9 ms·

Y Combinator Accepts Record 60+ New Startups For Summer 2011

151 points by acrum 15y ago

Cherian_Abraham 15y ago
So 60+ out of how many? I must admit. I cant wait to hear the types of startups that made the cut this time. It would be incredible to know (or scary as hell) to find out if any of them are in essence, similar to what we want to do (or are in the process of doing). YC has made it possible for some really cool technologies come to the marketplace. And YC has inspired many like me to get off our collective asses to chase our dreams. Even if what I am currently building does not amount to a whole lot, the essays of PG has sure inspired me and will in turn inspire a lot many more who I will be sure to recommend it to.
- xnerdr 15y ago
  Do you have a link to "the essays of PG"? I'd be interested in checking them out...
  - alexgartrell 15y ago
    http://paulgraham.com/articles.html http://paulgraham.com/articles.html I'm actually pretty surprised that there are HN users that don't know about his essays...
    - srgseg 15y ago
      It makes sense though - more people probably stumble across HN while searching for programming answers than through hearing about Y Combinator. Even those that realise that the top left top left 'Y' image is actually a link to ycombinator.com would be hard pressed to find a link from there to PG's essays.
    - wallflower 15y ago
      > I'm actually pretty surprised that there are HN users that don't know about his essays... Actually a long time ago, I remember reading one of PG's essays on High School and was struck by the sheer number of active comments (vibing with the thoughts) on it from kids who were in high school and most likely had no idea what HN was.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- abbasmehdi 15y ago
  Yes, I feel naked for telling them every useful insight we had about our project.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - emmett 15y ago
    I can promise you they barely remember the interview. After so many days with hours of 10 minute interviews, the chances they will even remember any useful insight you had is close to nil. Moreover, YC would never take an idea you told them in an interview and tell it to another start-up.
    - BrandonM 15y ago
      The problem arises when you put these two statements together. Sometimes we hear a key insight or have an interesting thought and seem to forget it instantly. In reality, it's often filed away somewhere in our heads, only to be refreshed later when something similar jogs our memory. The true danger for a non-accepted startup is for their ideas to be absorbed into the subconscious memory of the YC advisers, only to bubble up later as a seemingly-original idea or interesting angle for another startup to pursue. This kind of accidental "idea theft" is practically guaranteed.
      - boucher 15y ago
        Honestly, your idea probably isn't that great. Even if it truly is, these things tend to have pretty short half lives. By the time it accidentally made its way to another startup through a YC partner you'll probably have had a lot of opportunity to already act on it. Or someone else will probably already have come up with it.
        BrandonM 15y ago
        I'm not talking about "my idea" (I didn't even apply) or the value of ideas in general. I merely dispute the notion that a YC partner would hear an idea, forget it, and never make use of it again. I've seen it said several times over the last few years by defenders of YC and I don't buy it. The reality is that some people will have genuinely good, novel ideas but not be accepted (perhaps the applicant didn't seem motivated enough). Not using that idea takes conscious effort; "forgetting" the idea is exactly the recipe for inadvertently passing it on to someone else. I'm not contending that it does not make sense to share an idea with YC as part of the application process. Weighing the financial impact of giving away the idea (most would contend this is relatively small) against the potential benefit of getting into YC, submitting an application to YC will often be the rational decision.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- teej 15y ago
  I'll let PG answer that: On-time applications for s2011 were up by 84% from w2011 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2512854 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2512854
andrewcooke 15y ago
is this going to suffer from the same problems as increased class sizes? less personal mentoring, for example? i guess you can argue that it increases the pool of connections, but that's a lower quality (unproved) pool than contacts with established players, no?
- nanoanderson 15y ago
  I think YC would cut it off if they knew they had reached their limit. After all, they're investing in these companies and want them all to succeed. Overbooking would cost them a lot of money in the short- and long-term.
  - andrewcooke 15y ago
    that depends on the maths, doesn't it? for example, although they no doubt want them all to succeed, they probably make a lot of money on very few, and those few pay for the rest. since no-one can predict exactly which those few are, it's not clear the investors lose by increasing the pool (as long as they don't lower their standards). that's not the same arguments as a participant might use. it could be that you're going to start several companies in your lifetime; the probability of any one succeeding is not that great, but hopefully one will. from that point of view, what you want from YC is high quality contacts that carry across into future companies, even if those are not YC supported. there's nothing to say, on the face of it, that those to mechanisms must pull in the same direction; the timescales are different, for example.
- ksolanki 15y ago
  is this going to suffer from the same problems as increased class sizes? less personal mentoring, for example? Probably NOT. The bar has been higher in recent batches and as a result, relatively more established companies make it to the batch, as compared to, say, in 2005 - 2007. This benefits both the companies and YC -- the companies benefit by the excellent environment and networking opportunities, and YC ends up making somewhat (again, relatively speaking) safer investments.
  - 15y ago
staunch 15y ago
This makes YC a lot less interesting to me. Being one of ~150 founders vying for attention/advice/mindshare of YC is just not very compelling.
- bumbledraven 15y ago
  But they don't have to compete - each startup can all have all the face time they want. "There's no limit to the number of office hours they can book; startups talk to us as often as they want... The office hour software is designed not just to book slots, but to show us if startups are getting enough time with us. We set aside blocks of time for office hours, and if not all the slots get taken, we know demand is satisfied. (If all the slots get taken, we set aside more time.)" http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html
  - pg 15y ago
    Actually we've improved the system since then. Now startups that want to talk can also request office hours, and people who are in the queue get slots first whenever we create a new block. I should add something about that.
- pg 15y ago
  As of last batch, which had 45 startups in it, we were able to give everyone the attention they needed, as measured by the results (= most observers thought w2011 was the best batch so far).
  - edanm 15y ago
    Do you feel close to the limit you can handle? You've said several times you're not there yet, but maybe you have a feeling about it.
    - pg 15y ago
      60 should be ok, because we have 3 partners advising startups about product stuff now (me, Harj, and Paul Buchheit) and I know 1 partner can easily handle 20 startups. We probably could not get up to 80 without more partners though.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jmjerlecki 15y ago
That would put Yuri on the hook for what $9 million this time around?
- johnrob 15y ago
  The interesting bit is that $9 million is a normal amount for one company's series B round. In this case, that money is going to (in theory) benefit 60 companies. That is a big change that could have a significant impact.
abstractbill 15y ago
None of Y Combinators competitors have anything like that to offer new entrepreneurs. Y Combinator competitors would be foolish to try to compete on the money axis anyway - the cash has always been minimally important. They would do much better by identifying and focusing on YC's actual weaknesses.
- neurotech1 15y ago
  Agreed 100%. Every program is different, but trying to imitate YC is not going to work as well. One area of innovation is to encourage more hardware/software combination start-ups. eg. WakeMate
- phlux 15y ago
  Agreed, this is why I am more encouraged by others such as RockHealth where they have a very specific vertical they focus on. The market, needs, barriers etc are wildly different in the consumer internet and mobile space than in health care -- and something like RockHealth is greatly needed so that vertical can mature.
- stevenj 15y ago
  What are YC's weaknesses?
  - pg 15y ago
    The biggest is probably the meta-weakness of not focusing on any specific market. How much that matters depends on how unusual the market is. Education, for example, is a very unusual market, and Imagine K12 has a unique advantage in the network of schools they have access to.
    - stevenj 15y ago
      What makes a market unusual?
      - Dn_Ab 15y ago
cheez 15y ago
Not-a-bubble! Seriously though, there are so many software startups these days. Time to get into something else?
- haploid 15y ago
  It's unfortunate that you've been downvoted for this. Just bookmark the post for posterity's sake. When the bubble finally bursts, you have evidence with which to back up a satisfying "I told you so".
stygianguest 15y ago
For a second I thought 60+ was referring to an age. That would be real news.
pauldisneyiv 15y ago
Most everyone trying to get accepted by YC is familiar with PG, his writings, and the YC partners experience regarding startups. It's a primary reason many apply. Respect that PG and the other founders know how to scale the program and handle the workload. They have all the experience of running YC, while each of us has none. They would be the first to limit their startup count if that needed to happen.
shawnee_ 15y ago
The more popular and powerful YC becomes, the more it becomes evident that there's an emerging niche in the market for facilitator-type enterprises doing what YC does. Something akin to mentorprising; PG et al are mentorprisers of I guess this is to be expected as geek culture becomes more mainstream.
- pyrhho 15y ago
  mentorpreneurs?
ecuzzillo 15y ago
I don't know if this data is available, but I'd be interested to see what percentage of this class was incorporated before applying, and what percentage got incorporated as part of the process. Also interesting would be what percentage of this class include repeat YC founders.
- pg 15y ago
  I think there are 7 alumni doing YC again this summer.
  - abbasmehdi 15y ago
    Why? I mean under what circumstances would you (a YC alum) rinse repeat?
    - pg 15y ago
      When you want to start another startup. You could do that either because the old startup didn't succeed, or because you got acquired and are now finished working for the acquirer, or because although the old startup is doing fine, you decided to leave to do something new. We've had all 3 cases.
      - abbasmehdi 15y ago
        It’s unbelievable how candid and forthcoming you are as a business owner (YC being your business). Is it wrong to assume that the value of YC diminishes with each additional serving? And as a follow-up, do you have any third (or even fourth) time founders?
        pg 15y ago
        I don't know. Obviously some of general stuff we talk about, you'd already know, if you'd done it before. But on the other hand maybe there are other advantages you'd be better equipped to extract the second time through. E.g. if I went back to college now I'd be able to learn a lot more than I did at the time.
stevenj 15y ago
I wish I could invest in YC.
- dominostars 15y ago
  Then pull a Yuri
  - stevenj 15y ago
    Yuri Milner (as an individual and not via DST-Global), along with SV Angel's Start Fund, invested in the individual companies that participated in YC -- not in YC directly. Though Sequoia Capital is a LP in YC. - - - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2156560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2156560 http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/28/yuri-milner-sv-angel-offer-every-new-y-combinator-startup-150k/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/28/yuri-milner-sv-angel-offer-...
scorbrid 15y ago
Anyone know what the chances of them taking someone who applied late might be? We just heard about Y Combinator and applied a couple days ago. Their information is vague on this only saying that chances are very slim. Probably more slim now that they are taking 60 off the top.
- rms 15y ago
  Only if you would have been a true stand-out application in the regular round. Definitely more slim.

151 points by acrum 15y ago

So 60+ out of how many? I must admit. I cant wait to hear the types of startups that made the cut this time. It would be incredible to know (or scary as hell) to find out if any of them are in essence, similar to what we want to do (or are in the process of doing). YC has made it possible for some really cool technologies come to the marketplace. And YC has inspired many like me to get off our collective asses to chase our dreams. Even if what I am currently building does not amount to a whole lot, the essays of PG has sure inspired me and will in turn inspire a lot many more who I will be sure to recommend it to.

xnerdr 15y ago
Do you have a link to "the essays of PG"? I'd be interested in checking them out...
- alexgartrell 15y ago
  http://paulgraham.com/articles.html http://paulgraham.com/articles.html I'm actually pretty surprised that there are HN users that don't know about his essays...
  - srgseg 15y ago
    It makes sense though - more people probably stumble across HN while searching for programming answers than through hearing about Y Combinator. Even those that realise that the top left top left 'Y' image is actually a link to ycombinator.com would be hard pressed to find a link from there to PG's essays.
  - wallflower 15y ago
    > I'm actually pretty surprised that there are HN users that don't know about his essays... Actually a long time ago, I remember reading one of PG's essays on High School and was struck by the sheer number of active comments (vibing with the thoughts) on it from kids who were in high school and most likely had no idea what HN was.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
abbasmehdi 15y ago
Yes, I feel naked for telling them every useful insight we had about our project.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- emmett 15y ago
  I can promise you they barely remember the interview. After so many days with hours of 10 minute interviews, the chances they will even remember any useful insight you had is close to nil. Moreover, YC would never take an idea you told them in an interview and tell it to another start-up.
  - BrandonM 15y ago
    The problem arises when you put these two statements together. Sometimes we hear a key insight or have an interesting thought and seem to forget it instantly. In reality, it's often filed away somewhere in our heads, only to be refreshed later when something similar jogs our memory. The true danger for a non-accepted startup is for their ideas to be absorbed into the subconscious memory of the YC advisers, only to bubble up later as a seemingly-original idea or interesting angle for another startup to pursue. This kind of accidental "idea theft" is practically guaranteed.
    - boucher 15y ago
      Honestly, your idea probably isn't that great. Even if it truly is, these things tend to have pretty short half lives. By the time it accidentally made its way to another startup through a YC partner you'll probably have had a lot of opportunity to already act on it. Or someone else will probably already have come up with it.
      - BrandonM 15y ago
        I'm not talking about "my idea" (I didn't even apply) or the value of ideas in general. I merely dispute the notion that a YC partner would hear an idea, forget it, and never make use of it again. I've seen it said several times over the last few years by defenders of YC and I don't buy it. The reality is that some people will have genuinely good, novel ideas but not be accepted (perhaps the applicant didn't seem motivated enough). Not using that idea takes conscious effort; "forgetting" the idea is exactly the recipe for inadvertently passing it on to someone else. I'm not contending that it does not make sense to share an idea with YC as part of the application process. Weighing the financial impact of giving away the idea (most would contend this is relatively small) against the potential benefit of getting into YC, submitting an application to YC will often be the rational decision.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
teej 15y ago
I'll let PG answer that: On-time applications for s2011 were up by 84% from w2011 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2512854 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2512854

andrewcooke 15y ago

is this going to suffer from the same problems as increased class sizes? less personal mentoring, for example? i guess you can argue that it increases the pool of connections, but that's a lower quality (unproved) pool than contacts with established players, no?

nanoanderson 15y ago
I think YC would cut it off if they knew they had reached their limit. After all, they're investing in these companies and want them all to succeed. Overbooking would cost them a lot of money in the short- and long-term.
- andrewcooke 15y ago
  that depends on the maths, doesn't it? for example, although they no doubt want them all to succeed, they probably make a lot of money on very few, and those few pay for the rest. since no-one can predict exactly which those few are, it's not clear the investors lose by increasing the pool (as long as they don't lower their standards). that's not the same arguments as a participant might use. it could be that you're going to start several companies in your lifetime; the probability of any one succeeding is not that great, but hopefully one will. from that point of view, what you want from YC is high quality contacts that carry across into future companies, even if those are not YC supported. there's nothing to say, on the face of it, that those to mechanisms must pull in the same direction; the timescales are different, for example.
ksolanki 15y ago
is this going to suffer from the same problems as increased class sizes? less personal mentoring, for example? Probably NOT. The bar has been higher in recent batches and as a result, relatively more established companies make it to the batch, as compared to, say, in 2005 - 2007. This benefits both the companies and YC -- the companies benefit by the excellent environment and networking opportunities, and YC ends up making somewhat (again, relatively speaking) safer investments.
- 15y ago

staunch 15y ago

This makes YC a lot less interesting to me. Being one of ~150 founders vying for attention/advice/mindshare of YC is just not very compelling.

bumbledraven 15y ago
But they don't have to compete - each startup can all have all the face time they want. "There's no limit to the number of office hours they can book; startups talk to us as often as they want... The office hour software is designed not just to book slots, but to show us if startups are getting enough time with us. We set aside blocks of time for office hours, and if not all the slots get taken, we know demand is satisfied. (If all the slots get taken, we set aside more time.)" http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html
- pg 15y ago
  Actually we've improved the system since then. Now startups that want to talk can also request office hours, and people who are in the queue get slots first whenever we create a new block. I should add something about that.
pg 15y ago
As of last batch, which had 45 startups in it, we were able to give everyone the attention they needed, as measured by the results (= most observers thought w2011 was the best batch so far).
- edanm 15y ago
  Do you feel close to the limit you can handle? You've said several times you're not there yet, but maybe you have a feeling about it.
  - pg 15y ago
    60 should be ok, because we have 3 partners advising startups about product stuff now (me, Harj, and Paul Buchheit) and I know 1 partner can easily handle 20 startups. We probably could not get up to 80 without more partners though.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

jmjerlecki 15y ago

That would put Yuri on the hook for what $9 million this time around?

johnrob 15y ago
The interesting bit is that $9 million is a normal amount for one company's series B round. In this case, that money is going to (in theory) benefit 60 companies. That is a big change that could have a significant impact.

abstractbill 15y ago

None of Y Combinators competitors have anything like that to offer new entrepreneurs. Y Combinator competitors would be foolish to try to compete on the money axis anyway - the cash has always been minimally important. They would do much better by identifying and focusing on YC's actual weaknesses.

neurotech1 15y ago
Agreed 100%. Every program is different, but trying to imitate YC is not going to work as well. One area of innovation is to encourage more hardware/software combination start-ups. eg. WakeMate
phlux 15y ago
Agreed, this is why I am more encouraged by others such as RockHealth where they have a very specific vertical they focus on. The market, needs, barriers etc are wildly different in the consumer internet and mobile space than in health care -- and something like RockHealth is greatly needed so that vertical can mature.
stevenj 15y ago
What are YC's weaknesses?
- pg 15y ago
  The biggest is probably the meta-weakness of not focusing on any specific market. How much that matters depends on how unusual the market is. Education, for example, is a very unusual market, and Imagine K12 has a unique advantage in the network of schools they have access to.
  - stevenj 15y ago
    What makes a market unusual?
    - Dn_Ab 15y ago

cheez 15y ago

Not-a-bubble! Seriously though, there are so many software startups these days. Time to get into something else?

haploid 15y ago
It's unfortunate that you've been downvoted for this. Just bookmark the post for posterity's sake. When the bubble finally bursts, you have evidence with which to back up a satisfying "I told you so".

stygianguest 15y ago

For a second I thought 60+ was referring to an age. That would be real news.

pauldisneyiv 15y ago

Most everyone trying to get accepted by YC is familiar with PG, his writings, and the YC partners experience regarding startups. It's a primary reason many apply. Respect that PG and the other founders know how to scale the program and handle the workload. They have all the experience of running YC, while each of us has none. They would be the first to limit their startup count if that needed to happen.

shawnee_ 15y ago

The more popular and powerful YC becomes, the more it becomes evident that there's an emerging niche in the market for facilitator-type enterprises doing what YC does. Something akin to mentorprising; PG et al are mentorprisers of I guess this is to be expected as geek culture becomes more mainstream.

pyrhho 15y ago
mentorpreneurs?

ecuzzillo 15y ago

I don't know if this data is available, but I'd be interested to see what percentage of this class was incorporated before applying, and what percentage got incorporated as part of the process. Also interesting would be what percentage of this class include repeat YC founders.

pg 15y ago
I think there are 7 alumni doing YC again this summer.
- abbasmehdi 15y ago
  Why? I mean under what circumstances would you (a YC alum) rinse repeat?
  - pg 15y ago
    When you want to start another startup. You could do that either because the old startup didn't succeed, or because you got acquired and are now finished working for the acquirer, or because although the old startup is doing fine, you decided to leave to do something new. We've had all 3 cases.
    - abbasmehdi 15y ago
      It’s unbelievable how candid and forthcoming you are as a business owner (YC being your business). Is it wrong to assume that the value of YC diminishes with each additional serving? And as a follow-up, do you have any third (or even fourth) time founders?
      - pg 15y ago
        I don't know. Obviously some of general stuff we talk about, you'd already know, if you'd done it before. But on the other hand maybe there are other advantages you'd be better equipped to extract the second time through. E.g. if I went back to college now I'd be able to learn a lot more than I did at the time.

stevenj 15y ago

I wish I could invest in YC.

dominostars 15y ago
Then pull a Yuri
- stevenj 15y ago
  Yuri Milner (as an individual and not via DST-Global), along with SV Angel's Start Fund, invested in the individual companies that participated in YC -- not in YC directly. Though Sequoia Capital is a LP in YC. - - - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2156560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2156560 http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/28/yuri-milner-sv-angel-offer-every-new-y-combinator-startup-150k/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/28/yuri-milner-sv-angel-offer-...

scorbrid 15y ago

Anyone know what the chances of them taking someone who applied late might be? We just heard about Y Combinator and applied a couple days ago. Their information is vague on this only saying that chances are very slim. Probably more slim now that they are taking 60 off the top.

rms 15y ago
Only if you would have been a true stand-out application in the regular round. Definitely more slim.