Y Combinator has long been considered the gold standard of early-stage startup accelerators. But while most founders view it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a rare group sees it differently — as a repeatable launchpad. These are the founders who’ve gone through YC not once, but twice (and occasionally, more). In this post, we’ll dive into the patterns and profiles of these YC returnees: What kinds of people get accepted multiple times?
Of the nearly 10k Y Combinator founders, two hundred have gone through the program more than once (and just 11 have gone through the accelerator three times or more). The following diagram shows the pathways those founders took before joining Y Combinator a second time.
Education
While 5.9% of second time YC founders were college dropouts, the vast majority of them obtained at least a bachelors degree. 34.6% attended an elite (top 20) university.
Of those that obtained a degree, 74.7% of founders obtained a STEM degree with 44.3% of the founders studying computer science (and 30.3% studying another science, engineering, or mathematics). Just 11.7% of them studied business.
34% of second time YC founders received a graduate degree (9.9% in computer science, 9.9% in another science, engineering, or mathematics, and 9.4% got an MBA).
Career
32.1% of second time YC founders did not have a career prior to their first YC company. Of those who did, 54.7% had roles in engineering, 13.1% had roles in product, 9.5% had roles in finance, and 9.5% had roles in sales and marketing.
8.9% of second time YC founders worked for a big five tech company before YC, and 3.9% worked for a bulge bracket bank or big three consulting firm before YC.
51.9% of second time YC founders did not have a role in between their first and second YC run. 18.3% of all second time YC founders didn’t have a career outside of founding companies (and 13.8% didn’t have a career outside of YC).
Of those who did have roles in between their first and second YC runs, 35.0% worked in engineering, 38.1% worked in product, and 11.3% worked in finance.
Just 3.4% of second time YC founders worked for a big five tech company between YC runs.
Serial Entrepreneurship
While all of the two time YC founders are serial entrepreneurs by definition, 28.7% started other companies before their first YC company. 11.8% started other companies between their first and second YC runs.
YC Experience
40.0% of two time YC founders had their first YC company exit.
The average amount of time at the first YC company was 3.8 years.
The second YC companies that two time YC founders started were similar (had at least one tag the same) to the industry of their first company just 14.8% of the time.