9 ms·

After reviewing about 30 YC applications, here's some general advice

120 points by SandersAK 13y ago

latifnanji27 13y ago
A special note to those energetic founders: don't go after a small market. That will certainly cut your chances in half or more. I've seen in many times (and for myself). Yes, I A/B tested the 'energetic founder' YC claim myself. Show you want to go after something big. And if you switch after (you most likely will), no problem. You still meet all the big players and accomplish your goal (which will be impossible to uncover).
adam_cl 13y ago
growth before all else. i'll take that.
wellboy 13y ago
It would be interesting if YC ever rejected someone with 10% growth over 8 weeks or what the rejection rate at that growth is, because I think it's quite a strong criterion? (given that it's not a totally unscalable business)
- opendais 13y ago
  Well, let us say you start out with a pool of 10 people. Week 1 - 11 [10%] Week 2 - 13 [>10%] Week 3 - 15 [>10%] Week 4 - 17 [>10%] Week 5 - 20 [>10%] Week 6 - 23 [>10%] Week 7 - 26 [>10%] Week 8 - 29 [>10%] Would a growth rate of 2-3 paying accounts at a SaaS price point of $10/month really affect a decision? Sure, if your MRR grew by 10% and your starting base was $10,000 I could see a reasonable extrapolation from that. But if your starting base is 10 accounts @ $10/month [$100 MRR], you might die out once you realize your niche is only 1000 accounts deep. So I'd say 'growth' is probably the equivalent of a +1, criteria met, rather than an overpowering criterion that is weighted higher than any other. That is just my guess tho.
  - dfabulich 13y ago
    This is actually a totally legit target for investment on Demo Day. If your product costs $30+/user/month, dozens of users could mean that you're ramen profitable at the end of two months, a major milestone. If you can sustain that 10% growth for two months of YC, you'll have enough money to hire an employee by bootstrapping alone, which means that you're able to turn down investors, which makes you more valuable. You shouldn't ask for (and shouldn't take) millions of dollars in investment at that point, but you're certainly lined up for hundreds of thousands of dollars; keep up that 10% growth rate a few more months and you will be ready for VC.
param 13y ago
I am currently working on a side project that requires contracts with content producers - think HBO. My goal is to have a technical prototype and apply for YC in W15. The main thing I need from YC is connections to be able to get those contracts. I cannot get users until I have contracts. How do I show growth in my application?
- SandersAK 13y ago
  Sounds cool! But the reality is that with or without YC, you're going to need to learn how to close some of those contracts on your own. Of course having connections is super helpful, but you're much more likely to get those introductions if you can show that you get things done without them. So my advice would be to work on closing smaller contracts / deals and show that you are capable of running those processes first (and you also show growth!). Then it's a lot easier to recommend you and pass you along to people in a network.
- ig1 13y ago
  It may make sense for you to look at the Disney/techstars accelerator as it might be more closely aligned to the kind of connections you'll need.
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  This is the whole point of domain expertise that so many people ignore. Domain expertise is not just about knowledge; it's about the relationships you develop by actually spending time in an industry. Thousands of people work at HBO. Tens of thousands of people work at Time Warner, which owns HBO. And tens of thousands more work in the broadcast media ecosystem. If you're really passionate about doing something in this industry, why not work in it for a few years? Not only are you bound to meet the people who can help you, or who know the people who can help you, if you're strategic, you can put yourself in the position to come to the table with a modicum of industry cred, something that run-of-the-mill introduction-seekers almost always lack.
- yaur 13y ago
  I've had some experience doing IPTV stuff both with incumbent MVPDs and as part of an OTT play. I'll warn you, in case you don't know, that these kinds of deals take a LONG time (think 2-4 years) and if you are looking for content rights expect significant upfront cash payments if you can even get them. HBO for instance is/was part of a conglomerate that also owned a cable company and like everyone else in the space is very sensitive about anything that will increase risk (even marginally) for their multi-billion dollar cable deals. I'm not trying to discourage you, just pointing out that there are huge obstacles in the space that have nothing to do with technology.
pg 13y ago
While growth is the most important thing in a startup, it's unreasonable to expect it at the point when companies are applying to YC, so it is not the main thing the partners look for. Neither Dropbox nor Airbnb nor Stripe nor Optimizely had any growth when they applied to YC. When I was reading applications (odd yet delightful to use the past tense) the main thing I looked for was energetic founders working on an idea that grew organically out of their own experience. E.g. Optimizely consisted of the guy in charge of a/b testing for Obama's first presidential campaign, starting a company to turn the insights he'd gained into a product. That said, startups should certainly seek growth, because that's how you evaluate and refine an idea. When you try to get people to use something you've built, and especially to pay for it, you learn quickly what's wrong with it. The only misleading thing about Adrian's advice is the implication that you need growth to get funded by YC. That is definitely not true. A quick random sample of the current batch (the first 10 in alphabetical order) shows only half had any growth when they were accepted.
- SandersAK 13y ago
  Yeah, I didn't mean to assert that growth will guarantee YC funding, but that growth is the one of the best ways to keep you on track as you explore your idea and prototype. At least for us, it saved us a lot of discussion when we could say "is this particular feature helping us grow?" and if the answer as no, we would move on. But I do think, even at the earliest stages, it isn't hard to gauge interest by showing demand. Sign up pages are simple enough to do.
  - mck- 13y ago
    Great article; maintaining focus on growth is good general startup advice. However, I think it breaks down for startups in the Enterprise realm (not talking about the B2B startups that provide commodity services). Firstly, getting traction by number of users is much harder. But every customer you sign on implies huge growth for your company in terms of revenue. Take Palantir for example; afaik, their initial massive growth came from a single, but huge, government contract. Secondly, growth will never be a smooth 10%/week type of curve -- more like an irregular staircase; but taken over the long-term (years), it might get you higher. So taking a granular snapshot of the early beginnings might show no growth at all. Thirdly, there won't be many early signups. Simply because the volume is much lower. Having said that, zooming out on the macro scale (years), your advice still holds (growth > everything) -- but it doesn't apply to the YC application process :)
devinmontgomery 13y ago
Starting a startup is like going to war with hundreds of millions of people except instead of attacking you, they just do not give a shit about what you're doing and ignore you all the time. This is really important. When I first started a business, criticism stung. Now I love it. It means someone knows you exist, and it's worth their time to tell you what you're doing wrong.
- danvoell 13y ago
  I liked that line too. The worst place to be is in the nobody gives a shit category. I would rather people attack what I am doing than just not give a shit because at least than I have something to work with.
blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
Shoot yourself...just shoot yourself. Never use the word 'disrupt'. You aren't disrupting anything but people's reading pleasure. While you are at it...Shoot yourself.
codeddesign 13y ago
So...should I mention growth in my application? ;)
xiaoma 13y ago
>The goal of your startup is not to get into YC One of my friends who did YC said something that stuck in my mind: "Getting into YC is like getting into Stanford. For 70% of people it's their zenith. Sure the other 30% go on to do amazing things, but for most people just getting in is the most impressive thing they ever do." I found the perspective extremely motivating and it doesn't surprise me at all that he and his company have continued to do well.
- jtfrench 13y ago
  So true. It's fairly common for people to spend most of their lives expecting others to give them value. "If I get into Stanford/YC, then I'll be successful" It's weird people don't think about the other way around: • Strive for success — period — and then Stanford/YC will want YOU. At the end of the day it's about creating value. It's not made out of thin air. It's not made from a diploma. It's not made from an acceptance letter. It's made by You. (hopefully)
  - hpriebe 13y ago
    > It's not made out of thin air. It's not made from a diploma. It's not made from an acceptance letter. It's made by You. You couldn't have said it better. Nothing motivates me more than realizing that if I don't do something I care about myself, it won't happen.
  - ufmace 13y ago
    This lines up so well with what I've been thinking. If your goal is to get into YC or some other VC thingy or get some high-level contacts or something of that nature, then you are probably thinking all wrong. Start by building something and getting some customers, then find out what else they want. If you can't get any customers at the un-funded scale, then funding isn't likely to help you much. I bet every investor out there would much rather fund the guy who says "I built this website with this basic feature set, got a few dozen customers and X revenue. My customers want these totally doable features. If you give me $Y, then I can hire more engineers or whatever to build them." than the guy who says "I have a really cool idea that I haven't done anything at all with yet. Give me $Millions and I'll do something awesome". If your goal is to get funded, you're much more likely to get ignored. If your goal is to build something awesome with whatever is at hand, then the investors just might come to you.
bvanvugt 13y ago
This is awesome Adrian - I wish this existed six months ago. I've been asked this many times lately, and I think it's important enough to add it here as well: The best way to prepare for the YC application process is to actually work on your company. You learn so much about your customers and product space by actually building something and talking to customers about it. By doing that, thinking critically about the results, and iterating, you'll find the YC application and interview questions get easier to answer - because you'll know more about what you're doing and why than anyone else.
- malanj 13y ago
  I found that to be true applying to YC for the first time now. We spent an hour or two doing a first version of the application. After that we spent 95% of our time talking to potential customers and building things. We just refined our application every few days. The questions get a lot easier to answer, and you're not wasting time trying to hack answers.
- hornbaker 13y ago
  pg approves of this comment: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/449251994566275072 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/449251994566275072
btrautsc 13y ago
I've talked to a few potential applicants this week and something that perturbs me in particular is that YC will somehow "make everything work". In startups things rarely work (at least initially). YC should be regarded as fuel to the mythical fire... whether that fire is your passion, an initial sloping growth curve, or a crazy new technology you just created in your attic. Partners, the schedule, constant accountability will all provide structure and tremendous value to accelerate your progress - but the mythical fire must already be a spark.
rachellaw 13y ago
Some things just require a lot of time to grow, either because it's a new problem or a new technology. We were lucky because both of us (founders) had a headstart in academia, which funded our research for 2 years. We could chart prototype pools of 20,000+ people and test out things like scalable mesh wifi networks and user-persona switching because of that academia safety net. Maybe it's more truthful to say - "having a growth vertical and being able to articulate it concisely is the most important." Things will change. Your strategy will change, your product will adjust itself based on testing, listening, more testing, listening. Getting that market fit, and knowing your market ensures that you're growing in the direction that you actually want to grow in. I'm a current applicant though, so maybe I'm wrong. Regardless, we did our best in the application and that's all we can do. Now -- back to working on the company! (it takes them a while to get back to you anyway, no point waiting anxiously) PS. good luck to everyone else who applied
dfabulich 13y ago
> because growth is nearly the only thing that really matters, if you can't get growth, then you should probably hang up your boots and retire from founder life. Lifestyle businesses are not failures. If you're making enough money to live on from your business, and you're happy, then keep doing it, even if your business isn't growing.
- jtfrench 13y ago
  • Does YC fund "lifestyle businesses"? • Even a lifestyle business needs growth — just enough to support the owner's lifestyle — but growth nonetheless (unless one customer is all you ever need)
  - dfabulich 13y ago
    YC doesn't fund lifestyle businesess (on purpose). Lifestyle businesses don't need growth; they need profits. If your revenue/profit are consistent, and they're high enough, you don't have to grow.
the_watcher 13y ago
Growth > everything is something that just came up in a conversation I had with a VC-backed startup. My employer is bootstrapped, and I have both EBITDA and YoY growth goals. The startup told me that they essentially ignore acquisition cost. It made me incredibly jealous, since I've been driving growth with positive EBITDA for two years, and I am salivating over what I could do with a good product and no EBITDA constraints.
- the_watcher 13y ago
  Just want to clarify this - I'm speaking solely as someone who was given aggressive growth and profitability targets that pretty clearly were so aggressive that it was highly unlikely we could hit both. The envy I felt was primarily about early stage startups being able to focus primarily on growth (and covering as much of their burn as possible), rather than outright profitability. I don't think companies should ignore profit, especially not as they grow larger. But having a clear primary goal sounds pretty great.
anupshinde 13y ago
Can somebody help me - how do you show/project "growth" before actually creating the product? (a SaaS app)
- akharris 13y ago
  You can't really have growth without a product, but like PG said in the top comment, that's not a reason not to apply to YC. You can probably still assess demand - hopefully because you yourself want what you are building. That's also helpful for us to say, though again not make or break. Growth and potential market are things we'll look at, but we're careful about making sure neither unduly influences us. The most important things are the founders and their relationships to one another. We want great founders with great ideas and the tenacity and ability to go after them.
- Permit 13y ago
  Adrian reviewed our application at a time when we had absolutely zero evidence of traction or growth. Our product was (and still is) unfinished and certainly not at the stage where we could run beta tests. To combat this, we presented a concept video on our website[1] and accepted emails for signups. By carefully explaining the idea and finding people who might be interested in it, we've managed to collect over 600 emails in the past few weeks. I'd recommend a similar approach, reach out to people and communities who might be interested in your product. If they're unwilling to give you their email, it might indicate they're even less willing to give you their money. Once we flushed the idea out a little bit more, we updated the video[2] with actual footage. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbezr3yDJtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbezr3yDJtQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQ8NJOypqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQ8NJOypqs
joewee 13y ago
I applied, with growth. Funny enough this is truly the first time I've gone asking for money when I didn't need it. YC has a lot of benefits, but I feel like it would be a amplifier to our existing success and a community of mentors and entrepreneurs to help us stay focused on what it takes to sustain growth... Growth is very gratifying. It still surprises me when people like the things I build.
mrmch 13y ago
Startups are difficult; conviction and passion for what you're doing is imperative.
enscr 13y ago
All good except : > if you can't get growth, then you should probably hang up your boots and retire from founder life Don't let anybody tell you when to retire.

120 points by SandersAK 13y ago

A special note to those energetic founders: don't go after a small market. That will certainly cut your chances in half or more. I've seen in many times (and for myself). Yes, I A/B tested the 'energetic founder' YC claim myself. Show you want to go after something big. And if you switch after (you most likely will), no problem. You still meet all the big players and accomplish your goal (which will be impossible to uncover).

adam_cl 13y ago

growth before all else. i'll take that.

wellboy 13y ago

It would be interesting if YC ever rejected someone with 10% growth over 8 weeks or what the rejection rate at that growth is, because I think it's quite a strong criterion? (given that it's not a totally unscalable business)

opendais 13y ago
Well, let us say you start out with a pool of 10 people. Week 1 - 11 [10%] Week 2 - 13 [>10%] Week 3 - 15 [>10%] Week 4 - 17 [>10%] Week 5 - 20 [>10%] Week 6 - 23 [>10%] Week 7 - 26 [>10%] Week 8 - 29 [>10%] Would a growth rate of 2-3 paying accounts at a SaaS price point of $10/month really affect a decision? Sure, if your MRR grew by 10% and your starting base was $10,000 I could see a reasonable extrapolation from that. But if your starting base is 10 accounts @ $10/month [$100 MRR], you might die out once you realize your niche is only 1000 accounts deep. So I'd say 'growth' is probably the equivalent of a +1, criteria met, rather than an overpowering criterion that is weighted higher than any other. That is just my guess tho.
- dfabulich 13y ago
  This is actually a totally legit target for investment on Demo Day. If your product costs $30+/user/month, dozens of users could mean that you're ramen profitable at the end of two months, a major milestone. If you can sustain that 10% growth for two months of YC, you'll have enough money to hire an employee by bootstrapping alone, which means that you're able to turn down investors, which makes you more valuable. You shouldn't ask for (and shouldn't take) millions of dollars in investment at that point, but you're certainly lined up for hundreds of thousands of dollars; keep up that 10% growth rate a few more months and you will be ready for VC.

param 13y ago

I am currently working on a side project that requires contracts with content producers - think HBO. My goal is to have a technical prototype and apply for YC in W15. The main thing I need from YC is connections to be able to get those contracts. I cannot get users until I have contracts. How do I show growth in my application?

SandersAK 13y ago
Sounds cool! But the reality is that with or without YC, you're going to need to learn how to close some of those contracts on your own. Of course having connections is super helpful, but you're much more likely to get those introductions if you can show that you get things done without them. So my advice would be to work on closing smaller contracts / deals and show that you are capable of running those processes first (and you also show growth!). Then it's a lot easier to recommend you and pass you along to people in a network.
ig1 13y ago
It may make sense for you to look at the Disney/techstars accelerator as it might be more closely aligned to the kind of connections you'll need.
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
This is the whole point of domain expertise that so many people ignore. Domain expertise is not just about knowledge; it's about the relationships you develop by actually spending time in an industry. Thousands of people work at HBO. Tens of thousands of people work at Time Warner, which owns HBO. And tens of thousands more work in the broadcast media ecosystem. If you're really passionate about doing something in this industry, why not work in it for a few years? Not only are you bound to meet the people who can help you, or who know the people who can help you, if you're strategic, you can put yourself in the position to come to the table with a modicum of industry cred, something that run-of-the-mill introduction-seekers almost always lack.
yaur 13y ago
I've had some experience doing IPTV stuff both with incumbent MVPDs and as part of an OTT play. I'll warn you, in case you don't know, that these kinds of deals take a LONG time (think 2-4 years) and if you are looking for content rights expect significant upfront cash payments if you can even get them. HBO for instance is/was part of a conglomerate that also owned a cable company and like everyone else in the space is very sensitive about anything that will increase risk (even marginally) for their multi-billion dollar cable deals. I'm not trying to discourage you, just pointing out that there are huge obstacles in the space that have nothing to do with technology.

pg 13y ago

While growth is the most important thing in a startup, it's unreasonable to expect it at the point when companies are applying to YC, so it is not the main thing the partners look for. Neither Dropbox nor Airbnb nor Stripe nor Optimizely had any growth when they applied to YC. When I was reading applications (odd yet delightful to use the past tense) the main thing I looked for was energetic founders working on an idea that grew organically out of their own experience. E.g. Optimizely consisted of the guy in charge of a/b testing for Obama's first presidential campaign, starting a company to turn the insights he'd gained into a product. That said, startups should certainly seek growth, because that's how you evaluate and refine an idea. When you try to get people to use something you've built, and especially to pay for it, you learn quickly what's wrong with it. The only misleading thing about Adrian's advice is the implication that you need growth to get funded by YC. That is definitely not true. A quick random sample of the current batch (the first 10 in alphabetical order) shows only half had any growth when they were accepted.

SandersAK 13y ago
Yeah, I didn't mean to assert that growth will guarantee YC funding, but that growth is the one of the best ways to keep you on track as you explore your idea and prototype. At least for us, it saved us a lot of discussion when we could say "is this particular feature helping us grow?" and if the answer as no, we would move on. But I do think, even at the earliest stages, it isn't hard to gauge interest by showing demand. Sign up pages are simple enough to do.
- mck- 13y ago
  Great article; maintaining focus on growth is good general startup advice. However, I think it breaks down for startups in the Enterprise realm (not talking about the B2B startups that provide commodity services). Firstly, getting traction by number of users is much harder. But every customer you sign on implies huge growth for your company in terms of revenue. Take Palantir for example; afaik, their initial massive growth came from a single, but huge, government contract. Secondly, growth will never be a smooth 10%/week type of curve -- more like an irregular staircase; but taken over the long-term (years), it might get you higher. So taking a granular snapshot of the early beginnings might show no growth at all. Thirdly, there won't be many early signups. Simply because the volume is much lower. Having said that, zooming out on the macro scale (years), your advice still holds (growth > everything) -- but it doesn't apply to the YC application process :)

devinmontgomery 13y ago

Starting a startup is like going to war with hundreds of millions of people except instead of attacking you, they just do not give a shit about what you're doing and ignore you all the time. This is really important. When I first started a business, criticism stung. Now I love it. It means someone knows you exist, and it's worth their time to tell you what you're doing wrong.

danvoell 13y ago
I liked that line too. The worst place to be is in the nobody gives a shit category. I would rather people attack what I am doing than just not give a shit because at least than I have something to work with.

blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago

Shoot yourself...just shoot yourself. Never use the word 'disrupt'. You aren't disrupting anything but people's reading pleasure. While you are at it...Shoot yourself.

codeddesign 13y ago

So...should I mention growth in my application? ;)

xiaoma 13y ago

>The goal of your startup is not to get into YC One of my friends who did YC said something that stuck in my mind: "Getting into YC is like getting into Stanford. For 70% of people it's their zenith. Sure the other 30% go on to do amazing things, but for most people just getting in is the most impressive thing they ever do." I found the perspective extremely motivating and it doesn't surprise me at all that he and his company have continued to do well.

jtfrench 13y ago
So true. It's fairly common for people to spend most of their lives expecting others to give them value. "If I get into Stanford/YC, then I'll be successful" It's weird people don't think about the other way around: • Strive for success — period — and then Stanford/YC will want YOU. At the end of the day it's about creating value. It's not made out of thin air. It's not made from a diploma. It's not made from an acceptance letter. It's made by You. (hopefully)
- hpriebe 13y ago
  > It's not made out of thin air. It's not made from a diploma. It's not made from an acceptance letter. It's made by You. You couldn't have said it better. Nothing motivates me more than realizing that if I don't do something I care about myself, it won't happen.
- ufmace 13y ago
  This lines up so well with what I've been thinking. If your goal is to get into YC or some other VC thingy or get some high-level contacts or something of that nature, then you are probably thinking all wrong. Start by building something and getting some customers, then find out what else they want. If you can't get any customers at the un-funded scale, then funding isn't likely to help you much. I bet every investor out there would much rather fund the guy who says "I built this website with this basic feature set, got a few dozen customers and X revenue. My customers want these totally doable features. If you give me $Y, then I can hire more engineers or whatever to build them." than the guy who says "I have a really cool idea that I haven't done anything at all with yet. Give me $Millions and I'll do something awesome". If your goal is to get funded, you're much more likely to get ignored. If your goal is to build something awesome with whatever is at hand, then the investors just might come to you.

bvanvugt 13y ago

This is awesome Adrian - I wish this existed six months ago. I've been asked this many times lately, and I think it's important enough to add it here as well: The best way to prepare for the YC application process is to actually work on your company. You learn so much about your customers and product space by actually building something and talking to customers about it. By doing that, thinking critically about the results, and iterating, you'll find the YC application and interview questions get easier to answer - because you'll know more about what you're doing and why than anyone else.

malanj 13y ago
I found that to be true applying to YC for the first time now. We spent an hour or two doing a first version of the application. After that we spent 95% of our time talking to potential customers and building things. We just refined our application every few days. The questions get a lot easier to answer, and you're not wasting time trying to hack answers.
hornbaker 13y ago
pg approves of this comment: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/449251994566275072 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/449251994566275072

btrautsc 13y ago

I've talked to a few potential applicants this week and something that perturbs me in particular is that YC will somehow "make everything work". In startups things rarely work (at least initially). YC should be regarded as fuel to the mythical fire... whether that fire is your passion, an initial sloping growth curve, or a crazy new technology you just created in your attic. Partners, the schedule, constant accountability will all provide structure and tremendous value to accelerate your progress - but the mythical fire must already be a spark.

rachellaw 13y ago

Some things just require a lot of time to grow, either because it's a new problem or a new technology. We were lucky because both of us (founders) had a headstart in academia, which funded our research for 2 years. We could chart prototype pools of 20,000+ people and test out things like scalable mesh wifi networks and user-persona switching because of that academia safety net. Maybe it's more truthful to say - "having a growth vertical and being able to articulate it concisely is the most important." Things will change. Your strategy will change, your product will adjust itself based on testing, listening, more testing, listening. Getting that market fit, and knowing your market ensures that you're growing in the direction that you actually want to grow in. I'm a current applicant though, so maybe I'm wrong. Regardless, we did our best in the application and that's all we can do. Now -- back to working on the company! (it takes them a while to get back to you anyway, no point waiting anxiously) PS. good luck to everyone else who applied

dfabulich 13y ago

> because growth is nearly the only thing that really matters, if you can't get growth, then you should probably hang up your boots and retire from founder life. Lifestyle businesses are not failures. If you're making enough money to live on from your business, and you're happy, then keep doing it, even if your business isn't growing.

jtfrench 13y ago
• Does YC fund "lifestyle businesses"? • Even a lifestyle business needs growth — just enough to support the owner's lifestyle — but growth nonetheless (unless one customer is all you ever need)
- dfabulich 13y ago
  YC doesn't fund lifestyle businesess (on purpose). Lifestyle businesses don't need growth; they need profits. If your revenue/profit are consistent, and they're high enough, you don't have to grow.

the_watcher 13y ago

Growth > everything is something that just came up in a conversation I had with a VC-backed startup. My employer is bootstrapped, and I have both EBITDA and YoY growth goals. The startup told me that they essentially ignore acquisition cost. It made me incredibly jealous, since I've been driving growth with positive EBITDA for two years, and I am salivating over what I could do with a good product and no EBITDA constraints.

the_watcher 13y ago
Just want to clarify this - I'm speaking solely as someone who was given aggressive growth and profitability targets that pretty clearly were so aggressive that it was highly unlikely we could hit both. The envy I felt was primarily about early stage startups being able to focus primarily on growth (and covering as much of their burn as possible), rather than outright profitability. I don't think companies should ignore profit, especially not as they grow larger. But having a clear primary goal sounds pretty great.

anupshinde 13y ago

Can somebody help me - how do you show/project "growth" before actually creating the product? (a SaaS app)

akharris 13y ago
You can't really have growth without a product, but like PG said in the top comment, that's not a reason not to apply to YC. You can probably still assess demand - hopefully because you yourself want what you are building. That's also helpful for us to say, though again not make or break. Growth and potential market are things we'll look at, but we're careful about making sure neither unduly influences us. The most important things are the founders and their relationships to one another. We want great founders with great ideas and the tenacity and ability to go after them.
Permit 13y ago
Adrian reviewed our application at a time when we had absolutely zero evidence of traction or growth. Our product was (and still is) unfinished and certainly not at the stage where we could run beta tests. To combat this, we presented a concept video on our website[1] and accepted emails for signups. By carefully explaining the idea and finding people who might be interested in it, we've managed to collect over 600 emails in the past few weeks. I'd recommend a similar approach, reach out to people and communities who might be interested in your product. If they're unwilling to give you their email, it might indicate they're even less willing to give you their money. Once we flushed the idea out a little bit more, we updated the video[2] with actual footage. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbezr3yDJtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbezr3yDJtQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQ8NJOypqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQ8NJOypqs

joewee 13y ago

I applied, with growth. Funny enough this is truly the first time I've gone asking for money when I didn't need it. YC has a lot of benefits, but I feel like it would be a amplifier to our existing success and a community of mentors and entrepreneurs to help us stay focused on what it takes to sustain growth... Growth is very gratifying. It still surprises me when people like the things I build.

mrmch 13y ago

Startups are difficult; conviction and passion for what you're doing is imperative.

enscr 13y ago

All good except : > if you can't get growth, then you should probably hang up your boots and retire from founder life Don't let anybody tell you when to retire.