC’s startup advice is deceptively simple. It boils down to 22 core principles (aka the YC Cheat Sheet).

(Take the time to read it. It's pure gold.)

YC Cheat Sheet

Sounds obvious, right? But most startups don’t actually follow these rules.

Your YC partner (ours were Nicolas of Algolia (YC W14) and Andrew of PagerDuty (YC S10), big shoutout to them) will make sure you do. They drill these principles into you until they become second nature. It’s almost brainwashing—but the good kind.

Why YC #4: Being Where Big Things Happen

During the first month of YC, I saw a new startup breaking the internet on Twitter. They were going viral.

I clicked their profile. Wordware.

Wait. I had just met their founder, Filip, at a YC event days before.

They even invented the HRR: $4K hourly recurring revenue

That’s when it hit me: I was surrounded by the best. The people building the next big thing were sitting next to me, exchanging ideas, and solving problems together.

Why YC #5: A Community of Like-Minded Founders

Joining YC means joining a family. And I don’t say that lightly.

The journey of a startup is brutal. The highs are euphoric, and the lows are crushing.

When you hit a roadblock, someone in your batch has been there before. Whether it’s through:

YC eliminates founder loneliness. And that alone is priceless.

Huge shoutout to section 4D Mindely, Mica AI, Dataleap, Comfy Deploy and Phonely! What a honor to have shared this journey with you.

Final Verdict: Was YC Worth It?

100% YES.

YC compressed time. We moved 4x faster than we ever could have in Paris.

YC pushes you to stay in SF after the batch.

And for good reason. According to the stats, You’re 2x more likely to build a unicorn by staying.

So, what did we decide?

That’s a story for another article. 😉

(And if you’re still reading—thank you.)

If you liked this article, you can read my latest article on how to apply to YC.