Tran Le and Jason Chao on turning down the Y Combinator and Neo accelerator offers

The Stanford Daily Podcast

In this episode of Founder's Campfire, Tran Le joins forces once more with her former co-founder, Jason Chaos, for an insightful conversation and startup accelerators. Le and Chao (both Stanford CS '24) were co-founders who applied to the Y Combinator (YC) Winter 2024 batch. Despite receiving offers from both the YC and Neo accelerators, they decided to decline the offers due to differences in their personal goals and values. In this episode, Le and Chao deep dive into their journey from conceptualizing their startup idea to navigating the YC interview process, and to ultimately parting ways. They discuss the importance of understanding one’s financial and personal readiness, ensuring alignment in co-founder values, and evaluating the desire to commit to the startup space in the long term. While sharing common values, Le and Chao also explore their differing viewpoints in finding the right co-founder and startup idea. Through their story, they aim to offer aspiring founders insight into the nuanced decision-making process involved in joining a startup accelerator program.

00:00 — Our Startup Idea and How We Met

05:32 — Our Y Combinator Interview Process

10:41 — Weighing the Y Combinator Offer and Exploring Other Opportunities

15:14 — Reflection of Our Decision, Differing Perspectives, and Lessons Learned

Connect with them:

Tran Le: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trannble/

Jason Chao: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jchao01/

Founder’s Campfire is a podcast show created and hosted by Tran Le, a senior at Stanford studying computer science. Through reflective conversations with early founders, Le hopes to build a community of founders focused on reflection, sharing, and growth at Stanford and beyond. Whether you're a founder, dreamer, investor, or simply a curious listener, there's a place for you around the campfire. Join Le as she shares stories, insights, and lessons on entrepreneurship.

Producer: Tran Le, Managing Editor: Ellen Yang