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YC is doing a first ever Fall batch – applications due by 8/27
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pxeger1 2y agoIf you start a spring batch, what letter will you use to disambiguate it from summer batches? (S24)
- j45 2y agoI'm not sure I understand the relevance. More startups can try to happen? Maybe it can be more continuous supports being 4 seasons instead of 2?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wlesieutre 2y agoThey mean how people write “S23” for summer 2023 batch or “W23” for winter, since there are two seasons that start with S it would have to be abbreviated P25 or R25 or SP25 etc. instead
- zulban 2y agoThey'll use daylight savings time, so S25 is spring 2024, until next year where it falls back to S25 being summer 2025.
- bradgessler 2y agoOn brand for "do things that don't scale"
- dang 2y agoThat was the first question that came up when Dalton announced this at YC yesterday :) I vote for P because it's the second letter of Spring and it goes with printemps and primavera.
- santiagobasulto 2y agoNice! But obligatory calling it Primavera all the time, no cheating!
- breck 2y agoN for spriNg and then the loop will be: nsfw
- ks2048 2y agoEasier to just name batches using seconds-since-the-epoch, so you don't have worry about such collisions.
- hardwaregeek 2y agoSG24 (SprinG) and SR24 (SummeR)?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mattigames 2y agoEmbrace modern glyphs, use the summer emoji and the autumn emoji (I tried to add them here but unfortunately HN removes them from comments)
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- re-thc 2y agoS24S (Summer 2024 Spring edition)
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- slilo 2y agoV for Vernal!
- user90131313 2y agoit comes with free commercial drugs with exclusive credits? Great one
- raverbashing 2y agoOpenai API key with some $k of credits most likely
- aidenn0 2y agoI certainly would be surprised if it were their second Fall 24 batch...
- incognito124 2y agoCongratulations on making a total stranger laugh their heart out!
- sevg 2y agoYeah, have to say it can be annoying when titles get editorialized, and even more annoying when the editorialized title is badly written! Note to the submitter, HN FAQ says: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
- HaZeust 2y agoLOL, this comment got me pretty good because I thought something very similar when I read the title but couldn't put my finger on it.
- dang 2y ago(This joke made sense when the title was "YC is doing a first ever Fall 24 batch". I've since changed it. Sorry!)
- rbanffy 2y agoI was going to mention that if someone misses it, the next one will be in 2124, but, then, you were faster.
- skeledrew 2y agoWas about to make a comment similar to this, then saw that the title'd been changed :disappointed:
- hardwaregeek 2y agoObviously they're referring to the 1924 batch which had MGM and Universal Studios. They even got Henry Ford to come to Demo Days!
- phone8675309 2y agoIt would be surprising if you had a prior Fall 24 batch.... Wait.... All I can glean from this is that joining a YC Batch gives you access to a time machine.
- rbanffy 2y agoTime is subjective. They had a couple, in fact. On the last fall 24 batch (don’t remember the century), one group (“startup” doesn’t make much sense in a post-scarcity post-human society) came up with a viable (for a Kardashev type 2) way to do time travel and this one was done on a dare.
- xyst 2y agoHow to get accepted in this batch: make sure you mention “AI”, “generative pre-trained transformer”, “llm” at least once in app ;)
- ganyu 2y agoCan I get a guarantee to be accepted in this batch if I mention all 3? :P
- baxtr 2y agoAre you sure though? AI thing is almost over for now. Need to hop on the next thing. Unfortunately, I have no clue what it could be.
- fragmede 2y ago> AI thing is almost over for now. How long did you think cryptocurrency would last, and how come it's still going?
- tamimio 2y agoI always wondered, is YC worth the try? Are there any hidden details that are usually not mentioned? I hope to get answers from individuals who went through the process.
- n2d4 2y agoGoing through it for my second time now, it's definitely worth it. There's an excess of smart people and it's transformational for any startup, but especially if you build in devtools like us. The network is strong and supportive and there's a strong connection even among people who never met; for example, lots of unicorn+ founders have their personal phone numbers on their profiles. The strongest argument for YC is how few alums speak out against it. Almost all of the negative comments come from people who haven't done the program.
- neilv 2y ago> The strongest argument for YC is how few alums speak out against it. Almost all of the negative comments come from people who haven't done the program. I think YC has merit, but I'm just going to push back on this particular logic: 1. The set of people who've done X is already selected for people who were willing to do X in the first place. 2. In business, burning bridges with an influential network in which you have an in... forfeits some advantage, and probably invites a lot of downside. (On #2, an occasional person might decide it's a matter of principle, or, less-principled, do the math and decide they can get more individual brand mileage out of saying something provocatively negative. But that seems unlikely and rare. Related dynamics we've seen might help our intuition: how Hollywood almost universally shielded abusers for so long, and how it's very rare for a student wronged by a prestigious alma mater university to go public about it.) So I think there are stronger arguments for YC.
- n2d4 2y agoMaybe that applies to people going to Gawker or whatever and writing an exposé on YC, but that's not what I'm talking about. There are very few people who, at the end of the batch in a private one-on-one conversation, say that joining YC was a mistake. That certainly wouldn't risk their career (neither would critiquing YC on HN, for that matter). Claiming that all human opinions are fake and based on self-interest is a very cynical view. Besides you could apply the same logic to big tech companies, or elite universities, or whatever, but there are plenty of Xooglers who say the company went to shit, or Harvard grads who say they regret the student debt.
- ppqqrr 2y agoI applied for summer 24, and got a less-than-thoughtful response bordering on personally insulting (“TL;DR - why don’t you go back to your day job?”). I won’t be applying anymore. Funny thing is, I didn’t even want to hear back - I just like to fill out the application as a writing exercise, to help me get a snapshot of my own thinking around what I’m building. I guess it’s stressful reading all those applications, but why respond if all you have to say is “I don’t believe you”? Silence will do just fine; I’m aware that people don’t believe me - it’s called a startup, right? (Anyways, nbd, apologies for the tangential rant, love the website)
- carlosdp 2y ago> got a less-than-thoughtful response bordering on personally insulting > I didn’t even want to hear back - I just like to fill out the application as a writing exercise You admittedly wasted their time with an unserious application "as a writing exercise," and you're upset because they actually took it seriously and took the time to properly respond to it with honesty instead of giving you a cookie-cutter rejection?
- bartekpacia 2y ago> You admittedly wasted their time with an unserious application "as a writing exercise That’s not what he said.
- ppqqrr 2y agoJust because I had little expectation of hearing back doesn’t mean my application was unserious. It was a full length application, written over multiple days, about the future direction of my business, which already has revenue. The response was about 2 sentences long.
- iJohnDoe 2y ago> about the future direction of my business, which already has revenue. Then maybe their response was spot on. You’re already making revenue. Get back to it. Maybe you’re making it loud and clear you’re not a good fit for the program.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Oras 2y agoI applied for W22, got interviewed and was rejected. The rejection email was quite thoughtful and helpful. I applied twice after that but didn’t get an interview. Fingers crossed for this one. Why I’m applying? 1. Been a daily reader for HN for the last 10 years. Seen companies going from “Launch HN” to be a hugely successful within years. 2. As I’m not from the US, getting accepted would mean I will have at least warm intros to US VCs and build a good network. 3. Being through the YC school back in 2021, then bootstrapping for a year and a half, then joining another startup as a CTO, I started realizing how good YC advice is. Some people like me had to go through it practically to understand the value of YC videos.
- sroussey 2y ago“Joining another startup as CTO” Here is what that means to my ears: 1) I joined as cofounder. Cofounder can and do take whatever title they want. Great! 2) I joined at CTO because there are 500 engineers and it needs an office of the CTO. Let’s not call it a startup, and YC has nothing to offer you. Great! 3) I joined a small startup and they gave me the CTO title. Yikes! Bad signal. Don’t have much confidence in the CEO after hearing that and I assume the company will fold. Or if it succeeds—prepare to be fired. No room to hire above you. Even as a VP, a CEO could hire a CTO. But even better if no title inflation at all. No one like a demotion, so if you aren’t perfect then you are gone. And you will take a lot of (now dead) equity with you. I guess YC would teach you these things…
- cassonmars 2y agoStill have the requirement to stay in SF for three months?
- dameyawn 2y agoYes, I'm also interested. Will have a new baby, so while I'd like to do in-person, it wouldn't be feasible for the new few (or more?) batches. Though I still plan on grinding either way.
- thimkerbell 2y agoWhy is it in SF if attendees are encouraged to limit themselves to YC, home and the gym?
- topicseed 2y agoThe "YC" part.
- red-iron-pine 2y agoVC corporate overlords limit you to minimum gym & home time -- and you need us to explain why?
- hobobaggins 2y agoSF or the bay area? SF itself is kinda not so nice, but when it was south bay/SV, it seems like it could be a lot nicer.
- nkotov 2y agoI went through YC in S20. The number one question I get from those who apply is, "Is it worth it?". For me personally, 100 percent worth it. The application process alone makes you think through questions you probably haven't thought of before. It's worth it if you are building a venture scalable business. It's also worth it for the people that you get to meet. As someone who lives outside of SV, it opened a new door for me that was previously unavailable.
- CamelCaseName 2y agoI feel like I've read this exact comment before on another "Apply to YC!" thread. So I went through and applied for the first time, and honestly, I felt like a lot of the questions were very obvious? Could be because I come from a finance / business background vs. a CS background, but I was shocked that people would consider these questions non-obvious. Hopefully this doesn't come off as arrogant. If it helps, I was rejected from YC, so perhaps I hadn't thought through the questions enough!
- meiraleal 2y agoI think you are right but even being obvious the questions it doesn't mean your answers were good or what they were expecting.
- immibis 2y agoProgrammers like making cool things without regard to profit.
- dartos 2y agoThat’s why programming and business development are different skill sets
- throwaway2037 2y agoThis an interesting reply. I did not read it as arrogant. Can you share what questions you felt were obvious?
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- thecleaner 2y agoI love YC and how generous they are with their knowledge and tools. Never did it and wont be applying but just wanted to say that the Dalton + Michael videos make me calm somehow. Not sure why.
- breck 2y agothe shocking thing is how few (any?) other vcs copied them on this. - startup school - hackernews - safe and other legal docs - + all the content Then there's bookface and the internal software. YC has the greatest business model in the world with (I'm assuming) top returns and seems like it would be so easy for any VC to copy it (write great software and give away useful things to entrepreneurs) and instead, 99% of VCs do Squarespace landing pages instead.
- bbor 2y agoI think the trick is that they're not a VC at all, they're a startup accelerator. Their primary competitors are TechStars, Seedcamp, AngelPad, and Antler. They seem to be putting up a fight, despite 0 name recognition comparitively! https://www.techstars.com/blog https://www.techstars.com/blog https://seedcamp.com/our-network/ https://seedcamp.com/our-network/ https://angelpad.com/#do https://angelpad.com/#do https://www.antler.co/insights https://www.antler.co/insights
- candiddevmike 2y agoThis seems really last minute. 3 weeks to submit your application? Was this thing planned over the weekend? Kind of a shit time to be away from family or school. Lots of stuff happens between September and December.
- samstave 2y agoI think already have a handful of plucky.ai that they're seeking to entangle with. This allows more meat on the table. :-) -- and it makes their pre-selected appear "organic" (ironically in the anti-AI-generated content.) I've been gobsmacked with how many amazing things people are doing. I'm working on mine, but way too far away for this round.
- Eumenes 2y agoDoes YC accept founders that aren't 22-26 years old in the Bay area and went to MIT, Berkeley, or Caltech? I've met quite a few in person and they fit a very specific archetype. Perhaps thats whose applying, but I do wonder.
- aadhavans 2y ago> MIT, Berkeley, or Caltech Don't forget Stanford.
- paxys 2y agoFounder profiles are all public, so you can check for yourself – https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/founders https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/founders Or was this just supposed to be snarky?
- stackskipton 2y agoDidn't know that existed. Looking through there, the answer to the question seems to be, most founders come from Top 20 Universities with heavy weighting towards Top 5.
- ghufran_syed 2y agothanks for the link, i think this is the best possible answer to the question “does yc accept $people_like_me?”. I love how open yc is about stuff like this - I just learned that 3 people from one of my UK universities were yc founders at some point! (southampton university)
- tgma 2y agoI always am curious when someone asks this question from an open forum why wouldn't they simply fill out the form and get a definitive answer? What we know for sure is they don't accept founders that don't fill out the form[1]. [1] with a few exceptions, perhaps.
- ghufran_syed 2y agoBecause that would give you exactly one data point, and for your decision-making, you instead want to understand the distribution
- sebastiennight 2y agoMy cofounder and I are thinking of applying again for www.onetake.ai (B2B AI SaaS, with growing revenue and ~3,000 paid users). With such a surprise short deadline, we're not on the same continent at the moment. Is there any stigma attached to doing the application video remotely on eg. Zoom? I always assumed that being together to record the video was just better.
- rgbrgb 2y agoWe were all remote and cut together separate videos when we did it in W15. 1 data point, but I know it's not a dealbreaker.
- a_t48 2y agoMy cofounder was in Europe when I had to put together a reapplication. No problem with doing the video remotely. I just made a screen recording on Zoom.
- snowmaker 2y agoNo, it's fine.
- downWidOutaFite 2y agoI had been considering applying but got turned off by gary tan's, and the rest of vc-dom's, rude aggressive politics. Luckily my startup is starting to gain traction, hopefully that will make it easier to find investors that don't turn me off.
- euvin 2y agoThis is slightly off topic, but does anyone else think that the accompanying video is AI? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jOYX2pgTZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jOYX2pgTZk When I came across their twitter post about this, I was a bit taken aback. I think it is AI, but I can't tell that easily. I've seen Dalton and Michael videos so the facial expressions and cadence are off, but maybe I'm just seeing things? Anyway, no judgement on the use of AI or anything, just wondering if I'm correct.
- cutiepatootiee 2y agoyeah it kinda does look like it lol
- sushid 2y agoI think it might be just a single take that they used AI to edit. The editing is jarring as is Dalton's hand gestures, but I can't see any AI artifacts as far as I can tell
- kayson 2y ago$1M in credits seems insane to me. Is it just from the number of companies offering credits? Or that compute is marked up so highly? Related - what can you expect in terms of credits if you're not part of YC? Whether going solo/bootstrapping or another incubator?
- levkk 2y agoCredits are given on a case by case basis, and being part of an accelerator or being funded by a well known VC helps the application process.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoCompute is marked up and a lot of those credits are only for AI compute. Also, those same credit deals are offered to most "serious" startups, including those with backing from any VC.
- paulddraper 2y agoCompute is a drug. AWS gives $100k ($400k for AI). GCP gives $200k ($350k for AI). Azure gives $150k. They'll happily give out six figures in exchange for making millions.
- dartos 2y agoVendor lock in is real
- paulddraper 2y agoRight, what are you gonna do? Spend most of a million bucks and a year just to migrate?
- red-iron-pine 2y agoand with egress costs they get to nail you on the way out
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- samstave 2y agoCan we please have an AI::generating YC-application-Emmitter-9000 Parody Box. EDIT: A thing trained on all the YC applications, the posts about success and failure with a success recommender/dark-pattern/gap-areas/ideas-previously-not-possible-till-AI etc would be a really interesting data to query. And have it spit out the recommendations for parody based on all the techno-babble encapsulated. For Fun & Profit.
- chptung 2y agoJust applied with my marketplace nerdcrawler.com (easiest way for artists to auction their art and earn 4x more starting with comic artists). Since launching in January 2024, registered users are growing at 40% MoM; we've generated >$148K in GMV and ~$10K in revenue (>350% CMGR). Applied twice in the past. Got 1 interview and 2 rejections. But, this is the best traction I've ever had so I hope third time's the charm.
- Hermankayy 2y agoInterviewed in 22 and rejected. Ended up joining another accellerator and ended up having the startup acquired. Looking to start something new again in the mobile app/ai space. Love to chat with anyone interested in applying together
- vigneshraj009 2y agoHow do I get in touch with you?
- juanfrank77 2y agoI can be that person. Currently working on a web app on the AI space.
- ahstilde 2y agohttps://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching
- dockerd 2y agoCan you share more details? Linkedin profile?
- undergod 2y agoLottery plus Insider Connections. Maybe 2% actual proper evaluation?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 999900000999 2y agoI feel like YC is a bit like the music biz. They only sign companies which would have a chance without them in the first place. I think I'll just keep working on my side projects. They'll never be billion dollar ideas, and that's ok...
- ghufran_syed 2y agoshouldn’t the relevant metric be whether they increase your chance of success more than the cost (equity) you sell them in return?
- tikkun 2y agoYes, and in comparison to whatever your best alternative would be (i.e. max increase of success odds of giving someone else the same equity and same time commitment).
- immibis 2y agoYes, but that is never the case with venture capital.
- edanm 2y agoYou think this is literally never the case? Raising VC money has never helped a company significantly?
- immibis 2y agoThey might help a lot, but they also take a lot of equity. Let's say you alone might get the company to a 10 million valuation, if you're good. Well, the VCs will help you get it to 100 million, but they'll take 95%.
- edanm 2y agoThose numbers are very inaccurate. But in general, yes - VCs give something and it costs something, like almost everything else in life and certainly in business. It's your job as an entrepreneur to decide if that money is "worth it". Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. In the end, just like borrowing money, it's a tool that you have to decide on as an entrepreneur. It's a big decision, maybe one of the biggest at first, but one of many thousands of decisions you have to make every day.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- icy 2y agoWhat’s the realistic likelihood of getting accepted as a solo founder? My potential cofounder dropped out and I’d really really like to apply for this batch.
- _xnmw 2y agoYC was always the dream for me, and I've applied about 25 times over the last 10 years. My work has been all about startups/side projects since I was about 14 years old. I live and breathe startups. But since then I've learned there are downsides to even applying for YC, let alone actually joining. 1. People will steal some of your good ideas. I interviewed with YC back in 2021 where I discussed some unique marketing strategy that had not yet been done in my space. Very suspiciously, I was rejected, yet some large YC companies working in adjacent spaces immediately started implementing that exact specific idea over the next few months. It's possible that was a coincidence, but the timing was very suspect, especially since I was explicitly told during the interview "you have good ideas, but a large team could do this better". And so I'm pretty sure they stole my ideas and gave them to larger teams on the YC portfolio. Beware! 2. It's just a massive distraction if you can actually go it alone. Sam Altman famously said earlier this year, it's only a matter of time before there is a billion dollar company run by a single person with AI. I used to say that back in 2021 even before ChatGPT was released. For many types of SaaS companies which could effectively just be a single person, there is no need for funding, networking, or anything else except writing code and talking to customers. Everything else is just a distraction. YC advice is free on the internet. Vinod Khosla said many investors bring negative value to the companies they invest it. 3. The Silicon Valley groupthink bubble. I laugh at some of the nonsense that comes out of SV, but it doesn't matter to them because there is so much money sloshing around SV that as long as you can attract money by playing their high school popularity contest, you are validated. No matter if there is no substance to your idea. YC companies should count their actual revenue as not including money that comes from other YC companies because it is suspicious if your “product” only matters to people with VC money to splurge. For me, the ultimate test of a good idea is if people are willing to give you their OWN hard-earned money. 4. I, personally, don't do well under intense competition and social pressure. My best ideas and most productive spurts of my life have been when I don't feel pressure to grow, but I work out of a sense of enjoyment in the craft and wanting to solve people's problems that I care about. I have a feeling that YC is one intense pressure cooker, and I'd most likely die there.
- totalnoob2024 2y agoHello, I am completely new to this and the MFN safe/375k$ are confusing me. What if my company gets accepted into YC but never receives any further funding/investment after that? Do I still get the 375k$ and if so, how many shares do they get for it or is it included in the 7% already? Or do I only get 125k$ initially for 7% and the 375k$ later when there is a next round? I am a noob in the startup world, but this feels like YC could be abused to get "easy money" while in reality the founders never intend to scale the company beyond that / hope for organic growth. Can someone explain, please? Thank you!
- CrimsonCape 2y agoIs it correct to say the purpose of YC is to seed fund as a lead up to an IPO? Or is the purpose of YC to seed fund to create a blossoming privately-owned product? I look at a software company like McNeel or Dassault that outlasts dozens of IPOS... from what I see of YC, I don't get the vibe these are even comparable.
- Barbara230 2y ago[dead]