But do you think any YC combinator wouldn't have eventually made a lot of money if they hadn't sold? Selling your startup doesn't cause it to have value; that's backwards. YC startups were sold for money because presumably the purchaser thought they would be worth at least that much money in the future.
If you can build something people want, it seems relatively easy to convince some fraction of those users to pay for it. Convincing a big company to buy you is a long shot; convincing a big company to do anything (even if you work there) is tough.
Look at Dinosaur Comics -- that guy can't even draw, but he's making a living at it. Now imagine trying to sell such a crazy idea to an existing company.
If you can make something people want, it almost seems irrelevant to think about big companies. They'll only consider buying you once you look like a solid business proposition already. It's a reward, not a bailout.
There are plenty of companies that get acquired before having a solid business proposition. Jaiku (along the lines of Twitter) is a recent example, but there are many others. A company can be acquired for a variety of reasons. Maybe the team is a good fit for the parent (talent acquisition). Maybe the product is hard to monetize on its own but it's a good feature that will increase the value of something else (could have been Xobni).
Perhaps it's a loss leader, a service that you plan to give away in order to attract customers to your main business (a contrived example, Godaddy could buy some game that somehow encouraged you to buy domain names).
"There are plenty of companies that get acquired before having a solid business proposition."
That doesn't make it a good idea. The answer to "Who is your target market?" should not be "Uhhh... Google?" There are many more companies that built a "cool" product that was useful and used, couldn't monetize it, and died because of lack of capital. Somehow I doubt YC has ever invested in a company that flat out had no exit strategy outside of being acquired by a big company. You've got to have something because if none of the big fish bite you're screwed otherwise.
If you can build something people want, it seems relatively easy to convince some fraction of those users to pay for it. Convincing a big company to buy you is a long shot; convincing a big company to do anything (even if you work there) is tough.
Look at Dinosaur Comics -- that guy can't even draw, but he's making a living at it. Now imagine trying to sell such a crazy idea to an existing company.
If you can make something people want, it almost seems irrelevant to think about big companies. They'll only consider buying you once you look like a solid business proposition already. It's a reward, not a bailout.