7 ms·

Applications for YC W19 Are Open

109 points by hkhanna 8y ago

ptero 8y ago
I heard YC made / considered to make moving to SV full time optional. Coming for 1-2 days per week could be acceptable. Is this true or did I make it up?
- adora 8y ago
  Founders should be where their customers are, so if your customers aren't in SV, then you probably should be elsewhere. We work with with each team to figure out what the ideal arrangement should be.
nojvek 8y ago
It’s always fun to read the original Dropbox YC application. So well thought out and written. http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-y-combinator-application-from-2007-by-drew-houston-2013-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-y-combinator-applicat... Are there any founders from recent batches than can still vouch whether YC is still worth it? With insane SF rent prices, one has to burn a big chunk of that 120k in 3 months by just trying to stay alive. Add that to the fact that YC batches are pretty big right now. Do you get much in return other than the YC bragging rights? Would love to learn about the experiences of existing/past founders.
- wtvanhest 8y ago
  YC is located in south bay which is expensive, but not much different than many other cities in the US. If comparing to a suburb it will not be cheap, but there are no VCs in suburbs. An extra few $k in rent is not going to make a difference in the longrun.
  - chrift 8y ago
    I think that depends on whether those extra few $k mean the difference between needing to move back home and staying out in SF
- moeamaya 8y ago
  Austen from Lambda had a really succinct reply in favor of still doing YC. Context dependent but tldr: focus on important metrics. https://mobile.twitter.com/AustenAllred/status/1011505226304503808 https://mobile.twitter.com/AustenAllred/status/1011505226304...
- ec109685 8y ago
  That was a good read. The one competitor he didn't foresee was the GoogleDoc / Office360's of the world. Who needs any sync, when it all works in your browser. Obviously that wasn't fatal and for things that can't run a browser, Dropbox is important.
- mrkurt 8y ago
  YC is still a great focusing mechanism and equalizer. If you haven't raised money before, it's fantastically helpful to go through YC. It helps get past all the status BS with investors and lets you worry purely about how your business is doing.
- snowmaker 8y ago
  Here are several YC stories by individual, recent founders: https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/07/11/month-y-combinator-like-youve-accepted/ https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/07/11/month-y-combi... https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/06/our-y-combinator-experience/ https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/06/our-y-combinator-experie... http://blog.yesgraph.com/changed-y-combinator-7-years/ http://blog.yesgraph.com/changed-y-combinator-7-years/ https://80000hours.org/2015/08/why-is-80000-hours-in-y-combinator-as-a-non-profit-and-whats-it-like/ https://80000hours.org/2015/08/why-is-80000-hours-in-y-combi... https://medium.com/@mattangriffel/the-value-of-y-combinator-accelerators-cdbeada1e2b9#.eylzgmtnc https://medium.com/@mattangriffel/the-value-of-y-combinator-...
asperous 8y ago
The misconceptions page is interesting i.e. almost all companies were incorporated, half had revenue, almost half had recommendations from alumni and almost half were responding to an RFS.
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  By itself they are true. But they most likely look at the trailing years for revenue. We had zero revenue at conception and got interviewed but 2 years later our revenues was around $5k per month and we didn't even make the initial cut.
hamhamed 8y ago
I've been applying to YC since 2013 (so this is going to be around our 10th time), although with different companies and cofounders. I've never gotten accepted, though we've made it to the interviews twice but never made it to the finish line to actually get in. Here's what I learned that could mean something: 1: Every time we got an interview we asked for recommendations. Last time we got a straight up email rejection when we decided it was probably a bad idea to ask again our network for a recommendation for the third time. If anything our startup was doing better than the last time we applied so I'm not sure how their process works. 2: We recycled our 1 min video and we got an interview. So if you're too lazy to make a new one, I guess it's fine 3: We'll apply for the 10th time sometime this weekend, and probably for the 11th.. fuck it.
- evancharles 8y ago
  Love the persistence. Happy to help edit your app or do a mock interview. Random idea for your product you've probably heard before - wedding website providers might be a good channel.
  - hamhamed 8y ago
    I'll def reach out once our application is done, we never considered getting it reviewed before, so that'll be a first..thx evan! And yeah, as you may have guessed wedding platforms like Joy, Knot, etc. are def in our target channel
- ta1234567890 8y ago
  Yes, definitely try to get a recommendation from a YC alum or partner. It's easier than you think, just hound them (be nice and polite thought) on Twitter and try to meet them for coffee (ideal) or over Skype to ask for advice. Think of it as a pre-interview, they'll ask you a bunch of good questions and will help you to come up with the answers. If you are personable and passionate enough, you'll very likely get a recommendation without even asking. Also, practice for your interview with someone else (there are some good resources out there with sample questions), that practice will help you feel calm and confident for the real interview. Last, but very crucial for your startup nonetheless, focus on showing your ability to grow/gain traction. Even great ideas are not that valuable by themselves. And having 10 clients with a shitty product is way more impressive than a great product with 0 clients.
ArtWomb 8y ago
YC Bio Application idea: The Artificial Human Womb Prompted by two considerations. Surrogacy centers throughout Indian and Southeast Asia are shuttering as legal regulation catches up with a grey market that often lures young unskilled women with promises of life-changing compensation. Only to deliver much less upon delivery of a newborn infant for adoption. Demand among infertile and / or non-traditional first world families for reproductive solutions creates a window of opportunity for innovation and investment. Public perception is evolving. After all, even thirty years ago so called "test tube babies" once condemned by church doctrine, are now seen as a miracle technology. The other belongs more to the realm of sci-fi or speculation. In the event of a mass depopulation event. Either human-made or environmental. It may become essential to rapidly re-populate the earth. Or off-planet colony. Beginning an artificial womb project today, may yield the fruits necessary a generation or two down the road. To be clear, this is an artificial womb for gestating humans. We don't wish to begin with Mus and work our way up. Funding (ask $1M) would be used primarily to attract the team and begin feasibility study and simulation toward a goal of version one prototype.
- snowmaker 8y ago
  I do think this is an interesting idea.
mitko 8y ago
I am going to apply, but currently looking for a cofounder[1] after my previous cofounder left. Is it advisable to wait until I've recruited a new cofounder to submit the application? [1] - https://angel.co/imersme/jobs/386205-co-founder https://angel.co/imersme/jobs/386205-co-founder details about co-founder position (sf bay area) if anyone is interested. Reach me at "me" at my website (in profile) or reply here.
- snowmaker 8y ago
  I'd probably wait until the application deadline, but if you don't have a new cofounder by then, I'd just submit with what you have. It's true we're a little less likely to accept single founders, but it's only one of many factors and the probability delta not that large. Particularly if you are a technical founder, which I see you are.
  - mitko 8y ago
    Thank you, snowmaker, for the advice!
- grahamannett 8y ago
  I just sent an email and I'd definitely be interested if you would want to talk further about the application/company.
gatsby 8y ago
I’m a YC founder from the S15 batch and worked as an early employee at another company from W12. Happy to review your application or answer any questions from a founder perspective. Email is in profile.
- sakethrr 8y ago
  Hi, glad to e-meet you. By the way of introduction, we are a startup based of India building a scalable zero code platform for app and web development. Being in a different geography it has become difficult to reach out to 1st connections to YC. It would be very helpful if you could spare some of your time to help us understand the process. I'm on saketh.g@erslabs.com and +919920211439 (whatsapp). Really appreciate your post and intentions behind.
- meetneps 8y ago
  Hey there, I am another startup founder for this deployment application for php and other tech stack like python, java. No scripting required. Just signup and start using. Also others can give feedback of the app too. http://grandappstudio.com/roll-out?utm_source=news_yc http://grandappstudio.com/roll-out?utm_source=news_yc I am giving completely free for the first project for first 100 signups. Please make the best use of this opportunity too.
taytus 8y ago
I'm going to apply again. It will be my 8th time. But this will be my first time applying with a co-founder, live product and paying customers. If you are a YC alumn, would love to ping you so you can check out our application. Thank you and good luck everyone!! Ninja Edit... We are looking for a cofounder:https://angel.co/roboamp/jobs/331401-cofounder https://angel.co/roboamp/jobs/331401-cofounder
thehodge 8y ago
Did we ever get an update on the online YC batch?
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  I am part of the first startup school by YC. I think it's just few of us survivors left. My company aihello.com is doing good although AI in production environment is extremely hard. Took us more than a year to just get "good enough" results.
  - ENadyr 8y ago
    My company was in the Startup School also. We were accepted into YC when we applied after finishing the Startup School (applied twice before, no interview). Interestingly I know other founders from Startup School that were at the demo day as investors!
    - ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
      What's your startup?
      - ENadyr 8y ago
        Plexus, high-performance haptic gloves for AR and VR
cmontella 8y ago
FYI there is a typo in the application: "Do you generate direct program revenue or does it comes from donors? If both, what's the split?" comes -> come
chuhnk 8y ago
I think I applied 4 times for https://micro.mu https://micro.mu in some form or another. The first time was just an idea. The next an open source project. The next sponsored by a large corporate. The next used by dozens of large reputable companies. I don't bother applying anymore but it's interesting to see the progress in all that time. I know I'll succeed. I don't need YC for that. But I'm sure things would be different if I did have their help.
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  you have 4.6k stars on github! Well done. Is your service something that turns a normal application into API exposed services? I have been looking for something like that for a long time to expose some of my internal java applications as external API Sorry if this is a silly question
  - chuhnk 8y ago
    The toolkit includes an API gateway which would allow you to serve public facing http and direct requests to internal services that may speak a different protocol such as RPC. It's highly flexible and pluggable.
    - ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
      Awesome. This is kind of what I was looking for. I will give it a shot!
msaharia 8y ago
How different is the YC non-profit application from the usual route? Do they look for an existing established product or bet on new ones like the company route?

109 points by hkhanna 8y ago

I heard YC made / considered to make moving to SV full time optional. Coming for 1-2 days per week could be acceptable. Is this true or did I make it up?

adora 8y ago
Founders should be where their customers are, so if your customers aren't in SV, then you probably should be elsewhere. We work with with each team to figure out what the ideal arrangement should be.

nojvek 8y ago

It’s always fun to read the original Dropbox YC application. So well thought out and written. http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-y-combinator-application-from-2007-by-drew-houston-2013-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-y-combinator-applicat... Are there any founders from recent batches than can still vouch whether YC is still worth it? With insane SF rent prices, one has to burn a big chunk of that 120k in 3 months by just trying to stay alive. Add that to the fact that YC batches are pretty big right now. Do you get much in return other than the YC bragging rights? Would love to learn about the experiences of existing/past founders.

wtvanhest 8y ago
YC is located in south bay which is expensive, but not much different than many other cities in the US. If comparing to a suburb it will not be cheap, but there are no VCs in suburbs. An extra few $k in rent is not going to make a difference in the longrun.
- chrift 8y ago
  I think that depends on whether those extra few $k mean the difference between needing to move back home and staying out in SF
moeamaya 8y ago
Austen from Lambda had a really succinct reply in favor of still doing YC. Context dependent but tldr: focus on important metrics. https://mobile.twitter.com/AustenAllred/status/1011505226304503808 https://mobile.twitter.com/AustenAllred/status/1011505226304...
ec109685 8y ago
That was a good read. The one competitor he didn't foresee was the GoogleDoc / Office360's of the world. Who needs any sync, when it all works in your browser. Obviously that wasn't fatal and for things that can't run a browser, Dropbox is important.
mrkurt 8y ago
YC is still a great focusing mechanism and equalizer. If you haven't raised money before, it's fantastically helpful to go through YC. It helps get past all the status BS with investors and lets you worry purely about how your business is doing.
snowmaker 8y ago
Here are several YC stories by individual, recent founders: https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/07/11/month-y-combinator-like-youve-accepted/ https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/07/11/month-y-combi... https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/06/our-y-combinator-experience/ https://about.gitlab.com/2016/01/06/our-y-combinator-experie... http://blog.yesgraph.com/changed-y-combinator-7-years/ http://blog.yesgraph.com/changed-y-combinator-7-years/ https://80000hours.org/2015/08/why-is-80000-hours-in-y-combinator-as-a-non-profit-and-whats-it-like/ https://80000hours.org/2015/08/why-is-80000-hours-in-y-combi... https://medium.com/@mattangriffel/the-value-of-y-combinator-accelerators-cdbeada1e2b9#.eylzgmtnc https://medium.com/@mattangriffel/the-value-of-y-combinator-...

asperous 8y ago

The misconceptions page is interesting i.e. almost all companies were incorporated, half had revenue, almost half had recommendations from alumni and almost half were responding to an RFS.

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
By itself they are true. But they most likely look at the trailing years for revenue. We had zero revenue at conception and got interviewed but 2 years later our revenues was around $5k per month and we didn't even make the initial cut.

hamhamed 8y ago

I've been applying to YC since 2013 (so this is going to be around our 10th time), although with different companies and cofounders. I've never gotten accepted, though we've made it to the interviews twice but never made it to the finish line to actually get in. Here's what I learned that could mean something: 1: Every time we got an interview we asked for recommendations. Last time we got a straight up email rejection when we decided it was probably a bad idea to ask again our network for a recommendation for the third time. If anything our startup was doing better than the last time we applied so I'm not sure how their process works. 2: We recycled our 1 min video and we got an interview. So if you're too lazy to make a new one, I guess it's fine 3: We'll apply for the 10th time sometime this weekend, and probably for the 11th.. fuck it.

evancharles 8y ago
Love the persistence. Happy to help edit your app or do a mock interview. Random idea for your product you've probably heard before - wedding website providers might be a good channel.
- hamhamed 8y ago
  I'll def reach out once our application is done, we never considered getting it reviewed before, so that'll be a first..thx evan! And yeah, as you may have guessed wedding platforms like Joy, Knot, etc. are def in our target channel
ta1234567890 8y ago
Yes, definitely try to get a recommendation from a YC alum or partner. It's easier than you think, just hound them (be nice and polite thought) on Twitter and try to meet them for coffee (ideal) or over Skype to ask for advice. Think of it as a pre-interview, they'll ask you a bunch of good questions and will help you to come up with the answers. If you are personable and passionate enough, you'll very likely get a recommendation without even asking. Also, practice for your interview with someone else (there are some good resources out there with sample questions), that practice will help you feel calm and confident for the real interview. Last, but very crucial for your startup nonetheless, focus on showing your ability to grow/gain traction. Even great ideas are not that valuable by themselves. And having 10 clients with a shitty product is way more impressive than a great product with 0 clients.

ArtWomb 8y ago

YC Bio Application idea: The Artificial Human Womb Prompted by two considerations. Surrogacy centers throughout Indian and Southeast Asia are shuttering as legal regulation catches up with a grey market that often lures young unskilled women with promises of life-changing compensation. Only to deliver much less upon delivery of a newborn infant for adoption. Demand among infertile and / or non-traditional first world families for reproductive solutions creates a window of opportunity for innovation and investment. Public perception is evolving. After all, even thirty years ago so called "test tube babies" once condemned by church doctrine, are now seen as a miracle technology. The other belongs more to the realm of sci-fi or speculation. In the event of a mass depopulation event. Either human-made or environmental. It may become essential to rapidly re-populate the earth. Or off-planet colony. Beginning an artificial womb project today, may yield the fruits necessary a generation or two down the road. To be clear, this is an artificial womb for gestating humans. We don't wish to begin with Mus and work our way up. Funding (ask $1M) would be used primarily to attract the team and begin feasibility study and simulation toward a goal of version one prototype.

snowmaker 8y ago
I do think this is an interesting idea.

mitko 8y ago

I am going to apply, but currently looking for a cofounder[1] after my previous cofounder left. Is it advisable to wait until I've recruited a new cofounder to submit the application? [1] - https://angel.co/imersme/jobs/386205-co-founder https://angel.co/imersme/jobs/386205-co-founder details about co-founder position (sf bay area) if anyone is interested. Reach me at "me" at my website (in profile) or reply here.

snowmaker 8y ago
I'd probably wait until the application deadline, but if you don't have a new cofounder by then, I'd just submit with what you have. It's true we're a little less likely to accept single founders, but it's only one of many factors and the probability delta not that large. Particularly if you are a technical founder, which I see you are.
- mitko 8y ago
  Thank you, snowmaker, for the advice!
grahamannett 8y ago
I just sent an email and I'd definitely be interested if you would want to talk further about the application/company.

gatsby 8y ago

I’m a YC founder from the S15 batch and worked as an early employee at another company from W12. Happy to review your application or answer any questions from a founder perspective. Email is in profile.

sakethrr 8y ago
Hi, glad to e-meet you. By the way of introduction, we are a startup based of India building a scalable zero code platform for app and web development. Being in a different geography it has become difficult to reach out to 1st connections to YC. It would be very helpful if you could spare some of your time to help us understand the process. I'm on saketh.g@erslabs.com and +919920211439 (whatsapp). Really appreciate your post and intentions behind.
meetneps 8y ago
Hey there, I am another startup founder for this deployment application for php and other tech stack like python, java. No scripting required. Just signup and start using. Also others can give feedback of the app too. http://grandappstudio.com/roll-out?utm_source=news_yc http://grandappstudio.com/roll-out?utm_source=news_yc I am giving completely free for the first project for first 100 signups. Please make the best use of this opportunity too.

taytus 8y ago

I'm going to apply again. It will be my 8th time. But this will be my first time applying with a co-founder, live product and paying customers. If you are a YC alumn, would love to ping you so you can check out our application. Thank you and good luck everyone!! Ninja Edit... We are looking for a cofounder:https://angel.co/roboamp/jobs/331401-cofounder https://angel.co/roboamp/jobs/331401-cofounder

thehodge 8y ago

Did we ever get an update on the online YC batch?

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
I am part of the first startup school by YC. I think it's just few of us survivors left. My company aihello.com is doing good although AI in production environment is extremely hard. Took us more than a year to just get "good enough" results.
- ENadyr 8y ago
  My company was in the Startup School also. We were accepted into YC when we applied after finishing the Startup School (applied twice before, no interview). Interestingly I know other founders from Startup School that were at the demo day as investors!
  - ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
    What's your startup?
    - ENadyr 8y ago
      Plexus, high-performance haptic gloves for AR and VR

cmontella 8y ago

FYI there is a typo in the application: "Do you generate direct program revenue or does it comes from donors? If both, what's the split?" comes -> come

chuhnk 8y ago

I think I applied 4 times for https://micro.mu https://micro.mu in some form or another. The first time was just an idea. The next an open source project. The next sponsored by a large corporate. The next used by dozens of large reputable companies. I don't bother applying anymore but it's interesting to see the progress in all that time. I know I'll succeed. I don't need YC for that. But I'm sure things would be different if I did have their help.

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
you have 4.6k stars on github! Well done. Is your service something that turns a normal application into API exposed services? I have been looking for something like that for a long time to expose some of my internal java applications as external API Sorry if this is a silly question
- chuhnk 8y ago
  The toolkit includes an API gateway which would allow you to serve public facing http and direct requests to internal services that may speak a different protocol such as RPC. It's highly flexible and pluggable.
  - ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
    Awesome. This is kind of what I was looking for. I will give it a shot!

msaharia 8y ago

How different is the YC non-profit application from the usual route? Do they look for an existing established product or bet on new ones like the company route?