7 ms·

Three months at Y Combinator: what it’s like and how to get in

102 points by l_perrin 12y ago

rokhayakebe 12y ago
What is the value of being part of YC's network? Perhaps it matters if your product/startup is struggling. You can cold email any YC founder, I think they would be just as likely to help you (work with you) than a fellow YC founder.
- notastartup 12y ago
  I'm curious about this as well. Currently bootstrapping in my bedroom. Seems like you do the same thing in YC as well but with more people and networking in process but can a network save and solve all of your problems? I think not...what it boils down to is just grinding and hustling like with any small business (and not end up like Washington Redskins from South Park)...maybe the network is important when you need to find the right people for your team or build partnerships or get an interview with Peter Thiel.
  - smeyer 12y ago
    >can a network save and solve all your problems? Of course not. Nobody here is suggesting that this would solve all of your problems, just that it would be helpful.
- l_perrin 12y ago
  Being a YC alumni gives you access to an incredible community. We are humbled by the amount of help we've already received. That being said, it does not mean that who can cold email anyone from YC and expect an answer. As always, you have to mind your manners :)
- opendais 12y ago
  1) A VC network of known quantities on the quality of the VCs is pretty helpful. These are people you are putting alot of faith in and vice versa. I'd say that is not something to be underestimated. 2) The Alumni network for successful YC companies is probably harder to tap into from the outside than you are thinking. You'd have a hard time getting a meeting with a founder of Stripe than, say, someone from the '14 summer class.
- swampthing 12y ago
  I disagree on both counts... I think YC's value gets greater the better you're doing, simply because you're in a better position to take advantage of opportunities. And YC founders are just like anyone else - the more closely connected you are, the more likely you are to help.
- rokhayakebe 12y ago
  I've cold emailed many YC founders and granted I did not sell to any of them, the response rate was quite high and several looked into it. Some took the call. I just think if you have a good value proposition, and you are mindful of people's time, they will work with you regardless.
minimaxir 12y ago
> As a startup of the batch, you get high visibility thanks to Demo Day and to your own TechCrunch launch. Thanks to that, we were able to get more than 300 signups in our first couple weeks (see exactly how we did it here). This seems contradictory. 300 signups over a couple of weeks does not imply "high visibility." Your TechCrunch article (http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/18/front-is-a-shared-inbox-app-that-makes-email-suck-lessfront-is-a-shared-inbox-app-to-make-email-suck-less/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/18/front-is-a-shared-inbox-app...) only received about 229 shares and 154 Tweets (with most of the comments being from existing users and not prospective users), which makes Front seem more of a counterexample of TechCrunch visibility instead.
- l_perrin 12y ago
  We blogged about our launch: http://blog.frontapp.com/hacker-news-techcrunch-and-product-hunt-which-is-most-effective-to-launch-your-product-2/ http://blog.frontapp.com/hacker-news-techcrunch-and-product-... Following our TC launch, we were featured in other channels, which gave us more signups. 300 might not seem like a lot, but these figures are very conservative and we only counted users that really tried the app.
  - timjahn 12y ago
    "we only counted users that really tried the app" ...which are the only ones that matter, no? So if only 300 "really" tried the app and 2,201,302 signed up, you obviously only care about the 300 if that's the number you're mentioning. Why try to sound mightier saying "these figures are very conservative" and "we only counted users that really tried the app"?
    - hobonumber1 12y ago
      No need to sound condescending.
    - jleader 12y ago
      Probably because they expect to get compared against other startups who are trumpeting "millions downloaded our app!" like it means something. Saying "these figures are very conservative" and specifying exactly what they're counting is a preemptive answer to people asking "how come you only got 300 when Startup X got 3,000,000 after the same amount of time?"
akbar501 12y ago
Nice article. IMO, two of the key points are: 1. But you still need to figure out things by yourself: YC will never tell you what people want 2. If there is one thing that is true about YC partners, it’s that you can’t expect them to do the work for you.
- ahsanup 12y ago
  These two should be true for an incubator/accelerator or group of advisors/mentors/investors. At the end of the day, the founders build the company, not anyone else. "Outsiders" (those who don't actually work in the company) should offer guidance and frameworks, but never a definitive solution to the problem you're having, that's for the founders to figure out and decide for themselves.
nlh 12y ago
> If relationships are easy to maintain when everything is going well, it’s a whole different story when the pressure is on. This isn't YC-specific, but I want to highlight this piece of advice because it's extremely important. This is one of the most important things I've learned through my years of starting/running small businesses. I'm particularly susceptible to falling in this trap because I suffer from typical founder syndrome of "perpetual optimism". (Good for certain things, bad for others.) It's also an easy trap to fall into as a new founder, because you just don't yet have the history to see both the ups and downs. But I can't emphasize it enough: People who are wonderful when things are wonderful can become bitterly awful when things turn around. Finding partners (both teammates and investors) who you can sail both the rough and calm waters with is absolutely essential to the survival of your business. How to figure this out? There's no secret, but it's a mix of intuition and asking the right questions. Speak to references and ask specifically: "How was he/she when things were good? How about when things got tough?"
- ahsanup 12y ago
  "Finding partners (both teammates and investors) who you can sail both the rough and calm waters with is absolutely essential to the survival of your business." Can't agree with this statement enough (the teammates part, at least). From personal experience, I can say that the work environment becomes toxic when early team members start losing passion for the product, especially co-founders. People start questioning each other's commitment, work slows down, and bickering ensues. As another piece of advice, it's really important to look for individuals who are great communicators. People who say it how it is, and share their feelings w/o hesitation. The last thing you want is a co-worker sharing some important piece of information (ex. they haven't been motivated for weeks) out of the blue.
frandroid 12y ago
Two pop-ups on that page (one at the start, one at the end) is way too aggressive. Cut me some slack, will ya? I especially hate the "Subscribe to our mailing list before you've even read content on our page!" load-time pop-up that everyone's featuring nowadays. If there was a browser plugin to wipe them all, I would pay money for it.
- benologist 12y ago
  You can't hold advertising to the same standards as regular content, and this is just advertising.
- computerjunkie 12y ago
  Its an ugly trend and an invasive one. The fact that you need to reassure me that your content is good makes me question if your all you just want is my email and become unnecessary email notifications. Its needy, demanding and somewhat attention seeking. Usually websites that insist with these subscription popups have mediocre to poor content. If your work is good enough, people will subscribe because they like it. Don't force it.
  - graeme 12y ago
    For anyone running a business: Do not listen to these complaints. These commentors are not your target market. I use an email popup. It's greatly increased email list signups. No one's comaplained, time on page did not decline. Nothing bad happened. You should always test a chance like this, but net-savvy hackers are a poor representation of most demographics.
    - adbge 12y ago
      +1. I've been experimenting aggressively with different techniques for email capture (e.g. [1]) and, looking at my analytics, the exit-intent popup accounts for 47.27% of all emails. [1]: http://rs.io/behavior-modification-techniques-if-then-rules/ http://rs.io/behavior-modification-techniques-if-then-rules/
merrua 12y ago
I'm not sure who are the users for their product. Small companies? Or are they trying to compete with Salesforce and Google?
- graeme 12y ago
  I'm a potential use. I run a solo bootstrapped company. I outsource many things. Have been wanting to outsource email for a while. It's been hard to find a solution that allows me to manage my personal and work email, and the different types of both. Seeing the demo made me think "I need this!". I had been looking around at helpdesk solutions, but all seemed to cumbersome for my use case.
thrush 12y ago
I love these articles, but what I'd really like to see is a much more detailed account of the founders' entire lives up until they got in to YC. How did they meet. When did they hear about YC for the first time. When did they become interested in technology. What did they eat for breakfast the day of their interview. The real nitty gritty. And ideally this would be a special on Vice of course. :)
findjashua 12y ago
Adguard has blocked access to this page This web page at blog.frontapp.com, has been reported as a phishing page and has been blocked based on your security preferences. Adguard has found that this page may be a forgery or imitation of another website, designed to trick users into sharing personal or financial information. Entering any personal information on this page may result in identity theft or other abuse.
staunch 12y ago
That actually felt like linkbait content marketing.
ryanSrich 12y ago
> It helps you answer the only question that matters: is your product something people want? I've probably read that sentence at least 1000 times in a number of different books and articles. Having gone through a lean startup accelerator a few years ago when they were en vogue we focused on this aspect more than anything else. The thing I never hear is how people actually figured that out. Cold calling, cold emailing, going to meetups, getting intros, pitching ideas and gathering feedback is never discussed. I want to hear _how_ you found a product market fit. It's obvious that you need to do this. As an example. A startup that I co-founded my sophomore year in college was accepted into a school run summer business accelerator. They emphasized talking with customers/users more than anything else. The problem was we didn't really know any of our potential customers or users (grade school teachers/public schools). So we had to essentially cold call schools, find teachers/admins emails online, and fish around our personal network for intros. To say it didn't go well is an understatement. Our success rate, of even a phone call, was nearly 1% (roughly one answer per 100 or so emails/calls). We eventually locked down a core group of users simply by contacting so many people. Aside from other bureaucratic factors in the public schooling system we failed simply because we couldn't establish a growing user base. So, if anyone wants to tell their story with nitty gitty details of not only how they found and retained their users but how they found what they wanted would be greatly appreciated.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- graeme 12y ago
  >So we had to essentially cold call schools, find teachers/admins emails online, and fish around our personal network for intros. To say it didn't go well is an understatement. Our success rate, of even a phone call, was nearly 1% (roughly one answer per 100 or so emails/calls). We eventually locked down a core group of users simply by contacting so many people. Aside from other bureaucratic factors in the public schooling system we failed simply because we couldn't establish a growing user base. I've found that walking into the school gets much better results. I work in test prep. There's no magic bullet for learning about clients, and it depends on the niche. In my case (LSAT prep) I learned about LSAT students because I had been an LSAT tutor. In fact, I still do a bit of tutoring just to stay in touch with what students are going through. Other niches would require completely different approaches. Steps: 1. Identify target client 2. Find out where they congregate, how they communicate 3. Use *that* approach. 4. Once you find some, ask for referrals. I found targeted cold calls worked pretty well. Targeted in the sense that a meaningful % of whoever I was targeting would say "woah, I gotta get me some of that", even if they had not previously heard of me. The way you get that reaction is by knowing the needs of the prospect, putting yourself into their shoes.
rl3 12y ago
>If you don’t get accepted after the interview, you will get the reason why and you’ll then be able to improve your product. This part is a bit ambiguous. Do the YC partners actually tell applicants who have made it to the interview stage why they were rejected?
- TheMakeA 12y ago
  Yes. At the end of the day one of the partners you met will write a few sentences about why you weren't accepted via email.

102 points by l_perrin 12y ago

What is the value of being part of YC's network? Perhaps it matters if your product/startup is struggling. You can cold email any YC founder, I think they would be just as likely to help you (work with you) than a fellow YC founder.

notastartup 12y ago
I'm curious about this as well. Currently bootstrapping in my bedroom. Seems like you do the same thing in YC as well but with more people and networking in process but can a network save and solve all of your problems? I think not...what it boils down to is just grinding and hustling like with any small business (and not end up like Washington Redskins from South Park)...maybe the network is important when you need to find the right people for your team or build partnerships or get an interview with Peter Thiel.
- smeyer 12y ago
  >can a network save and solve all your problems? Of course not. Nobody here is suggesting that this would solve all of your problems, just that it would be helpful.
l_perrin 12y ago
Being a YC alumni gives you access to an incredible community. We are humbled by the amount of help we've already received. That being said, it does not mean that who can cold email anyone from YC and expect an answer. As always, you have to mind your manners :)
opendais 12y ago
1) A VC network of known quantities on the quality of the VCs is pretty helpful. These are people you are putting alot of faith in and vice versa. I'd say that is not something to be underestimated. 2) The Alumni network for successful YC companies is probably harder to tap into from the outside than you are thinking. You'd have a hard time getting a meeting with a founder of Stripe than, say, someone from the '14 summer class.
swampthing 12y ago
I disagree on both counts... I think YC's value gets greater the better you're doing, simply because you're in a better position to take advantage of opportunities. And YC founders are just like anyone else - the more closely connected you are, the more likely you are to help.
rokhayakebe 12y ago
I've cold emailed many YC founders and granted I did not sell to any of them, the response rate was quite high and several looked into it. Some took the call. I just think if you have a good value proposition, and you are mindful of people's time, they will work with you regardless.

minimaxir 12y ago

> As a startup of the batch, you get high visibility thanks to Demo Day and to your own TechCrunch launch. Thanks to that, we were able to get more than 300 signups in our first couple weeks (see exactly how we did it here). This seems contradictory. 300 signups over a couple of weeks does not imply "high visibility." Your TechCrunch article (http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/18/front-is-a-shared-inbox-app-that-makes-email-suck-lessfront-is-a-shared-inbox-app-to-make-email-suck-less/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/18/front-is-a-shared-inbox-app...) only received about 229 shares and 154 Tweets (with most of the comments being from existing users and not prospective users), which makes Front seem more of a counterexample of TechCrunch visibility instead.

l_perrin 12y ago
We blogged about our launch: http://blog.frontapp.com/hacker-news-techcrunch-and-product-hunt-which-is-most-effective-to-launch-your-product-2/ http://blog.frontapp.com/hacker-news-techcrunch-and-product-... Following our TC launch, we were featured in other channels, which gave us more signups. 300 might not seem like a lot, but these figures are very conservative and we only counted users that really tried the app.
- timjahn 12y ago
  "we only counted users that really tried the app" ...which are the only ones that matter, no? So if only 300 "really" tried the app and 2,201,302 signed up, you obviously only care about the 300 if that's the number you're mentioning. Why try to sound mightier saying "these figures are very conservative" and "we only counted users that really tried the app"?
  - hobonumber1 12y ago
    No need to sound condescending.
  - jleader 12y ago
    Probably because they expect to get compared against other startups who are trumpeting "millions downloaded our app!" like it means something. Saying "these figures are very conservative" and specifying exactly what they're counting is a preemptive answer to people asking "how come you only got 300 when Startup X got 3,000,000 after the same amount of time?"

akbar501 12y ago

Nice article. IMO, two of the key points are: 1. But you still need to figure out things by yourself: YC will never tell you what people want 2. If there is one thing that is true about YC partners, it’s that you can’t expect them to do the work for you.

ahsanup 12y ago
These two should be true for an incubator/accelerator or group of advisors/mentors/investors. At the end of the day, the founders build the company, not anyone else. "Outsiders" (those who don't actually work in the company) should offer guidance and frameworks, but never a definitive solution to the problem you're having, that's for the founders to figure out and decide for themselves.

nlh 12y ago

> If relationships are easy to maintain when everything is going well, it’s a whole different story when the pressure is on. This isn't YC-specific, but I want to highlight this piece of advice because it's extremely important. This is one of the most important things I've learned through my years of starting/running small businesses. I'm particularly susceptible to falling in this trap because I suffer from typical founder syndrome of "perpetual optimism". (Good for certain things, bad for others.) It's also an easy trap to fall into as a new founder, because you just don't yet have the history to see both the ups and downs. But I can't emphasize it enough: People who are wonderful when things are wonderful can become bitterly awful when things turn around. Finding partners (both teammates and investors) who you can sail both the rough and calm waters with is absolutely essential to the survival of your business. How to figure this out? There's no secret, but it's a mix of intuition and asking the right questions. Speak to references and ask specifically: "How was he/she when things were good? How about when things got tough?"

ahsanup 12y ago
"Finding partners (both teammates and investors) who you can sail both the rough and calm waters with is absolutely essential to the survival of your business." Can't agree with this statement enough (the teammates part, at least). From personal experience, I can say that the work environment becomes toxic when early team members start losing passion for the product, especially co-founders. People start questioning each other's commitment, work slows down, and bickering ensues. As another piece of advice, it's really important to look for individuals who are great communicators. People who say it how it is, and share their feelings w/o hesitation. The last thing you want is a co-worker sharing some important piece of information (ex. they haven't been motivated for weeks) out of the blue.

frandroid 12y ago

Two pop-ups on that page (one at the start, one at the end) is way too aggressive. Cut me some slack, will ya? I especially hate the "Subscribe to our mailing list before you've even read content on our page!" load-time pop-up that everyone's featuring nowadays. If there was a browser plugin to wipe them all, I would pay money for it.

benologist 12y ago
You can't hold advertising to the same standards as regular content, and this is just advertising.
computerjunkie 12y ago
Its an ugly trend and an invasive one. The fact that you need to reassure me that your content is good makes me question if your all you just want is my email and become unnecessary email notifications. Its needy, demanding and somewhat attention seeking. Usually websites that insist with these subscription popups have mediocre to poor content. If your work is good enough, people will subscribe because they like it. Don't force it.
- graeme 12y ago
  For anyone running a business: Do not listen to these complaints. These commentors are not your target market. I use an email popup. It's greatly increased email list signups. No one's comaplained, time on page did not decline. Nothing bad happened. You should always test a chance like this, but net-savvy hackers are a poor representation of most demographics.
  - adbge 12y ago
    +1. I've been experimenting aggressively with different techniques for email capture (e.g. [1]) and, looking at my analytics, the exit-intent popup accounts for 47.27% of all emails. [1]: http://rs.io/behavior-modification-techniques-if-then-rules/ http://rs.io/behavior-modification-techniques-if-then-rules/

merrua 12y ago

I'm not sure who are the users for their product. Small companies? Or are they trying to compete with Salesforce and Google?

graeme 12y ago
I'm a potential use. I run a solo bootstrapped company. I outsource many things. Have been wanting to outsource email for a while. It's been hard to find a solution that allows me to manage my personal and work email, and the different types of both. Seeing the demo made me think "I need this!". I had been looking around at helpdesk solutions, but all seemed to cumbersome for my use case.

thrush 12y ago

I love these articles, but what I'd really like to see is a much more detailed account of the founders' entire lives up until they got in to YC. How did they meet. When did they hear about YC for the first time. When did they become interested in technology. What did they eat for breakfast the day of their interview. The real nitty gritty. And ideally this would be a special on Vice of course. :)

findjashua 12y ago

Adguard has blocked access to this page This web page at blog.frontapp.com, has been reported as a phishing page and has been blocked based on your security preferences. Adguard has found that this page may be a forgery or imitation of another website, designed to trick users into sharing personal or financial information. Entering any personal information on this page may result in identity theft or other abuse.

staunch 12y ago

That actually felt like linkbait content marketing.

ryanSrich 12y ago

> It helps you answer the only question that matters: is your product something people want? I've probably read that sentence at least 1000 times in a number of different books and articles. Having gone through a lean startup accelerator a few years ago when they were en vogue we focused on this aspect more than anything else. The thing I never hear is how people actually figured that out. Cold calling, cold emailing, going to meetups, getting intros, pitching ideas and gathering feedback is never discussed. I want to hear _how_ you found a product market fit. It's obvious that you need to do this. As an example. A startup that I co-founded my sophomore year in college was accepted into a school run summer business accelerator. They emphasized talking with customers/users more than anything else. The problem was we didn't really know any of our potential customers or users (grade school teachers/public schools). So we had to essentially cold call schools, find teachers/admins emails online, and fish around our personal network for intros. To say it didn't go well is an understatement. Our success rate, of even a phone call, was nearly 1% (roughly one answer per 100 or so emails/calls). We eventually locked down a core group of users simply by contacting so many people. Aside from other bureaucratic factors in the public schooling system we failed simply because we couldn't establish a growing user base. So, if anyone wants to tell their story with nitty gitty details of not only how they found and retained their users but how they found what they wanted would be greatly appreciated.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
graeme 12y ago
>So we had to essentially cold call schools, find teachers/admins emails online, and fish around our personal network for intros. To say it didn't go well is an understatement. Our success rate, of even a phone call, was nearly 1% (roughly one answer per 100 or so emails/calls). We eventually locked down a core group of users simply by contacting so many people. Aside from other bureaucratic factors in the public schooling system we failed simply because we couldn't establish a growing user base. I've found that walking into the school gets much better results. I work in test prep. There's no magic bullet for learning about clients, and it depends on the niche. In my case (LSAT prep) I learned about LSAT students because I had been an LSAT tutor. In fact, I still do a bit of tutoring just to stay in touch with what students are going through. Other niches would require completely different approaches. Steps: 1. Identify target client 2. Find out where they congregate, how they communicate 3. Use *that* approach. 4. Once you find some, ask for referrals. I found targeted cold calls worked pretty well. Targeted in the sense that a meaningful % of whoever I was targeting would say "woah, I gotta get me some of that", even if they had not previously heard of me. The way you get that reaction is by knowing the needs of the prospect, putting yourself into their shoes.

rl3 12y ago

>If you don’t get accepted after the interview, you will get the reason why and you’ll then be able to improve your product. This part is a bit ambiguous. Do the YC partners actually tell applicants who have made it to the interview stage why they were rejected?

TheMakeA 12y ago
Yes. At the end of the day one of the partners you met will write a few sentences about why you weren't accepted via email.