YCombinator (“YC”) the famous accelerator has published their statistics for this year. Here is the beautiful chart with the same sad numbers
Again we can see that from 114 companies we have 25/114 (22%) with female founders, 9/114 (8%) with black founders, and 6/114 (5%) with Hispanic founders. We see again the sad results but highly expectable due that it will take time for the efforts that YC is taking to get good results. Why do I think is important to talk about this again? Because I'm a fan of YC and I believe the leader of an industry needs to lead by example. Publishing statistics is the first step.
Part of the reasons I insist in this topics is because I believe in Demographics as a strong force in the markets. As The Economist released last week, “1 American of 6 is now Hispanic” and there will be 1 every 4 by 2050. This is not only big percentages but if you go to the numbers of people is outstanding: today 57 million Hispanics out of 321M (18%) and there will be 106 million out of 398 million for 2050 (26%). If the main market for your startup is the American market and you are not considering this changes in demographics then you are doing something wrong. Culture, language and habits are different in each minority. It is difficult to understand their needs when you have never encountered the same ones.
Lets also think a little more broad than just the US. The combined countries that speak Spanish as a first language are a total population of 470M people. If you sum up the total population that speaks English (globally) you would have a market of 870M. Its not only how powerful is to be bilingual but being born and race with two different set of cultures that you can understand.
Going deeper into the demographic changes, The Economist mentioned that “the median age for whites is 42, of blacks 32 and of Hispanics 28.” It’s not only focusing on how the world looks today but also how would it look 20 years from today. Everyone is talking about millennials and how they are born in technology so they are the first adopters and the ones that drive the consumption of technology.
YC is famous for getting founders to focus on growth. There are good at it and they have clear examples of it. So now lets tied up this fact with the demographics that we mentioned before: most of the growth in US population (millennials) will come from the Hispanic minority : 60%+ or 49 million people.
There is one more reason that we mentioned before and its culture. YC is also known for companies that have strong culture on the inside of their companies. They have added Peter Thiel as a part-time partner and he is famous for encouraging companies to create their own cultures and being extremely focus. It will be more important in the upcoming years to have a diverse culture that can reflect the new demographic changes in the country. Understand the users can come from feedback but there is no better knowledge that the real empathy of having gone through the same problems or needs (or even wants).
As I mentioned before I'm a fan of YC companies and what they have accomplished. Also the fact that YC is publishing the real demographics of their batches is hopeful. I would like to see what where the relative metrics on acceptance of minorities not on the total application but per each group. This can bring more transparency and hopefully if the numbers are better than the ones published, more Latinos, blacks and female founders would be encourage to apply to the program. I have faith that this numbers will slowly change to reflect the new demographics. Lets just hope for the best.
