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I Am Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator. AMA
YC applications for the Summer 2015 batch are due in a week, so I thought I'd do an AMA to answer questions about applying to YC, how the program works, or anything else.
EDIT: 12:55 PM. This has been a really fun three hours, but now I have back to back meetings for the rest of the day. Sorry I couldn't answer everything--I typed as fast as I can :)
Special thanks to the YC software team for fixing an issue very quickly in the middle of this!
- toddsaunders 12y agoHow has the relationship between mentors/companies changed since the batches have grown? Are there still ample opportunities for office hours, etc?
- sama 12y agoUnlike most other programs, YC does not have mentors--just partners that spend all their time advising startups (and some part-time partners). This is really important--most people give terrible startup advice, and people that do nothing but select and advise startups all day are probably the best source of good startup advice. We split into 4 groups, and each company gets 2-3 "group partners" as their main points of contact. We encourage you to talk to these partners at least once a week, and then other partners whenever you need their specific expertise.
- toddsaunders 12y agoHow are the groups/partners assigned? I am assuming it is based on vertical expertise/experience but would love to hear more insight into that process since there are so many great "good partners"
- liyanchang 12y agoThe group split was something that happened after S12, which was at the time the largest batch[0]. As the numbers of startups scaled, connecting all partners to all startups was order o(n^2). I was in this batch - there didn't seem to be any negative impact on the companies given that most/all the founders figured this out and naturally distributed themselves to optimize for talking to the same couple partners week on week. It just meant that every once in a while, you'd be sitting across from a partner that you've never really interacted with and explaining what you do (probably good practice)[1]. Formally grouping partners sounds like a great scaling patch. [1] Not sure exactly how they did it, but the partners had some internal communication. You'd be halfway through your pitch and then they'd be like "Oh, you're THOSE guys who did X, Y, Z". And then proceed to still give you great advice.
- new_user_name 12y agoHaving slow organic growth for our startup reduce our chances of an interview? What is the average growth week-over-week YC looks at?
- sama 12y agoSlow growth is bad, yes. A lot of our questions will be about why it's slow and how you plan to make it faster. We tell startups during YC to shoot for 10% weekly growth in their key metric.
- Backlash85 12y agoIn your opinion do you see anything coming along that can become an alternative to the current status of the "internet"?
- jorkos 12y agoWhat are the hardest lessons for founders to learn during YC?
- knicksjets121 12y agoSam, What would you say is the average amount of times a company applies before a. getting an interview at YC and b. actually getting in?
- sama 12y agoIt is often on the first time. The 7th time is the highest count I know of. It's common for it to be on the second or third time. If we reject a company at interviews, we'll say what our objection is. If you reapply and that isn't fixed, you're unlikely to get in. More generally, fast progress is something we really look for when deciding to fund startups.
- cm2012 12y agoHave you guys followed the alternative lending IPOs recently? (Lending Club and OnDeck in December, both with billion dollar valuations). What does YC think of the industry?
- sama 12y agoPersonally, I think it's super interesting. LendUp is a company we funded a few years ago, and we've done more recently.
- mbesto 12y agoWhat are your thoughts on the risks to pay-day loan type companies given Wonga in the UK has just taken a huge hit due to regulation.[0] Are they at risk to be regulated here in the US too? [0] - http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31603152 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31603152
- synunlimited 12y agoHow often do you fund people on their secondary ideas compared to the main idea people apply with?
- newstargazer 12y agoWhat percent of YC founders decide against relocating to Silicon Valley after demo day and any correlation between future success and being in Silicon Valley after coming out of YC?
- Backlash85 12y agoHow many companies/startups will actually be chosen to enter the batch?
- sama 12y agoWe never set this ahead of time--it really depends on how many companies apply that we want to fund, subject to the constraints of how hard the parters can work. I'd guess in the range of 100-130, based on current application volume. We had a big spike in growth last batch (I think because of the startup class).
- Backlash85 12y agoThanks!
- atroyn 12y agoWhat is the #1 cause of failure of YC startups and how long does it usually take to materialise?
- sama 12y agoThe apparent cause is running out of money, but the real cause is failing to build something users love. It is usually apparent in the first 6 months, but not always. Another big cause is cofounder tension.
- icpmacdo 12y agoAre you going to do another semester of "How to start a startup" classes at Stanford?
- sama 12y agoI might do a sort of graduate school version--i.e. "How to scale a startup"
- delaneparnell 12y agoWhat are your thoughts on teams applying pre-product (but in development) with an experienced/diverse team compared to teams with product/initial traction? Do you weigh them differently during application reviews?
- sama 12y agoIt's hard to give a standard answer to this--it depends entirely on the specifics of each case.
- delaneparnell 12y agoThanks for doing this AMA anything Sam. As a follow-up, what would you recommend applicants who are in this position do before the end of next week to increase their chances of being interviewed/accepted? (i.e. get feedback from as many YC alum as possible, iterate on their video, etc). Obviously without specifics, I'm sure your answer may be similar to the above, but any general recommendations here?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- delaneparnell 12y agoThanks for doing this AMA Sam. As a follow-up, what would you recommend applicants who are in this position do before the end of next week to increase their chances of being interviewed/accepted? (i.e. get feedback from as many YC alum as possible, iterate on their video, etc). Obviously without specifics, I'm sure your answer may be similar to the above, but any general recommendations here?
- delaneparnell 12y agoThanks for doing this AMA Sam. As a follow-up, what would you recommend applicants who are in this position do before the end of next week to increase their chances of being interviewed/accepted? (i.e. get feedback from as many YC alum as possible, iterate on their video, etc). Obviously without specifics, I'm sure your answer may be similar to the above, but any general recommendations here?
- rsmsky 12y agoOnce we submit our application, does making edits to our application affect anything?
- nickysielicki 12y agoWhere do you see YC 10 years from now?
- sama 12y agoThe evolution of the university. But I think it's a much better model--it's got just the right amount of decentralization, it attracts the best people in the world to one place because of the network effect, we pay you instead of the other way around, instead of asking for donations of our alumni in the future we'll let them invest in the ecosystem, etc. And I think you learn far more in 3 months of YC than 3 months of university. YC is fundamentally just a hub of smart people that help each other. I think there is some chance that the total aggregate market cap of YC companies by then is approaching the largest market cap of any company (though a safer bet would be 20 years from now). I hope that we'll have funded many of the most important companies, and been able to help them quite a bit. I'm pretty sure the network will be powerful. I'm sure we'll also do new things that seem crazy today, e.g. a fundamental research lab.
- nickysielicki 12y agoThanks for the response.
- incubuslondon 12y agoWhat's your thoughts on teams that are applying from London?
- sama 12y agoWe are excited about teams applying for anywhere in the world! A huge percentage of the startups we fund come from outside the US.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- GabrielF00 12y agoWould you rather fund one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?
- wlfsbrg 12y agoHi Sam, Not a YC-specific question, but I was wondering what advice you have for someone who lives outside of a major technology center and doesn't have the ability to move? I'm eager to get something started here in the next year but I'm pretty much on my own, thanks!
- wlfsbrg 12y agoNot much it seems. :)
- jbhatab 12y agoI have a slack channel I'm growing that's open to all aspiring developers and entrepreneurs to eventually solve this exact problem. Check this page for more info, http://www.openmindedinnovations.com/about http://www.openmindedinnovations.com/about. Just email me at jbhatab@gmail.com if you're interested :).
- slantedview 12y agoThis is 2015 - clearly it's not possible to found a company without living in a tech hub ;)
- atroyn 12y agoWhat is the most common mode of failure in the interview stage?
- sama 12y agoUnclear communication. It's surprising how often we get 5 minutes into an interview without being able to really understand what a startup does.
- noahlt 12y agoYour recent stats blog post told us that 32 YC companies are worth more than $100 million. How many YC companies, including those acquired, are worth more than $10 million?
- sama 12y agoCounting companies that have raised with SAFEs but not equity rounds, probably about 250-300.
- hollerith 12y agoI hope this is not a dumb question, what method are you using the estimate the worth of the ones that have raised with SAFEs? If the answer is that you made guesses not backed by calculations, then how long have you been writing down your guesses, then going back periodically to compare them with valuations calculated from exits and equity rounds?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jwanner 12y agoSince you probably can't spend too much time on each YC application, what is the most common issue you see that causes companies to not get further attention?
- sama 12y agoGreat question! The biggest mistake founders make is burying whatever it is that's exceptional about them or their company deep in the application. We are optimists. We want to believe. Help us by putting whatever it is that is going to make us want to fund you early in the answer to each question. Also, be concise.
- mallyvai 12y agoWhat's the most exciting non-traditional segment (bio, energy, manufacturing, etc) you're looking forward to funding startups in?
- sama 12y agoI imagine each partner will have different answers. One thing I say is that we should be willing to fund anything that could be a $10B company, and that is such a difficult restriction we shouldn't have any other restriction. Personally, I am very interested in nuclear energy and solar (I think energy is the highest-impact single thing to fix--it's remarkable how many other problems reduce to the energy problem), biotech, AI, education, healthcare, and online communities. Interestingly, those first three categories are also where I think the biggest dangers to humanity are. High-risk high-reward, I guess.
- puranjay 12y agoWhat do you think about wind energy? A leading wind energy company here in India just had a $160M IPO here and it was oversubscribed. Wind is also growing faster than solar in large parts of the world.
- maheroku 12y agoWould you consider game studio startups as a valid startup application?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- atroyn 12y agoWhat's something common that partners have to repeat over and over until founders 'get it' ?
- sama 12y agoThe most common thing is getting founders to focus on the right thing. At this stage, nothing but building a product that users love matters. Founders want to focus on anything else, and have wonderfully detailed excuses for why whatever it is is so important. "Write code and talk to users" is not sexy, but it's the road to success. Seeing your name in the press is sexy, but unfortunately has nothing to do whatsoever with actual success. There is no shortcut for the hard work of building a great product.
- atroyn 12y agoOne thing my company struggled with in ImagineK12 was attracting enough users to know if we were making something they loved - how can founders focus on both?
- puranjay 12y agoDid you try talking to the customers you already had, or folks who did not sign up but were in the same demographics? I'm currently building a tool for writers and emailing writers individually (sometimes, even buying 30 minutes of their time) and talking to them has been really insightful.
- jojopants 12y ago"There is no shortcut for the hard work of building a great product" yet Quality often takes time.. yet the longer something takes to build - the more negative points programs like this give (and tech culture in general) It seems like speed trumps quality is the standard
- erik14th 12y agoIt sounds pretty sexy in the startup class [0]. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz_LgBAGYyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz_LgBAGYyo
- billions 12y agoAny interest in a Y Combinator IPO?
- sama 12y agoNo. That got a quick involuntary shudder out of me.
- Backlash85 12y agoI'm dying... lol
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- alain94040 12y agoMaybe a more founder-friendly way to rephrase this, rather than an IPO with the public: have you considered opening crowdfunding so that the startup community self-funds the next YC semesters? I'm sure there would be quite some demand. Implementation could be as simple as a syndicate on AngelList for instance.
- nwenzel 12y agoWeFunder offers the ability to invest in YC (and non-YC) startups.
- vasilipupkin 12y agoare you going to have a fund with LPs at any point in the future ?
- mdarshay 12y agoHow much traction do you usually look for when evaluating applicants / are most businesses reasonably validated?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- znt 12y agoWould you ever consider investing startups in defense industry? For example a startup that builds anti-drone systems etc?
- sama 12y agoYes, definitely.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- throwaway150320 12y agoFor people with immigration issues, does YC have any plans on expanding to Asia or Europe in the coming few years?
- sama 12y agoNo, but we help with immigration issues.
- jorge_leria 12y agoYC is famous for funding startups at a very early stage, even at a pre-traction stage, which seems to contradict the popular knowledge that an idea without a good execution is worth nothing. With just an application form and a 10 minute interview, how can you tell if the founders will be able to execute the idea properly? What are the most important traits that you look for in an application from a very early stage startup?
- sama 12y agoEven if the company is only a few weeks old, we look for signs that the founders are determined, getting things done week by week, and improving quickly. If it's just an idea, then we look at what the founders have done in the past. Most people don't magically start doing great things for the first time when they start a startup.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mahanti 12y agoMore and more VC firms (GV, KPCB, Greylock, etc) are hiring designers/engineers-in-residence to help vet potential investments and provide guidance to portfolio companies. Is this something you've thought about implementing at YC?
- souriguha 12y agoI've been closely following YC and the startup scene in SF. What's your advice to a startup, applying to YC this season, and is from a foreign country? I've read most your writings and watched few interviews as well. It'd be great if you have something to add! And thanks for the AMA!
- sama 12y agoIt doesn't hurt or help--we fund lots of founders from foreign countries (more than 40% of the last batch was born outside the US).
- vasilipupkin 12y agothat's a somewhat misleading stat - you can be an American and still be born outside the US
- firstdayback 12y agoHow should a company approach other offers (venture funding, other programs, etc.) prior to hearing back from YC, specifically when there are firm deadlines in place?
- quanpod 12y agoHey Sam, What would you try to optimize for in terms of learning and growth - good mentorship or fast growing companies? Or is there some other attribute you'd recommend optimizing for?
- atroyn 12y agoDo you think if Zuck applied to YC today with Facebook as it was in 2005 he'd make it in? (Assuming the 'social network' landscape still looked like it had in 2005).
- sama 12y agoYes. There are certain people that you cannot sit across from and let yourself not invest. He is one of them, for sure. He also had great growth. (Zuck comes to speak to the YC batch every year or so. PG used to say that when he talked to Zuck he'd find himself saying "whoa, we should really fund this guy". I had the same experience last time he came to YC.)
- atroyn 12y agoWhat's something he said or did to cause the 'whoa' reaction? Any kind of anecdote you can share?
- baristaGeek 12y agoWatch the Startup School video on Youtube. It's when he talks about what he built before/parallel to The Facebook (Wirehog, Synapse, ZuckNet, etc.)
- xtrumanx 12y agoFor the lazy, here's the link[0] where Mark talks about building a site that got students to upload their notes that helped him pass an exam for a course he hadn't studied for. PG remarked that this was fitting answer for the "Tell us how you hacked a system" question in the YC application and added he has to constantly remind himself its too late to accept Mark into YC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGsalg2f9js?t=6m10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGsalg2f9js?t=6m10s
- waterlesscloud 12y agoThere's some very interesting things in that video. It set me to thinking about things Facebook isn't actually doing that Zuckerburg says he cares about. Which are things worthy of some further thinking to see what opportunities exist there...
- ccenten 12y agoWith your recent hardware announcement and partnership with Bolt, are you more likely to accept hardware companies that can benefit from the new services you now have access to? In other words, will you be more likely to accept a larger number of early stage hardware companies?
- glenchao 12y agoHow often does YC fund early stage companies that don't even have a functional prototype?
- sama 12y agoSomewhat frequently, but we always ask why the company doesn't have a prototype.
- mattkrisiloff 12y agoIf you had applied now with Loopt, do you think you would have been accepted into YC? Or Alexis Ohanian / Steve Huffman with Reddit in its primordial phase? It seems like YC has become so competitive that it cuts out some of those promising (risky) founders that don't have as much to show.
- mattkrisiloff 12y agoOn that note, would you ever consider starting a YC 'minor league' farm? It'd be interesting to do 12-15k investments on young, very scrappy founders, a la original Summer Founders Program. Perhaps mentored by alumni rather than full-time partners for bandwidth purposes.
- sama 12y agoYes, I've thought about trying something like that.
- sama 12y agoI think so, yes. But also, it's a different time now. I'd have had more progress by the time I applied to YC. For some companies, in a week, good hackers can get a prototype built and have a few initial users. If that's possible, we expect it. If you are building a nuclear reactor we do not expect a prototype at interviews. However, we did have a rocket company bring a prototype engine to interviews.
- suyash 12y agoHi Sama, You have a CS degree from Stanford and you're now running YC. Do you wish you had a MBA or management degree or some sort? How did you learn about management even at your previous startup? In general how do founders specially who come right out of college without business degree learn to manage team as a leader? Just wondering as I'm a programmer myself and would like to be in management role someday but don't plan to get degree like an MBA.
- sama 12y agoNo, I don't (I don't have a CS degree either--I dropped out after two years). I'm skeptical about how much one actually learns in business school, and I think it's a bad investment of time and money. I think management is one of those things where you learn much more by actually doing it. That said, I don't manage much at YC. Part of what being a partner means is that you're at the point in your career where you don't need a manager.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> I'm skeptical about how much one actually learns in business school, and I think it's a bad investment of time and money. From what I've seen (and I haven't myself gone to B school), I think the people who seem to get the most (in terms of apparent skill improvement) out of B school are the ones that do it while working in management; I think that the combination of theory and practice is probably valuable. OTOH, a major purpose of B school (and this is true of many other areas of formal education) is credentialing, networking, and social signaling, which can be important to success independent of (even if it is taken by others as a sign of) actual skill development. So, it may be a mistake to assess the value to the student as simply being about what one actually learns.
- Backlash85 12y agoDoes YC fund stealth startups?
- sama 12y agoMaybe we do and maybe we don't...
- atroyn 12y agoGiven your recent comments about the potential danger of A.I, would you fund a startup which seemed dangerously close to making superintelligent A.I a reality?
- ceejayoz 12y agoIf you think it's dangerous as well as being possible, I'd imagine you'd jump at the chance to help guide it to the least damaging end.
- annelutz 12y agoIf we get an interview but aren't accepted, will you still reimburse the traveling expenses for us poor people?
- sama 12y agoYes, of course. We reimburse travel expenses for everyone who comes to interview with us, and I think it's shameful when other accelerators don't. I probably would not have interviewed at YC if I had to pay for the trip--I was super poor at the time.
- annelutz 12y agoThanks! That's why YC is the best. They understand Top Ramen founders.
- awalGarg 12y agoAlso, what if we cannot arrange for the trip initially...?
- kirsty 12y agoWe never want there to be a situation where a founder doesn't come to an interview because of money (or any other) concerns. Contact us directly when we invite you to interview and we will do our best to help you.
- suyash 12y agoBtw Kudos on doing AMA on HN vs Reddit. We should do more AMA's here.
- as2fadf123 12y agoWhat do you think of the bitcoin blockchain? Do you believe in it's hype?
- baristaGeek 12y agoIndependent of the fact that there's currently a tech bubble or not. If it hypothetically exploded, would Y Combinator stop its investment activities?
- S4M 12y agoHi Sama, Is YC a good fit for someone targets a lifestyle business, as opposite to having great ambitions like becoming the next Google/Facebook?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sanketsaurav 12y agoHey Sam, I have a product which is a direct competitor of one of YC11 companies. We have pretty decent traction, and we are solving the same problem significantly different from them. What are our chances? Does YC accept competing companies?
- sama 12y agoWe won't accept a direct clone, but competing companies are fine.
- sanketsaurav 12y agoOf course, goes without saying. Thanks!
- goykasi 12y agoAre there any one or two questions that really stick out as most important to the YC partners?
- waiquoo 12y agoWhat stage would be ideal for considering moving a project from research (at the graduate university level) to a startup? In this case I'm referring to a project that is based on custom nanoscale hardware components that rely on some pretty groovy physics. The applications are pretty immediate and the market already exists in the biotech/healthcare field.
- sama 12y agoI think startups are not well-suited for open-ended R+D unfortunately (hoping to do something about this). The best time to move from research to a startup is when you've developed technology and have a plan to make it into a product people will want.
- waiquoo 12y agoDoes this mean that startups are limited with regards to the level of innovation? I notice that a lot of startups don't really do anything new technology-wise, but have more of an emphasis on organization (for example, Uber reorganizes transportation, Bitcoin reorganizes money, but both use existing technology in the form of software languages). If I'm doing something really new (and I think I am because I sometimes have trouble convincing people that what I do is even possible), then the only recourse is to use the dated patent and licensing model with large established companies. If this is the case, then the startup model of innovation has failed at a fundamental level; ie the advantage of a small group doing something difficult only exists for an intermediate level of innovation, don't try to do something 'really' new. Would you agree?
- benologist 12y agoHow would you spend this week if you were applying?
- sama 12y agoTalking to users, and telling us what you've learned from them.
- tehansen 12y agoDo you think that YC could ever invest or advise startups / founders that can't move to silicon valley for 3 months for one reason or another? Is there something inherent in the in-person experience that cannot be overcome by technology (in general too i suppose, rather than just the type of work ycombinator does)? Personally i believe we're not quite there yet. I have some hope, that within our life time communication and collaboration tools can become both sophisticated and intuitive enough to make physical presence for most type of work completely irrelevant)
- sama 12y agoThere is for sure something about in-person interaction that cannot be replaced by any current technology. Alan Kay recently told me he thinks it's something biological. Our model just doesn't work well for people that can't move to the valley for 3 months. Remote work is good in many cases, but early-stage startup advising is not one of them.
- tehansen 12y agoThank you for taking the time to answer :) I have no doubt its biological, but biological processes are inherent to any human activity and are ultimately based on physics as well. Consider even just the absurd number of extremely complex biological processes involved in typing a reply as we essentially communicate telepathically thousands of miles apart right now. I'm daydreaming about having a captivating discussion with you and Alan Kay in which I manage to convince both of you to help me replace current technology with something that would change this and the world with it. Any advice on how to make that happen? I'm leaning towards "stop daydreaming and get to work building it" being the best advice toward that end myself...but then there is all the other things I need to get done as well. :P
- jfarmer 12y agoThere's evidence that babies acquire phonemes when "taught" in-person differently than via video: http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius... (this topic starts at about 7m08s)
- flipside 12y agoI know a lot of YC alumni, are endorsements about quality or quantity? Are they important?
- sama 12y agoQuality far above quantity. A large number of weak endorsements really hurts your chances.
- d--b 12y agoWhat does it mean to be president of YC?
- sama 12y agoBlah blah something about herding cats blah blah.
- elsen 12y agoGood evening Sam, thanks for taking some time around. - What do you think of similar structures burgeoning in Europe? - Are they a good first step before applying to YC?
- sama 12y agoIn general, no. If you want to apply to YC, just apply to YC. Going through some other program first is a negative--the advice is usually bad, there's extra dilution, etc.
- 37e6457accf0 12y agoHi Sam Altman, What would you suggest to a new college grad? Should I go work for a big companies, save some money and then go into start ups or just go into start ups ?
- sama 12y agoI wrote something related: http://blog.samaltman.com/advice-for-ambitious-19-year-olds http://blog.samaltman.com/advice-for-ambitious-19-year-olds If you have a low personal burn, you can jump right into a startup. If you have a lot of personal expenses, you probably need to save money before starting a startup. As a side note, people sometimes criticize YC as being unfriendly to older founders because we don't provide enough money. I always encourage founders with big financial obligations to save up some money before starting a startup--it'll make things far less stressful. This is a huge advantage of being a recent college grad--you generally have very little in the way of obligations.
- perphywoo 12y agoJust want to say thanks to YC for rejecting my previous terrible startup twice, or I won't have the oppy to pursue a more promising one now. When a startup is not ready, YC can smell it.
- ceeK 12y agoWhat are your thoughts on pre-accelerators such as Entrepreneur First (www.joinef.com) that take people pre-team, pre-idea?
- njays 12y agoDo you encourage people on a work visa to apply (like H1b)? If they get in, do you have any legal partner that will help them join the program on a valid visa or at least guide how to proceed?
- rbasha 12y agoHow much time should a startup set aside per week for YC? What have you seen in common with the most successful YC companies that sets them apart?
- jkirsteins 12y agoIs there any point in applying last-minute with just an idea? Or focus on building something presentable, and then apply in the next batch?
- e0e12bd57348 12y agoWhat your thoughts on renaming completely technical or being all rounder who understands tech really well and can do above average coding etc? My question is should I keep on improving myself as a programmer, the real worker or trying to be decent programmer but a good manager/non-purely tech but tech related person? So that after 30, when the Valley's ageism kicks in I can move onto other non purely technical positions?
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- onhopwood 12y agoHi Sam, Do you start reading the application on the 27th? If someone was to submitted early but was continuously updating till the deadline, which application do you see? Thanks.
- sama 12y agoWe start right after Demo Day (the 24th). It's possible we'd read an earlier version--if you're going to make big changes, hold off on submitting.
- foobarqux 12y agoHow does the partnership structure work at YC? What does it mean to be a part-time partner? Do all partners get carry?
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- virde 12y agoWhat is the one company that applied to YC and was rejected, that you wish had been selected?
- go1979 12y agoWhat does YC think of founders who are working on a project on the side (of their job), wanting to turn it into a startup? I presume there are lots of people who have day jobs to pay the bills before they can get some initial funding.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jisagigi 12y agoSam, Have not seen YC investing on any Television/native Smart TV apps ...any thoughts on why?
- jisagigi 12y agoHas YC funded any Roku/Chromecast apps before?
- atroyn 12y agoAs a proportion, how much of the value of YC is in the advice partners give, how much in the 'brand name' and network, and how much is just being around tons of smart focused people for 3 months?
- throwaway150320 12y agoIn terms of what to look for in founders, one lesson YC has learned seems to be that determination > intelligence. What other major lessons have you learned in the last few years?
- fakingxan 12y agoAny ideas for some innovative growth hacks?
- edwinespinosa09 12y agoSam, Does every application submitted, before the deadline, get seen and on average by how many reviewers?
- sama 12y agoIt at least gets seen by our alumni reviewers, and at least 3 of them. They pass about half the applications on to the YC partners.
- austenallred 12y agoWhat frustrates you the most about YC? What would you like to see change?
- sama 12y agoIt seems like a bad thing that YC has gotten to the point where people stop me on street and ask to take a selfie. I'm not sure what to do about it, though.
- MichaelCrawford 12y agoHow much is six times nine?
- suyash 12y ago0b111111
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- MichaelCrawford 12y agosuyash, You brought a smile to my weary eyes.
- trequartista 12y agoHi Sam, What about people who are in the US on an H1-B visa and have a great idea/working prototype (built as a side project while working at a big co)? Will you invest considering the H1-B visa restrictions? Thanks!
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- viiralvx 12y agoDoes YC have any initiatives planned for a Founders Conference that revolves around founders from URM groups, I'd love to see a conference for URM Founders, similar to the Female Founders Conference.
- wanniepark 12y agoHi Sam, I started a company with a few co-founders. When we started building the product, we self-funded & raised from myself & friends/family but my co-founders weren't in a financial position to put money in resulting in my co-founders being diluted below 10%. Is that a major problems with applying to YC? They are all actively involved and eager to continue building the company.
- flipside 12y agoShould we try to communicate culture and values in the application? Are those things that YC filters for?
- ngarvin 12y agoHow much does it hurt our application to not have a developer as a founder? We have an Engineer and a Business MGMT background.
- baristaGeek 12y agoDo international founders have a better chance of getting in because of the fact that they are willing to sacrifice something greater, or lower chances due to immigration issues?
- pnathan 12y agoDo you anticipate that putting together a structure for companies looking to perform long-term technology development ( i.e. three years, five years) is something YC would have on the board?
- sama 12y agoWe fund a lot of 3-5 year horizon companies. 10-20 years is harder. This does not work for startups. I have a few ideas I want to try, though.
- pnathan 12y agoThanks for answering, Sam. Perhaps I should clarify: does YC accept companies whose core tech is only buildable in 3-5 years - i.e., 3 months of work on the tech gives no salable product. I am following the YC adventures with interest, and look forward to seeing the long-range horizon ideas.
- atroyn 12y agoFunds need a 10x return from one company to cover the entire fund. Is that a philosophy YC subscribes to, and if so, how long until it becomes evident which (if any) company in a given class will be the 10x ?
- sama 12y ago10x returns don't help us much. Our entire model is driven by occasional 10,000x returns. It usually takes about 2 years to have a good sense for who is on a trajectory to maybe get there, and then about 10 years to see if they actually do.
- atroyn 12y agoHow long until 'definitely not' ?
- matheweis 12y agoAny recommendations for getting funding for growing projects with proven/consistent revenue streams that do have those smaller returns? Seems there should be groups interested in lower risk/lower return models, but they don't seem to exist.
- elmar 12y agoA nice article on the 10,000x return Startup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9241288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9241288
- pyrrhotech 12y agoI frequently see the stat that YC companies are worth 30 billion in total. While this is very impressive, it's still less than say Uber at 40 billion for a single company that's about the median age of the group--so it seems like a fair comparison, though an obvious outlier. For the Uber, Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. outlier startups, how much pure luck do you think plays into their success? AirBnB and Dropbox are YC's biggest outliers. Have you found any actionable patterns in the way the founders of these outliers work/think/operate compared with the more moderately successfully and unsuccessful founders?
- sama 12y agoWe haven't updated our numbers in awhile. Current total is more than Uber. We'll update again at some point. It's not a perfect correlation, but the founders that build huge companies are extremely determined and smart, they have a very clear vision, they see things other people miss, etc etc. That said, there is definitely a luck multiplier for the humongous companies. You cannot have a clear plan to build a $200B company.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ssharp 12y agoIt may go without saying, but potential market has a lot to do with it as well. A company like Uber is entering a huge transportation market; Airbnb a huge lodging market. They can be big fish in big ponds. I think there are lots of YC companies in smaller ponds.
- ecuzzillo 12y agoOnly those with the very wildest imaginations (which happened to include PG and the founders) realized that Airbnb was entering a huge lodging market. Most thought it was just dumb to think many people would want to stay in other people's apartments. See http://paulgraham.com/airbnb.html http://paulgraham.com/airbnb.html
- 12y ago
- MChorfa 12y agoWould it be possible to do a remote program mentored by alumni?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- krashidov 12y agoWhat advice do you have for junior devs who want to work at an early stage startup?
- sama 12y agoJoin a rocketship. (ideally one in the YC portfolio :) )
- niche 12y agoDo you work with remote teams? That is, teams that are remote. Can you believe the remote.ly page is not available? Tech only? Have you ever hosted an incubator? Y Combinator NE? Or is that X Combinator? Quantum Combinator?
- camdenre 12y agoHey Sam, What is the problem/market that you think about most when you aren't at work?
- sama 12y agoEnergy, existential risks to humanity, and wealth inequality.
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- kitneoh 12y agoWhat is YC roadmap in 5-10 years time?
- baristaGeek 12y agoWe know you have a blog, but will you ever write a book sharing your secrets at a deeper and broader level?
- mastratton3 12y agoIn terms of "How will you make money", are you interested in the market for the initial product/use case or what we think the product can eventually grow into? ie: We think our total initial market has the potential to be around $30M/yr but can grow to take on other use cases.
- sama 12y agoBoth. The best answer is something like "we have a path to be be doing enough revenue to cover our expenses in a year, but if things really work, here is how we could make $1B a year in 10 years."
- gok2 12y agoI think it was a bad idea to write the best answer here :)
- walterbell 12y agoThe important part of the answer is "here is how".
- fweespeech 12y agoHow do you feel about the fact you employ the co-founder of a company that sells technology to the government that assists in the management of espionage data and has been associated with people crafting proposals to engage in industrial espionage? [e.g. Palantir] http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palantir-apologizes-for-wikileaks-attack-proposal-cuts-ties-with-hbgary/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/11/palanti... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8236762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8236762 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/corporations-spy-on-nonpr_b_5701894.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/corporations-spy-o... http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/17/144678/chamberleaks-malware-hacking/ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/02/17/144678/chamberle...
- shortnamed 12y agoHi Sam! As a high school student / developer with a (seemingly great) idea and no same-age peers, would you suggest waiting until college to find a cofounder, or going through with the idea now alone?
- sama 12y agoTough one. I'd probably suggest going to college to meet cofounders.
- SoftwarePatent 12y agoyou could also apply for a Thiel Fellowship
- vasilipupkin 12y ago10,000X returns are so rare, how do you guard against over-fitting your decision making processes on too little data ?
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- annelutz 12y agoWhat is your favorite interview question to ask?
- sama 12y agoWhy do you want to spend the next 10 years of your life working on this?
- shubhamjain 12y agoWith you recently leading a round of investment for reddit, it seems you are quite optimistic about its success but as of late 2013 (and maybe now too), Reddit remains in red even after nearly a decade of its inception[1]. Reddit CEO once said, that ads are the reasons Digg failed[2], so I believe the site would be wary of using ads to the fullest. How do you think Reddit would become profitable and would be able to sustain itself? [1]: http://www.businessinsider.in/Reddit-CEO-Admits-Were-Still-In-The-Red/articleshow/21148326.cms http://www.businessinsider.in/Reddit-CEO-Admits-Were-Still-I... [2]: http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/08/reddit-digg/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/08/reddit-digg/
- GolfyMcG 12y agoAlso, if you don't use Alien Blue (the mobile app for Reddit) then you might not know they have been testing "Sponsored" posts. It didn't take a genius to know people would complain, but the ads are getting A LOT of pushback from users. I supposed you can put this in context and look at how Facebook gets crap for changing anything, but is this really the most creative idea Reddit can come up with to generate more revenue?
- sama 12y agoI don't use it (I just read reddit in mobile safari) but I will pass this along to the reddit team.
- minimaxir 12y agoContext: http://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/2znkjk/i_paid_for_no_ads/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AlienBlue/comments/2znkjk/i_paid_for...
- freehunter 12y agoA LOT of pushback? That link in another comment is the only pushback I've ever seen, and I use Alien Blue (having purchased it). I haven't even noticed sponsored posts on the mobile version (I have on the desktop site though), and they hardly bother me. I've never seen anyone else seriously complain about them either. Sam, if you're passing along GolfyMcG's feedback, please pass along mine as well. I run Ad Block, but reddit ads are the least of my worries. Maybe I just don't use reddit as seriously as some other people do.
- oskarth 12y agoWhat is your advice for people who don't have co-founder material friends (mostly non-technical/non-sales people, or conservative) and are out of college? I've experience starting companies with acquaintances, something that, predictably, didn't go so well. Is there any alternative - that you have seen in YC - to getting new friends, getting to know them really well, and starting a company in a few years time?
- sama 12y agoI have a good answer for this! Go work at a breakout medium sized tech company (i.e. a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand people). You'll meet lots of potential cofounders. The people that are attracted to these companies are usually 1) really good and 2) interested in starting a company down the line.
- atroyn 12y agoThis is my plan B and it's heartening to hear you share this view.
- puranjay 12y agoI'm heading off to B-school later this year. It'll be relatively cheap for me (non-US location) and I got into the top school in the country. Would this be a good place to meet founders, because I have the same dilemma as you - too many friends who are not interested in building businesses.
- photorized 12y agoExcellent idea.
- myblake 12y agoI'd also add to this that you should be getting a decent base salary at a company at this phase and you should try and live below your means, both so you can save and have a cushion allowing you to work full time without outside funding and so that when you do the burn rate on that cushion is smaller.
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- johndoe42 12y agoHello Sam, First, thank you so much for taking the time to answer our questions. My question is about confidentiality of applications. Today I am working at a YC startup. I (and two other friends) have a project in mind. But what prevents me from applying to YC is the fear that my application would fall in the inbox of our founders. Obviously I would prefer our application to remain confidential until if they we get accepted (which, I understand, is against the odds :)). How can I ensure that this won't happen? How private and confidential are our conversations with YC partners and team? I have also heard that YC alumni sometimes help filtering/interviewing the teams/projects that apply. Is this correct? To be completely transparent, I have heard from 2 persons closed to YC that there is no way our founders won't know that I have applied. So this point really worries me a lot. Thank you for your answer and again, thank you for taking the time to answer the questions of the HN community.
- oplesoptimist 12y agoOh man, I'm in the same situation, and I was kinda trying to not think about it! I'd assumed YC applications were a "safe" place? (No?)
- treeform 12y agoWe were in the same situation. But we were completely open with our YC founders and they helped us a lot in getting into YC and with tons of advice. It seems like you are building the relation ship wrong based on some sort of deception. I would think about it.
- pquerna 12y agoThis works OK when you have direct relationships with the YC Founders -- but when you are only tangentially connected in a big company... It is hard to know where rumors go.
- johndoe42 12y agoThank you treeform for your answer. I agree that if this would be possible this would be the best way to go. Unfortunately all the founders are not the same, and mine are not opened AT ALL to these kind of initiatives :)
- waleedzeb 12y agoHow would you look at a founder who has built something for the US market, but have never visited it?
- baristaGeek 12y agoIs there a lower preference for college-dropouts today in YC? The average YC founder age has increased considerably and I think there might be some relation.
- sama 12y agoNo, if anything it's higher. I think the median age increase has more to do with us funding companies in different spaces that require more experience. If you're starting an Internet company, I'm more convinced than ever that you don't need to finish college.
- Alex3917 12y ago> If you're starting an Internet company, I'm more convinced than ever that you don't need to finish college. For your typical web startup you probably don't need college to learn the technology or the design patterns. But there are certain areas of social science that can be hard to pick up on your own because they are basically oral traditions, and there isn't really an obvious list of books to get on Amazon or whatever. Finishing a degree is still probably overkill though.
- mazeway 12y agoIn social sciences, the stuff you learn in formal education is less useful. I think the example should be in hard sciences, for example, if you want to start a company building quantum computers, a PhD in physics would be very helpful.
- njays 12y agoIs YC interested investing in international remittance startup?
- jpmcglone 12y agoHey Sam, can you give please tell us about the time you, sama, most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage?
- bramgg 12y agoAnd can you please tell us what you're hoping to discover about a founder with that question :) Side question, mostly just for fun, have people's answers to that question ever been blatantly illegal?
- sama 12y agoSure. When I was running my startup, we got catastrophic news that the first big customer in the space (Boost Mobile) was signing a deal with a competitor instead of with us. This would have killed us. The competitor was a much larger and better funded company that had been around for years. I was a 20 year old CEO. Most big companies do not like to make risky decisions, so this was not entirely surprising. We got this news at about 11 pm. The next morning at 6 am, I was on a flight to Orange County. I sat in the lobby until the guy responsible for the deal on their side walked in. He was polite but said the decision was made. I convince him to look at our demo (in the past few days, we'd done some research to figure out exactly what features he really cared about). As soon as he saw it I knew we had a chance. Ended up hanging around for about two weeks. Eventually, the other company overplayed their hand and we got the deal, and then the deals with every other major US telecom company.
- yatoomy 12y agoWhat is your take on the health care industry? Where are the biggest opportunities and leverage points? Perhaps for a YC company
- 6thSigma 12y agoWhat's YC's valuation?
- sama 12y agoA lot, but it's very illiquid.
- wonderful1970 12y agoHi Sam, I'd like to apply to YC, but my market is not in the US. Is it something rational? Does it worth?
- sama 12y agoWe've funded many companies working only on non-US markets. Razorpay is an example of one in the current batch.
- wonderful1970 12y agoThanks
- wonderful1970 12y agoHi Sam, I'd like to apply to YC, but my market is not in the US. Is it something rational? Does it worth?
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- hipcactus 12y agoWhat should founders do about the rent?
- sama 12y agoIt's really just way too damn high. Live in somewhere like Sunnyvale or San Jose, maybe.
- justinkwong315 12y agoHow do you spot grit and perseverance in an entrepreneur?
- sama 12y agoWe ask about when they've done the impossible. You also get a pretty good feel for this after asking someone hard questions for 10 minutes. Not pushing back at all is bad, and pushing back too hard is also bad.
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- MitziLaszlo 12y agop.s. my social ideology is to extract the value of data without compromising identity privacy. Innit is a system that allows users to own and trade in their own data (particularly health and financial data)
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- RandomBK 12y agoThe YC application asks teams to discuss their current equity split / legal situation. What happens to teams who haven't figured that out, or are looking for advice on those matters from Ycombinator? Will an uncertain equity plan or organizational structure kill an otherwise exciting application, if they are open to advice?
- sama 12y agoNo, you can just say "we're still figuring this out, but here is about what we're thinking". Leaving this question unanswered for a long time is a sign of badness, though. It's important to resolve this quickly and move on to the real work.
- arfliw 12y agoThis answer by Adam D'Angelo on Quora blows my mind: "What was hot in Silicon Valley in March 2013?" http://www.quora.com/What-was-hot-in-Silicon-Valley-in-March-2013/answer/Adam-DAngelo?share=1 http://www.quora.com/What-was-hot-in-Silicon-Valley-in-March... Every one of those blew up. So I ask you the same question: What is hot in Silicon Valley in March, 2015?
- sama 12y agoAdam is super smart. In fact, I asked him for an updated list at dinner a couple of weeks ago and I predict he will be right again. I'm not going to share my list because I've found that people put too much stock in it. I don't mind talking about things like nuclear energy or biotech, because people are either going to start those companies or not. But I don't want to cause founders to start or stop working on specific idea because I say something like "I think enterprise software is great" and they really want to get into YC. I never used to worry about this, but I've since found it happens surprisingly often. The best companies are usually started before any trend is obvious. By the time the trend is obvious, it's too late.
- alexirobbins 12y agoEnterprise software you say? interesting...
- akhilcacharya 12y agoHonestly, I think the old list is still pretty accurate. If anything we might have just additions to that list - in 2-3 years I'm confident wearable will be big, and I think BLE devices have become more popular in the HW Startup space too.
- philippnagel 12y agoSo, your bet is on nuclear energy and biotech? ;)
- niche 12y ago0) Binary computing 1) Ternary computing ~ Quantum computing
- ovatsug25 12y agowhat is your answers to pgs dont do a startup in your 20s? is there anything you wish you had done, recommend besides startups?
- koshurinov 12y agoImagine a hardware company doing a research which requires lab or special equipment. Is it OK the leave about a half of the team on site and join YC with the rest? Project lead is among those who can move.
- keithwarren 12y agoDoes the current partnership explicitly cap the partner count or is there some point in the future where you think it would make sense to cap the number of partners?
- sama 12y agoNo and probably not.
- CzechsMix 12y agoYou say a lot that startups should collect revenue very early. If my startup is currently just a side-project and I haven't yet incorporated, what's the legal concern of collecting payment? I feel like startups like Door Dash have dealt with this, but I was just wondering if there's anything I should be aware of.
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- yatoomy 12y agoHow and why will Pebble win, or be one of the winners, in the "war of the wearables". Ie. how will it be a similar to the android/ios platforms of mobile today
- ggonweb 12y agoDoes more than 1 partner review an application? and how do you maintain quality in screening applications and interview teams? Is recommendations from current partners have weight-age in the screening process (from instacart application hack)?
- ggonweb 12y agoHow much weightage does hackernews involvement add to the application (PG used to say he had some weightage)?
- sama 12y agoVery little.
- sama 12y agoYes, in general about 3 partners, sometimes many more. We are very rigorous about maintaining quality and compute lots of statistics on this.
- rksur 12y agoDoes YC encourage couples applying to YC as co founders. Is that seen as a negative. One of the co founder is technical and other is non technical.
- revorad 12y agoSome of the advice YC partners give seems harmful because of survivorship bias (Basic for the Altair -> Microsoft). I've seen some people criticise you for it, but I've never seen any of you address it directly. Do you mind doing so now?
- sama 12y agoMost startups don't work--everyone understands the odds are long. What makes it worth it is that when they work, they really, really work. So we try to give advice about how to maybe become a huge company.
- revorad 12y agoI understand your motivation. My point is that your advice on how to become a huge company seems a bit flawed - specifically because it ignores all the companies which failed even after following that advice. Anyway, there is so little data on the topic that I don't feel anyone has good advice on it.
- dazmax 12y agoHe didn't say it was advice on how to become a huge company, he said it was how to _maybe_ become a huge company. They're going for high returns on successes, not high chance of success.
- dmazin 12y agoHello! Are partners chosen specifically for each interview (e.g. people with knowledge of the market), or are the tracks split up between groups of partners randomly?
- sama 12y agoWe randomize everything first, and then look through each morning to see if some interviewees need domain expertise, and then swap those around as best we can.
- trevmckendrick 12y ago- How much does previous entrepreneurial success improve your odds of getting an interview? I.e. selling a bootstrapped company for $500k? $5M? - If previous success is in an industry with a negative image like, say, title loans, does that hurt odds?
- rksur 12y agoDo YC encourage couples applying as co founders. One is technical and the other is non technical.
- nathanielwj 12y agoWhat is the most critical element in driving growth for a startup?
- sama 12y agoMaking a product that users love. http://blog.samaltman.com/the-only-way-to-grow-huge http://blog.samaltman.com/the-only-way-to-grow-huge
- nathanielwj 12y agoWhat is the most critical element in driving growth for a startup?
- nathanielwj 12y agoWhat is the most critical element in driving growth for a startup?
- nathanielwj 12y agoWhat is the most critical element in driving growth for a startup?
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- lmathis 12y agoHi Sam, Is it ok to seek advice from partners and get feedback and improve on the application? Just would like to increase the odds. Thank You.
- sama 12y agoOut of fairness, the partners can't really give you feedback. You can reach out to alumni, though.
- javiercr 12y agoWhat's your opinion on accelerators / incubators backed by big corporations such as Wayra (Telefonica) or hub:raum (Deutsche Telekom)?
- t27 12y agoFor hardware cos applying to this batch, the Bolt collaboration sounds awesome. Since Bolt has super expertise in prototyping, is it an indication that hardware ideas with an idea only Or partial prototype can get accepted? How can such co.s improve their chances further, compared to software co.s where making a proof of concept barely costs any money?
- sama 12y agoYes, we will fund hardware companies with only an idea in some cases. However, the cost and time required to make a prototype has come down so much that most applicants have something built.
- foobarqux 12y agoWhy don't even the best VCs publish returns? Does YC plan to?
- sama 12y agoI don't know why most don't. Ours sound silly. The IRR is way over 100%, but on a relatively small amount of capital.
- mbym 12y agoQuestion re solo founders: "A startup is too much work for one person" and if you can't convince even one friend to join you, that doesn't speak well for your idea! On the other hand, a bad hire/partnership can ruin the company. YC gives signal it really prefers to look at teams than individual applications. Q: Do you have have advice or rules of thumb re how much time a solo founder should put into finding partner(s)? Or thoughts re how much to prioritise this, vs. just writing code and talking to users to finish initial version yourself? I don't mean this to be just focused on "getting into YC" but more in general: what's the right way to think about fixing this problem (being a solo founder) vs tackling other things like actually building something initial users can be using? For software ideas surely it is occasionally sensible to make at least a prototype and actually get some users before ever buddying up? Or if I've got this far but am basically still going it alone, am I doing something wrong?
- api 12y agoSeconded: statistics such as these: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77525 ... seem to show that very successful sole founder stories do exist. But nearly everything from the YC orbit says "find a partner or you'll fail," etc.
- BinaryIdiot 12y agoI came here to ask the same question. I started working on an idea of my own and I have many friends who are very talented but none that really seem to want to commit to something risky and obviously I don't want to force someone to come if they are not interested in taking the risk with me. This is the main reason my next application to YC will be solo but I am certainly open (and would prefer) a partner.
- niche 12y agoHi BinaryIdiot, I am free and available, I am a TernaryIdiot, we could make a team!
- 12y ago
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- aashaykumar92 12y agoI don't want to work for a company, I'd much rather start my own. And there are definitely some problems I'd like to solve, but I'm still figuring out which ones will actually add value and how to go about solving them. Any advice? If I just applied with a bunch of ideas and the YC team liked one, would it be considered? I'd imagine there needs to be at least some progress but still thought I'd ask. My relevant background is that I built a social calendaring app with my college roommate and it was eventually acquired by our university. In my eyes, it was a failure that I learned a lot from.
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- ninebrows 12y agoIf the product is good and if the product has a single co-founder, what are the chances of getting accepted? The reason is that I live in a place where it's very hard to find a good co-founder and I don't want to team up with the only options that I have. I don't want to make wrong choices. In my place, people tend to join companies and look for jobs rather than start companies.
- sama 12y agoWe will fund a company with 1 founder, but the bar is very high. Have you thought about working at a startup first as a way to meet potential cofounders?
- ninebrows 12y agoThanks Sam. Yes. I have worked in a startup for few years. I made very good friends, some technical and some management. I found a good guy who is on the management side, I asked him whether he is interested in startup. He is just married, from a middle class family and he is not willing to take any risk. I also know technical people. Unfortunately I did not find good people on technical side but they are very talented. When I say good, I mean honest people.
- jamisteven 12y agoWhat do you think about a location-aware, food truck app with social login?
- dataker 12y agoHello Sam, Amid a never-ending war between anti-AI and pro-AI , you've recently shown strong positions( http://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1 http://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1) about it. As an 'AI applicant', I can't stop wondering whether such position could influence an application decision. What's your take on it?
- sama 12y agoI still want to fund a lot of AI companies.
- brunobarcelos 12y agoWhat are the chances of getting funding if I want to focus on my home country (Brazil) as my main market?
- sama 12y agoThat's a feature, not a bug.
- bherms 12y agoHow was your meal at Delifina the other night? Just kidding :) I don't really have a question, but my girlfriend and I were seated next to you and I wanted to introduce myself and thank you for your insights, writing, and contributions to the startup community, but didn't want to disturb your meal. Now I have an opportunity. Thanks!
- sama 12y agoDelicious. One of my favorite restaurants in SF!
- chirag_kulkarni 12y agoWhat is the ratio between the businesses that YC funds that have revenue and don't have revenue? What about having a significantly large amount of traction (i.e. few thousand users in the first week of beta)
- sama 12y agoMost have no revenue, or very little. Most companies we fund have some sort of prototype, but some of the best ones don't.
- awalGarg 12y agoHey sama! From the YC founder's profile application: > Please tell us about the time you, <username>, most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage. I am so much longing to know, why a "non-computer" system? There are so many things I could have boasted of but can't because of the "non-computer" thing :P
- matheweis 12y agoI don't speak for YC, but I'd guess it has to do with demonstrating that you're not just a coder in a basement, and that you'll be able to get things done in the "real" world. Sam's answer to his own question is probably a great indicator of the type of thing that he's looking for: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239203 edit: also this - have you done the impossible https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239229
- CurtMonash 12y agoThose are very different skills. When I was a stock analyst, well before Reg FD, it was about getting information other people didn't. Same is true now that I'm a self-employed industry analyst. It's about relationships, and having the relationships be productive in specific ways. Self-promotion generally takes some cleverness. It shares aspects with my previous example -- you use people who like you in ways that are productive, that don't harm them (or, much better, explicitly help them), and don't cause them to stop liking you. This requires understanding of other people's needs and motivations. I did some clever negotiating things back in the day -- getting a game theory PhD in 1979 pretty much guaranteed that I was a negotiation "expert" in the 1980s, although subsequently general understanding of game theory and negotiation advanced and obviated such an advantage. The first time a company threatened me with a scary libel suit I got their arch-competitor to, the same day, offer to pay my legal fees. That may have been my flashiest hack of all. :)
- ing33k 12y agoany plans to host a Startup School conference in Asia ?
- wayfarer2s 12y agoCompetition is a tricky concept. If there is competition, that can be seen as verification of the concept, but at the same time it offers valid counterpoints. If there is no competition, it might be because the idea is so hard that nobody else has figured it out or so unpromising that everyone else dismissed it. What role does competition play in your evaluation of a startup?
- sama 12y agoI have never cared too much about "validation" or "verification of the concept". I trust my own judgment, and the companies I've made the most money on had far, far more people saying the idea was stupid than validating it. I just try to evaluate every idea on its own merits and potential, and not worry about anything else. I suggest you do the same.
- tfang17 12y agoHow many current college student YC companies do you have?
- mcintyre1994 12y agoThe average yc founder in this batch is about 30, but the average college/university graduate is much younger than that. What did a successful 30 yr old applicant do for those 8ish years after graduating?
- derrida 12y agoWhat game can I play?
- ValentineC 12y agoDo you think the increasing cost of living in the valley is detrimental to starting up?
- sama 12y agoYes, I think it's the biggest long-term risk to the valley's continued startup dominance. http://paulgraham.com/marginal.html http://paulgraham.com/marginal.html
- jes5199 12y agoHow do you feel about what the constant influx of 22-year-olds making six-figure salaries is doing to the culture and social fabric of San Francisco?
- sama 12y agoI think the biggest problem is that it's making housing totally unaffordable. I think it's critical SF fix this, and that the only real solution is more supply. Unfortunately, homeowners are the ones that vote, and they are loving the increase in home values and don't want to see a lot more supply get built.
- suyash 12y agoThe supply can't just be produced out of the blue. There isn't enough land in San Francisco to build a whole bunch of housing. The key is to expand out of city or create zones in city for affordable housing.
- nrahnemoon1 12y agoOr the opposite -- get rid of zoning restrictions. Laissez-faire.
- epicureanideal 12y agoThere's plenty of land if you build vertically instead of flat. There's a bunch of 2-4 story buildings that could be 10-20+ story buildings.
- klinker 12y agoI saw in the recently published YC stats that you have accepted companies from a number of countries in the current batch. Do you see any major differences in work culture/ethics between say US and european founders?
- vishalzone2002 12y agothanks for doing this..are there any plans to do a YC program for people who have to keep their job to maintain their visa status. I am not sure how can one apply when on H1B..?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- chimeracoder 12y ago> there are rumors going around that Yishan was bribed to step down so that Ms. Ellen Pao could become interim CEO just in time for her trial against Kleiner Perkins. Could you comment on her character? It's bad enough that you're publicly asking sama for petty gossip on an AMA like this, but ending it by making this about Pao's character, not Yishan's character, the changing of the guard at Reddit in general, or even the KP lawsuit, is really low.
- freehunter 12y agoAnd of course he's not going to comment on pending litigation. That would be... highly inadvisable.
- annelutz 12y agoIrrelevant
- 765anon 12y agoIs YC India in your plans ?
- asadlionpk 12y agoI want YC Pakistan then :D
- ahaseeb 12y agoJust pointing you to @sama response. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239370 I am from Pakistan and was funded by YC. I know at least 6 people in current batch who are from Pakistan however we were not running our startups from Pakistan. I have seen startups from multiple regions.Being from PK obviously reduces your chances because of the small market size if you are focused locally. In addition, VC like to invest in bigger economies and a startup close to them. Exceptions already exist. Summary: If you are from PK, be extremely good
- codegeek 12y agoWill YC invest in a startup that has the potential to be a billion dollar B2B company in 10-15 years and not a quick exit ? Since it is B2B, it will never have a million users or be viral but more like solid few thousands customers.
- hectorxp 12y agoIs there a chance to be approved if my startup is an incubator/accelerator a la YC in another region of the world?
- sama 12y agoDefinitely a chance, but if you want to get into YC you should just apply to YC. It usually hurts you if you've gone through another accelerator because our bar is much higher. In that case, we expect you to be already accelerated, and we find that many accelerators are actually more of a brake pedal.
- gok2 12y agoWhat do you think are some of the unsolved problems in the location based apps field?
- knowmevish 12y agohello sam How do you get the (gut) feeling that you should definitely invest in a particular idea (or company)? (how do you make such a decision)?
- sama 12y agoOne thing I always think about is if I would take the CEO job at the company if they offered it to me.
- newsignup 12y agoSam, our YC application is almost ready, can I post it tomorrow? :)
- ValentineC 12y agoDo you think the YC formula would work outside the valley, where it's harder to find plenty of young early adopter types?
- 0505gonzalez 12y agoWhat would make you fund unproven founders with an early stage product?
- jojopants 12y agoWhy do so many startups seem to do more than one accelerator - such as 500 and YC - when they end up "Demo-ing" to essentially the same exact people? Should people who have done 1, or 2, or 3 other programs still apply?
- chuckcode 12y agoCould you comment on why start ups with remote teams anecdotally do poorly but many open source projects with very remote teams succeed? Do you see any tools on the horizon to help people coordinate remotely at a new level?
- sama 12y agoI think it's because startups have to make small changes to their idea several times per day. Very short cycle times do best with in-person interaction.
- josephwegner 12y agoMost closed-source products have very different management styles than open-source products. If you're interested in the topic, check out the book "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" - it talks at length about the different styles of building products (Cathedral generally being closed-source stuff, while Bazaar is generally open-source)
- kriro 12y ago1) How common are applications from companies that have bootstrapped to a certain size in a non-US market where local knowledge helps (showing some early traction but could still grow in that market) and want to expand to the US? What are you mostly looking for in these companies, do you see them "diluting their markets" as a potential red flag (assuming the idea is transferable culturally etc.)? 2) I get the feeling there is some mild prejudice against academia in the startup community. What is the general reaction if a founder comes from academia ("dropping out to persue the startup")? Tone wise it seems like there's a "why did you waste your time in academia and not build stuff" kind of attitude. Strikes me as strange because on an abstract level good academics do very "startupy" things (form hypothesis, test, act on results) except slower/more deliberate.
- jamiesonbecker 12y ago> except slower/more deliberate.
- Kinnard 12y agoWhat do you and the rest of YC think of dynamic equity splits? They're described in Slicing the Pie: http://www.slicingpie.com/ http://www.slicingpie.com/ http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-12-18/grunt-funds-are-trending-in-startup-circles http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-12-18/grunt-funds-...
- sama 12y agoIn general, I think fixed equity splits WITH VESTING are the way to go. Probably the optimal split is something like 51/49 (to prevent deadlocking) or 33.3/33.3/33.3 but anything near even is good enough.
- enahs-sf 12y agowhat must one do to acquire one of those cool Y combinator sweatshirts I see floating around San Francisco? store.ycombinator.com in the works? :)
- sama 12y agoOne gets made for each batch. Apply!
- Gaessaki 12y agoHey Sam, Re solo founders. Would you consider a team with one founder and 1-2 "employees"? The reason I ask this is because my partners and I have more of a mentor-tutee relationship and although we all share perks and they get equity (considerably less than my share, but still sizeable), they see themselves more as learning than being at the same level as myself in terms of responsibility.
- free2rhyme214 12y agoI'm still working on building a prototype so I can earn a cofounder and future employees. I'd say I'm 2-3 months off from having the MVP done. Should I apply to YC?
- MitziLaszlo 12y agoMy social enterprise is a combination of a Foundation and a Company. Why? To make the social ideologies independent from shareholder pressure AND to make sure we can commercialise effectively towards a sustainable business model. I don't want to be an NGO reliant on donations! Should I apply to YC as the foundation or the company? My social ideology is to extract the value of data without compromising identity privacy. Innit is a system that allows users to own and trade in their own data (particularly health and financial data)
- herpdaderp 12y agoWhat is your religious affiliation?
- siddarthd2919 12y agoI am a 28 year old technology project manager. How can i help YCombinator?
- fartclops 12y agosaam, gib me moneys.
- mej10 12y agoWhat are your thoughts on advertising as _the_ way to make great services available for free (Google, reddit, Facebook, Stack Overflow)? What problems do you see with this model? When should this be preferred? Does it only work for massive sites?
- sama 12y agoIt does indeed only work for big sites. It's not the only model, but it was one that is proven and easy to understand.
- mej10 12y agoAs a follow-up, do you think it is unethical to use AdBlock?
- giftgaming 12y agoWe're a non-intrusive advertising startup (giftgaming) -- I personally do not think it is unethical, as they provide no value, and if anything, detract from the website's value and sometimes are plain annoying. I cannot believe that in 2015, we still have intrusive ads, such as banner ads, popups, interstitials, pre-roll videos -- all technologies from the 90s? There must be a better solution.
- mej10 12y agoThey provide value to the company providing the content. Many great sites are only possible thanks to advertising revenues. The world would be objectively worse-off if everyone used adblock.
- giftgaming 12y agoBut wouldn't it be great if the world didn't feel the need to use adblock? Telling people not to use adblock is like telling people to not torrent, or to not bite their fingernails; it's too easy to do. Instead, the core problem needs to be addressed: which is advertising seldom does anything except slowdown page/game loading times, cause privacy concerns or annoy/distract. We're offering a solution which makes people want to opt-in more.
- mariopt 12y agoQuestion: As a potential entrepreneur, the thing that scares me the most is the lack of real world data. By data I mean: page views, sales reports, analytics, market shits, etc. It the kind of thing that you can't find on the internet, and if you find usually the data is incomplete and doesn't tell the whole story. Does YC provides real world data in order to help startups to understand how the market works actually?
- siddarthd2919 12y agoHi Sam, I am a 28 year old project manager. How can I help YCombinator?
- sama 12y agoWork at a YC startup!
- hello----world 12y agoHello Mr. Altman, Thank you for taking the time to do this, I was hoping you'd be willing to give me some advice? I really want to be successful one day.. But I just have no discipline and I rarely work toward my goals. I know what I want to achieve.. I just always pick short term rewards over long term ones.
- chuckcode 12y agoSam has already helped you indirectly by investing in reddit which has all sorts of community sourced help. Check out PeaceH guide to getting discipline[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/2dd7yh/advice_peacehs_guide_to_becoming_disciplined/ http://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/2dd7yh/advic...
- huhtenberg 12y ago> helped you indirectly by investing in reddit ... ... which is THE weapon of choice for anyone serious about honing their lack of focus and procrastination skills :)
- brunobarcelos 12y agoMy startup is trying to serve ALL the families that live in an apartment building or in a neighborhood (to get economy of scale and make delivery as cheap as possible), but is really hard to get older people to trust and use the internet to buy online. What are your advice to deal with this demographic?
- falsestprophet 12y agoThere is a reason advertisers can't be bothered with people outside of the 18-49 demo
- bhayden 12y agoI forget which speaker, it may have been Peter Thiel, was discussing how difficult starting a startup is at one of the startup school talks, and said "there are easier ways to make a lot of money". I would be curious if you knew what he (or whomever said that) would consider easier.
- sama 12y agoI think I was the one to say that. Working in finance is an easier and more predictable way to make a lot of money, as long as you can deal with the deep existential angst the comes from adding no value to the world :)
- tarikjn 12y agoI would argue that things like markets/arbitrage/HFT actually add value to the world and down the line are important enablers for the startup ecosystem. It's just that finance jobs are fungible to some degree -- just like low/middle level developer jobs after all.
- andrewlynch 12y agoHi Sam, In the Winter 15 class there was not a single startup from the African continent. Are you guys interested in startups that are targeting emerging markets?
- sama 12y agoYes!
- xspectre 12y agoHi Sam, I've heard you mention a few great things about University of Waterloo (They even have you in a video on their Engineering channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQz5hj8y1TE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQz5hj8y1TE). Waterloo has such a vibrant startup scene and several groups from the region have gone through YCombinator. When is the next time you are coming to visit Waterloo?
- sama 12y agoI need to book a trip soon. Maybe in May.
- EGreg 12y agoHey. This may sound like an unusual question, but I thought I'd ask. We started our company about 4 years ago. Since then our apps have been downloaded by 3 million people in over 100 countries (see http://qbix.com/blog/ http://qbix.com/blog/ ) Every year we've been applying to YC, and never even making it to the interview. I know that YC likes to invest in teams and the ideas sometimes change ... and as far as teams go, I think we've done some impressive things. (For example, http://qbix.com/about http://qbix.com/about) So I would think that at least we'd get a chance to be invited. We applied about 4-5 times in the last 4 years. The weirdest thing is that most of the times the founder video didn't get any views on YouTube (we tracked it). Could it be that YC just gets so many applications that they don't really have time to go through them all, and watch all the videos? Does it make sense to apply again? Are we blacklisted for some reason? Sorry for being so blunt, but we really do like YC and we were just curious because there's very little feedback as to what goes on in the application process.
- sajjadk 12y agoSam, Whats your take on startups targeting opportunities in developing countries ( difficult to operate terrains)? These are of course markets that have the potential of affecting billions of people.
- sama 12y agoReally depends on the specifics, but generally it's something we like.
- halite 12y agoHow about health drinks / food? Do you know if yc would have any interest or expertise to help natural food companies? Like Kambucha is $600M company now.
- knicksjets121 12y agoWhen applying to YC, if you have a four or five person start-up team, if one member isn't able to come to Silicon Valley, but the rest are (3/4 or 4/5), how much does that penalize you?
- sama 12y agoThe big problem is a 4 or 5 person founding team. That's a high bar to get over (but possible, one startup I really like in this batch has 5 founders). Be so good we can't ignore you.
- knicksjets121 12y agoThank you! Why would you say 4 or 5 person founding teams are a big problem?
- CHaro 12y agoIt is difficult to keep 4-5 people perfectly aligned which is necessary early in a startups life, especially if all of them have equal say. Losing days to arguing over what the best course of action is a startup killer
- kcole1508 12y agoIs the "uber for ...." market too saturated or do you think there are still problems that can be solved by on demand marketplace apps? Are the opportunities for these type of companies to get accepted based primarily on market traction? We're a company looking to create 1M jobs with 10 percent being military vets..Do you have any previous history of funding companies founded by military vets?
- humanarity 12y agoWhat time in the process does the demo become really important ? So when should it be ready by ?
- gok2 12y agoWhat do you think about companies which have their main office in SF and engineering office at their home country? Obviously these companies spend a lot less money on talent and on paper they can get more stuff done with less funding. What are the success rates of these companies, compared to full SF companies? Is it logical to start to whole company in SF or have a product office somewhere else?
- gok2 12y agoWhat do you think about companies which have their main office in SF and engineering office at their home country? Obviously these companies spend a lot less money on talent and on paper they can get more stuff done with less funding. What are the success rates of these companies, compared to full SF companies? Is it logical to start to whole company in SF or have a product office somewhere else?
- knicksjets121 12y agoWhat questions on the application do you look most for and you feel the other partners look at as well?
- wittedhaddock 12y agoWhat do you think are the most difficult problems, or types of problems, YC as its own organization will face in the future?
- sama 12y agoScaling up the number of people in an organization and maintaining innovation is always, always hard.
- jantos8 12y agoI am currently applying to the summer batch and I was wondering about my setup. I came to the U.S. about four years ago and immediately built a marketing agency and after a year added software development services to it. We grew rapidly to a stable stage and now I am at the point where I can step back from taking care of the company and let my other partners manage it (We are four partners). My question is, I am applying as the only founder and was wondering if having a company already might be a deal-breaker, due to you thinking that I would not be able to invest 100% of my time into the startup? My reason for not having a co-founder yet, is because I want to make sure that I really add somebody that will 100% benefit the startup. I do have a pool of people available from my current company, but would also like to branch out first. Any thought from you would be really appreciated.
- sama 12y agoMake it clear in your application you're going to spend 100% of your time on this new business.
- jantos8 12y agoThank you and I did. I was just wondering if there is already a certain penalty towards me. 1) Only founder 2) Owner of another company.... Thx, for your prompt answer. Enjoy the rest of your AMA and have a great weekend!
- humanarity 12y agoWhy are people so crafty ?
- andrewlynch 12y agoOne thing which surprised me about the current YC batch was the average age of the founders. Have you seen a gradual increase in average founder age over the past several years?
- 3pt14159 12y agoI can answer this one because I've been watching it from a unique perspective. Every year the median founder age tracks my age. Since I first started hearing about it in 2009 or 2010. This year they are 29.
- inverba 12y agoAs a long time reader, it seems like the content on Hacker News has been consistently trending towards "lighter" material (more articles about drugs, work flow, business concepts) and away from technical, actually "hacker" material. What are you thoughts on this trend? Is there anything we can (or should) do to prevent this forum from becoming reddit?
- mej10 12y agoHow do you factor in possible technological advancements that could render a company's business model obsolete? For example, if someone develops a distributed web-of-trust/payment platform, a lot of the value of Uber and Airbnb goes away. The basic model behind some of these sharing companies can be factored out into (network effects + domain knowledge + web of trust) = profitable monopoly. You can adjust how valuable you consider each of these, but to me it seems like most of the value isn't in the domain knowledge area. What if someone figures out a way to not have all of the value captured by a monolithic entity?
- ValentineC 12y agoDo you think knowing YC alumni gives some teams an advantage in the application process and interview?
- 32faction 12y agoI know there was one aerospace startup in W15 but are space startups out of YC's scope?
- Podgeypoos 12y agoDunno if this has been asked already, ever think about doing a yc in in Dublin, Ireland?
- sama 12y agoWe fund companies from all over the world. The sacrifice of moving for 3 months pales in comparison to other sacrifices you have to make to start a successful startup.
- freyr 12y agoYou have suggested that Silicon Valley is successful, in part, because workers accept a notion of "long-term compensation" [1]. Long-term compensation, perhaps better called maybe-someday compensation, requires SV software engineers to work for relatively less (factoring in cost-of-living) than many other skilled professionals, with hopes that they'll be rewarded with a big windfall in the future. With the rising cost of living in SF/SV, young engineers are expected to shoulder much the risk of startups while putting their long-term financial stability on the line. All in hopes of maybe-someday being compensated. And let's face it, the lion's share of these rewards will not be passed to these workers who put all their eggs in one basket, but to financially-secure VC's who have hedged their risk across many companies. If this is how SV works, do you truly believe this is a strong foundation for the industry? Obviously it's good for founders and VCs, but I'm considering the perspective of engineers. We seem to be enjoying go-go years of investment and profits, everyone is starry eyed, and the system is working. What happens when the present-day strain on workers exceeds the allure of maybe-someday compensation? Also, why shouldn't talented workers move to an industry that provides guaranteed compensation for hard work in real time? Of course, start-ups have a much different risk profile than banks, consulting agencies, large corporations, etc. And as a result, the long-term compensation model may be a necessity. But in the end, it sounds like SV works because there's a large supply of people willing to gamble on their future financial stability. [1] http://blog.samaltman.com/why-silicon-valley-works http://blog.samaltman.com/why-silicon-valley-works
- sama 12y agoIt's a personal choice for workers. If you're an engineer and you want a guaranteed $250k per year, go work for a financial firm. Nothing wrong with that decision. Everyone gets to make his or her own. Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. It is indeed "maybe-someday" competition. When you work at a startup, you're acting like an investor but investing your time instead of your money. If you choose well, the upside can be pretty crazy.
- latj 12y ago>Engineers at startups make $100k+, sometimes much more. I don't think people are being asked to subject themselves to unreasonable financial strain. Is $100k enough for a person to live without roommates within 20-30 minutes commute from said startup? Eat healthy food? Pay student loans? Have health insurance and build savings? I'm not from the Bay Area- this is a serious question.
- devy 12y agoHi Sam, you wrote a blog post about China last month. Do you see YC China in the plan in the near future?
- ValentineC 12y agoWhat are some of the best things that you've seen non-tech co-founders do during YC?
- Podgeypoos 12y agoDunno if you have been asked this already,apologies if it's a repeat, are you going to do a yc in Dublin, Ireland? You should we are awesome
- MChorfa 12y agoAre you already combined several startup's ideas into a one that has more potential to become a unicorn?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- haneefmubarak 12y agoHad you not been accepted into YC, what was your plan of action?
- sama 12y agoI was going to work on my startup either way. I had a plan B investor that would have been not nearly as good.
- sajjadk 12y agowhats better these days? Get to revenue faster or build something that more people can use and generate revenue later?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- suyash 12y agoHow can it be 2 different people, why don't you speak in 1st person and use 'I'?
- greedoshotlast 12y agoHonest question on how profitable Y Combinator really is. What is Y Combinator's average portfolio return before management fees and carry?
- sama 12y agoWe don't have outside investors, so there isn't fee or carry. Our returns are very good (triple digit IRR) but still mostly unrealized.
- greedoshotlast 12y agoThanks Sama. This is something I've always been curious since VCs are an investment structure and measuring performance is critical when selecting the right VC.
- danenania 12y agoOn evaluating applications: assuming you're looking at a solid team and a seemingly good idea, how much does having a working prototype and early traction help a startup's chances of getting into YC? Is there some level of traction that makes any application a shoo-in? Are there categories of startups that you won't even consider without demonstrated traction? On the flip side, what does it take to make you consider a team that has nothing built and no users yet?
- sama 12y agoA prototype helps a lot. Traction helps too, but we tried not to get fooled by graphs. In fact, I always ask the other interviewers "would we fund this company if they had no traction at all?" To fund a company with nothing built and no users, we have to believe 1) the idea is great and 2) the team is unstoppable.
- philippnagel 12y agoHi, thanks for doing this! Do you think VC money is viable option for long-term (e.g. 30 years) business models? What would be your advice (if Bootstrapping is not an option)?
- kzhahou 12y agoAn early stage startup will typically have the great majority of ownership in the hands of investors and 2-3 founders, with maybe 10% allocated to engineers at 1% max for any individual engineer. Do you see this ever changing where engineer #1-5, for example, wouldn't have a 1-to-20 or even 1-to-70 equity imbalance with the founders?
- lettergram 12y agoI think most of the YC funded startups have good ideas, but some of the more recent batches (past three years) seem to have a much smaller market than the earlier batches. Has there been a conscious decision to move to more niche markets, or has that just been where the chips fell? Also, why has the average age of the founders YC funded slowly been rising?
- sama 12y agoIdeas look niche when the companies are starting out. As Peter Thiel says, you first want to dominate a small market. Most great companies were derided for focusing on a small niche when they first started. I think the average age has risen something like 3 years over the past 10 years. Part of it is that we're funding companies in other spaces. I bet the average age for founders of Internet/mobile startups hasn't moved much.
- redshirtrob 12y agoHi Sam, Does YC take any position on founders in a long-term, personal relationship, e.g. married? Has YC funded companies with such founders? If so, can you say anything meaningful about these company's success or failure? Note: I'm specifically thinking of companies with two founders.
- kirsty 12y agoWe have funded many companies where cofounders are married or cofounders are dating. The fact that they are married / dating doesn't generally impact our decision. The same things apply that we look for in any founding team - ability to get stuff done, determination, drive....
- vqc 12y agoAny data on whether founders with this type of relationship have a lower, the same, or higher probability of having founder disputes that destroy the company?
- DeanTheHacker 12y agoHi Sam. If the company applies for the second time with some progress made, is it treated differently, like "Ahhh... the same guys. Let's see what they have done since last time"? Does it matter at all?
- sama 12y agoYes. If you reapply with the same idea, the first thing we look at is progress since last time.
- DeanTheHacker 12y agoFollow up question then. Last time we were applying with no product and no customers. Now we have product and customers (even some YC partners and many of alumni). I heard that YC alumni can vote up on the application of the startup they believe in. Is that true? I guess it might help:)
- spoiledtechie 12y agoI can't give up my current life to run a startup that I have to move away from family for 3 months for YC. I have always wanted to do YC, but just can't family wise. Is there any chance YC is looking to invest in companies adhoc wise? I know and understand you sell the process. Thats what YC is all about, but the simple fact that Im in VA and your in Cali makes things soo much harder.
- lsllc 12y agoThere's a well known theory that non-competes stifles innovation and in particular CA's ban on these has allowed SV to flourish. There have been moves afoot in MA to enact a similar ban, although recently it seems to have been somewhat defanged through lobbying by the likes EMC (despite still being protected by copyright, trade secrets and patents!). What are your thoughts on this; if MA is able to pass a ban on non-competed of any substance, how do you think it'll change the startup/VC scene in Boston.
- sama 12y agoI think it'd be good to do this, but that the startup scene is really broken in Boston for many other reasons. I'm not very optimistic this would be enough to fix it.
- lsllc 12y agoDo you have time to elaborate?
- tashmahalic 12y agoHow else is the startup scene broken in Boston?
- shrig94 12y agoBoston's startup scene is dominated by MBAs who think hackers are cogs you put red bull in to get code out and technical cofounders are only worth 5% of the company. I think YC actually has done a lot to change this in the last few years as someone who interacts with the scene often, though these MBAs will never go away.
- lsllc 12y agoSounds like my job! I'd love to see more YC activity back in their home town to try to fix this. However, the YC programs seem to have a tremendous amount of inertia so it's hard to see how they could run a program similarly-successful on the east coast despite starting out here.
- josu 12y agoHello Sam, Any plans to open up a YC hub in Mexico. The startup scene is in an infant stage but it seems to be growing very fast. 500 startup is already funding companies here[1]. Thank you! [1] http://500mexicocity.com/ http://500mexicocity.com/
- sama 12y agoNo--but we are delighted when founders come here, learn and make connection in SV, and then go back to their home country!
- cvander 12y agoSilicon Valley is very open to risk-taking Mexicans willing to do the program in Mountain View.
- josu 12y agoHow about risk-taking Spaniards currently living in Mexico? ;) I am building a startup that will cater to the Latin American countries, and while I would love to move to the SF area, I think that it would hurt my business, since currently I have no interest in the American market.
- demirb 12y agoMost people fund ideas, some fund founders. What do you think about funding dreams?
- sama 12y agoIsn't that what ideas are?
- mej10 12y agoWhat are your thoughts on drug use among the entrepreneur/tech communities? Specifically modafinil, amphetamines, psychedelics.
- sama 12y agoThe only one of those (not counting caffeine) I've tried is modafinil. The side effects are weird, but man do you get a productivity boost. Personally, I'm scared to screw with my brain chemistry too much and am supersensitive to psychoactive drugs of any sort.
- FlyingLawnmower 12y agoWould you or any other YC partners consider making a trip out to Georgia Tech to give a talk? We don't get too much love being in the south east, but there are many hundreds of talented engineering students here that would benefit greatly from hearing about YC and the startup world in general.
- CardenB 12y agoYes! Please! Georgia Tech is a fantastic, underrated school with extremely hardworking, determined students.
- ajani 12y agoYC has been branching out with it's investments with companies in areas like charities and biotech. But it's as of now a small percentage. I understand predicting anything into the future is mostly an exercise in failure, but what do you think YC's mix of portfolio will be like in 20 - 30 years?
- swampthinker 12y agoHi Sam, I'm currently a highschool junior and the co - founder of EnerScore. I'm aware that YC has a semi-preference for younger founders as you said so yourself, but I wanted to know how YC might view me being this young. Will it count against me in my application, or is YC more focused on the product itself?
- sama 12y agoThe only hard disqualifier is if no founders are 18 or older, because you can't sign contracts in that case. I generally do not think it's a good life decision to start a company when you're 16 or 17, and I'd suggest waiting a couple of years.
- dean 12y agoHave you ever considered funding enough to attract people who have financial obligations, such as kids, a spouse and a mortgage? It seems like a huge, untapped, resource that no one else is going after.
- sama 12y agoPeople in that situation usually save up money before applying to YC. I think this is the right answer--it seems important to startup's health that they get started on little capital.
- matheweis 12y agoSpeaking as one of those people, it's not just the financial obligations. In fact I think the financial obligations are a relatively small part of it; it just means a higher burn rate, which isn't a tremendous problem in the scope of these things. The much bigger problems are the conflict of time spent on family vs the startup, and/or in many cases the desire to have a stable environment for the family. The time can be managed for people who have a lot of energy and are equally passionate about their startup and families. I've seen it work out... but I've also seen it tear others to pieces when they didn't get the balance just right. I'm not suggesting that burn rates and starting on small amounts of capital aren't important, just that it's a small problem relative to the time commitments.
- matheweis 12y agoBTW, here's a great post from someone who did get the balance right: http://tiempoapp.com/y-combinator-a-two-year-old-and-a-pregnant-wife http://tiempoapp.com/y-combinator-a-two-year-old-and-a-pregn...
- lquist 12y agoWe are a bootstrapped ~2.5yr old company that is doing $5M in Revenue and ~$2M in PBT. We have fallen into a bit of a funk in the past 6-12M or so growth-wise and basically flat-lined. We are talking to a few funds to raise a ~$10M round (mostly secondary) to bring the PBT down to 0 and really swing for the fences. We've thought about applying to YC but the 7% seems high for us at this stage. Is YC interested in co-investing the standard YC amount in such a round at the market valuation instead of standard YC valuation?
- sama 12y agoUnfortunately we don't do that--it just doesn't fit our model. Plenty of companies have done YC at a later stage and still thought we increased their value far more than the 7% we take, though.
- myblake 12y agoI'd be more concerned with whether YC would invest in a company whose growth had flatlined: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html, with that said if you're making that much revenue I think there's likely other good options for you. Best of luck!
- arfliw 12y agosama said they don't do that but they actually did do exactly that with Quora. I guess they made an exception.
- upquark 12y agoPossibly naive question: I'm a married guy in his 30s working at a major investment bank in NYC (lead quantitative role). I have a graduate degree from a non-elite school. No experience at top tech firms (had offers but didn't go). Now, I have some cool side projects that I believe could become great consumer apps given enough care and resources. Is there any reason for me to apply to YC, and any chance of getting seed funding from you, or am I completely out of your profile for typical candidates / startups?
- sama 12y agoWe have funded lots of people with similar backgrounds. What will matter is the quality of your idea and progress so far.
- nwenzel 12y agoI'm mid-30s. Dangerously close to upper-30s. Married. Two kids. Non-elite school. No graduate degree. I was in the YC Summer 2013 batch. I wasn't an outlier. The one thing all YC founders have in common is that we are all incredibly determined. Creating a company is easier than ever but still basically impossible.
- vh 12y agoHey Sam, What would you recommend to entrepreneurs from post-Soviet states and the 3rd world, where they have almost no VCs and limited access to global resources. Should they think big and target the global market or just copy the ideas that work in the US for the local market?
- MChorfa 12y agoDo you accept some teams without a business model?
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- brunobarcelos 12y agoWhat are the differences in YC (good and bad) between the most recent batch and the batch you got in YC?
- thescorer 12y agoWhen you held Startup class in NYC. You brought up a few founders who were invested in... and what struck me was that each of them had previous relationships to their investors. For example I heard at least twice from an investor: "I've known john for years prior to him coming to me with [insert company name here]." So my question is, do you think there exists a "good ol boy's club" in SV that increases the chances by a great deal of getting funded? Or do you believe the playing field is even for those who don't have those kind of connections?
- sama 12y agoFor sure it helps to get to know investors over long periods of time. However, the investors that invested in my company knew me for 45 minutes (YC), a few weeks (Sequoia), and a few months (NEA). It's important as a founder not to make excuses for yourself. Sure, it's easier to get money if you've known investors for a long time, but it's certainly possible to get it without knowing them for awhile. In YC's specific case, we don't know the great majority of the people we fund at all.
- woebtz 12y agoThanks, Sam! Q: I was curious what types of tools or applications YC uses to operate (manage applications, track feedback, or schedule meetings, etc.)? Can you share your stack?
- sama 12y agoWe build our own tools mostly.
- jammess 12y agoHi Sam, what is a good growth / revenue / number of users to have before applying to YC? We are in a private beta for a kind of social network, 1 month with ~700 users and ~10% weekly growth, is it good or should we wait? We are also starting in another country (not in the US) because all our contacts are here
- TheDong 12y agoDoes YC consider the potential of bad press to itself when funding a company? If a founder were to apply with a startup such as Bad Dragon (dildo manufacturer), abortion clinic-specific software platform, wikileaks-esque platform, or any other such controversial idea, would it reduce the founder's chance of being accepted? Are there any startups that have been funded by YC that led to publicity fallout?
- userium 12y agoWhen should a startup start to monetize? Currently we are building a user base and iterating the product based on feedback. What do you think about delaying monetization?
- sama 12y agoTotally depends on the startups. In general it's good to monetize early, but there are very important exceptions. This is the sort of thing we have to give individualized advice about to every YC company.
- matt_morgan 12y agoSam, I know you guys support nonprofit startups. But do you donate? Does YCombinator have a program for supporting nonprofits by the traditional means (ie giving them money), or is that something you do as individuals only, not as a company?
- Tarrosion 12y agoI'm a PhD student in operations research interesting in working for a company addressing a global problem via an approach with low probability of success but high expected value. Think Helion, Ambri, Firefly (the rockets), Planetary Resources, Immunity Project, etc. The thought being any one of these companies will likely fail, but if 5% of them succeed, that's hugely beneficial for society. What advice can you give?
- Udo 12y agoWould you consider funding a startup with an open source product/idea? If so, under what circumstances (if that's even answerable)?
- flipside 12y agoI haven't had much luck finding the right cofounder despite meeting thousands of people over the past few years so clearly there's a problem. A few months ago I decided that the problem was probably me since I'm far from perfect so I've been spending considerable time on self improvement by working to define and embody our vision, mission and culture (while continuing to hammer away on product). Is quality the right thing to focus on at this stage or should I just play the numbers game?
- JesseAldridge 12y agoHey Mat. We met a few months ago (through Weave). I thought you seemed like a decent guy. IIRC, the main problem I saw was that you seemed strongly committed to an idea that I didn't find very interesting. I meant to follow up with you, but more promising leads took priority and I never found the time. Just FYI. We should meet again sometime. Send me an email?
- bbayer 12y agoHi Sam, How does YC look to foreign applications? Do you have any plan to make improvements for participation of foreigners like visa support, logistics etc.
- sama 12y agoWe help with visas. But part of being a founder is figuring out how to overcome obstacles by yourself.
- CzechsMix 12y agoHey Sam, I'm getting married in July, If I were accepted into YC, is there anything like deferring Enrollment?
- sama 12y agoWe've done it once or twice, but why not just apply for the next batch?
- CzechsMix 12y agoNo reason really. That's currently our intent. Thanks for the reply!
- quantumtheory01 12y agoOr why not just delay your marriage?
- rcconf 12y agoThe tech around banking seems to move really slow. For example, just grabbing your financial data from your bank is really hard right now. Do you have a lot of applicants trying to fix problems in the financial sector?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ROFISH 12y agoWhich do you prefer most in an application: What the app currently does (or will do in three months)? What the future app might look like in five years? And/or: how it will get there?
- sama 12y agoBoth. Clearly explain what you do right now, and where you want to be in five years.
- rl3 12y agoDo you think that YC's batch model will one day be eschewed in favor of something more seamless and less dependent on timing? One could argue that, for certain startups, the optimal play right now is to launch just prior to submitting a YC application. It takes advantage of the high traction surrounding launch, and avoids applying in the midst of a typical post-launch slump, if timed correctly.
- sama 12y agoWe might do something like rolling admissions, but the advantage of the batch model are huge. It's so helpful to the startups to be around other startups at roughly the same stage.
- zuck9 12y agoWhat do advise a jack-of-all-trades dev who can create pro grade apps and doesn't have a job?
- D_Segundo 12y agoHi Sam, My cofounder and I are applying to YC Summer 2015. We're both juniors in high school - I'm 16 and he's 17. We're hungry to learn and execute and are both technical, but dont quite have the skillset needed to fully implement our idea(although we're learning more every day) like many technical groups that apply to YC. Will this small hurdle prevent us from being considered to YC?
- zuck9 12y agoWhere do you see tech in the next decade?
- Gozu 12y agoHey Sam, I'm working on this idea on my free time but for now it's in an early stage. We believe strongly in it but we don't have yet a ready prototype which means we don't have any structure, users, revenue, etc.. I'm wondering if YCombinator's goal is to encourage people from initial concept or help existent startups to grow and go further ? Knowing our story, do you honestly think we have a chance at this time to be selected by YCombinator ? Thanks.
- sama 12y agoWhy don't you have a prototype? That'll be an important question. That said, we make most of our money backing companies at the "initial concept" stage, so we'd love to hear from you.
- Gozu 12y agoWe're working on a prototype but it takes time and having a full-time job limits our commitment and progress. It's good to know because being funded will literally help to be focused on this idea.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- vagab0ndk1ng 12y agoI applied to YC for the next batch as a response to one of your RFS. I would probably not have applied at this very early stage if you had not listed a similar idea in your RFS. If you believe in the idea but it's still pre-product, are you more likely to give a team a shot at building it at YC?
- fragmede 12y agoReddit is well on it's way to becoming a dominant monopoly on the web, however there's a (subtle but important) difference between being a platform for free speech, and promoting hate speech. If there are a billion users, but they're horrible people (eg /r/coontown), is that something you will look back on and consider as having been worthwhile?
- jsmthrowaway 12y agoAs a five-year Redditor, this is an awesome question, but I have two potential ways to better ask it: 1. I wouldn't ask about a billion horrible people. Don't forget that the user number reflects logged-out consumers, and Reddit is still limited to far fewer participants. The demographics of people that choose to make an account and participate are very likely strongly disconnected from the circumstances required to make Reddit a billion-eyeball property. Maybe a better question would be "what can Reddit do to appeal to participation from non-teenaged and non-twentysomething white males who think /r/spacedicks is funny?" 2. I wouldn't ask about his perspective on things like coontown from the perspective of an investment, I'd ask him his thoughts on controversial speech on Reddit in general, as well as Reddit's responsibilities to act in the service of protecting free speech. /r/coontown is only the latest. Don't forget there was /r/jailbait before it and the banning of all Zoe Quinn discussion and subreddits, as well as vast numbers of communities that you and I both will not mention that are even worse than those already named. (Warning to those unfamiliar with Reddit: please do not investigate things like spacedicks or coontown if you are sensitive.)
- dropit_sphere 12y agoThis is what this account is for, after all, so: I am a regular poster on r/theredpill(which was recently "honored" by winning the bigotry category---but with low toxicity---in a recent sentiment analysis of reddit comments). There is a lot of what someone might call "hate speech." Some of that doesn't really deserve the title and is just "truths that polite society omits;" some reflects genuine, generalized anger against women. The subreddit has grown like a rocket. There are multiple backup plans for where to move the community in case the subreddit gets shut down. In short: there is something there that draws people, for better or for worse. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, etc.
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- jamespitts 12y agoCould you elaborate on what external factors and/or internal improvements are driving you and the team to again develop a larger number of companies per YC batch? Is the scale-up going well? Background: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/05/05/y-combinator-ready-to-accept-more-startups-into-program-again/ http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/05/05/y-combinator-... Thanks!
- sama 12y agoThere are just so many good companies applying. As long as we can keep upping the quality bar, I'm happy for us to fund more companies. I think there is good chance that there are more than 1 billion-plus dollar companies in the current batch. YC is fundamentally a network, and so the value goes up O(n^2) with the number of good companies.
- jamespitts 12y agoThat is good to hear! Your last point resonates with me. The YC classes create subnetworks with a strong sense of identity within the greater YC network. It reminds me of how interns/trainees bond into these clusters in various industries (Hollywood's talent agencies and Wall Street for example). The trust and sharing of experience helps participants function far more effectively.
- scottmwinters 12y agoHow much do you think moving to the valley improves the odds of a startups success as opposed to another city, say Atlanta or Raleigh on the east coast?
- sama 12y agoAt least 10x.
- mpdehaan2 12y agoAnd it's misguided, unfortunately. Companies go to the west cost because investors want them to (which is somewhat one of the same types of problems as tech culture diversity), and you're failing to tap some MAJOR tech centers. It also massively increases costs of living, and reduces diversity of ideas. SF talent is on the same level of experience and variability, though if anything it's easier for people to job hop. But what it really does is fail to capitilize on the assets of an entire nation (or nations, in the case where people from other countries think they also need to move).
- fieldforceapp 12y agoThanks for the AMA. You haven't answered the hardware related questions in this thread yet, so I'll try: do you think you'll see the day when YC funds a hardware startup that develops custom ASICs or semi IP for licensing? If so, what type of startup would be a good fit for YC?
- sama 12y agoI predict that will happen in the non-distant future.
- fieldforceapp 12y agoThanks for the AMA. You haven't answered the hardware related questions in this thread yet, so I'll try: do you think you'll see the day when YC funds a hardware startup that develops custom ASICs or semi IP for licensing? If so, what type of startup would be a good fit for YC?
- Di43 12y agoHi Sam, I am just about to send my application for the summer batch, but before I do I would like to know your opinion on founders who are not both sharing a programming background, especially considering that we are in the sketching stage? Also, do you think there is any chance to compete against other startups that already do have an established product?
- slaxman 12y agowhat is the kind of traction that you look for in companies that you fund? Is it an absolute number or a consistent week on week growth for a few months in a row?
- chiddysk 12y agoWith everything said about the 'economies of scale' of launching startups in Silicon Valley, would do you think of startups in English-speaking developing countries? What are your thoughts on monetization(70%+ don't have bank accounts), market size(most use dumb phones) and relevance(i.e. Another whatsapp/facebook/airbnb? what for?)?
- robot 12y agoIs it common that you fund startups with big/growing competitors?
- sama 12y agoAll the time.
- revorad 12y agoDo you disagree with Peter Thiel on competition?
- ferrari8608 12y agoWhat about two or more startups that are competing with each other?
- troycarlson 12y agoHow frequently do YC companies pivot based on feedback/inspiration/etc. from the program and how does that affect your view of the founder/team?
- andrewlynch 12y agoWhat did you eat for Breakfast?
- choppaface 12y agoWhere do you see YC in 5 years? in 10 years? Some say "the best product always wins." Can you give an anecdote where perhaps the best product did NOT win? Do you still advocate 10/20/30/40 grants? Quora participated in YC and this was very unusual. When can we expect to see something posted about how this went?
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- MichaelGG 12y agoIf someone has an idea or seed of a company, but is only aiming for a mid-high 8 figures as a reasonable exit, would YC consider funding them? Or must it be a shoot-the-moon endeavor? I've written a prototype in use at a large company, and recently found that Oracle acquired a less-performing competitor (yet in market, so not not bad!) product for $20M. I'm working on my idea anyways, just wondering if YC and the like are a complete waste of time for me. I've got a verbal commit on $120K annual revenue already, but having seed money to focus full time to launch is appealing.
- VaedaStrike 12y agoI get the feeling that the clarity of the idea and outward, ease of discerning progress are the principle criteria used to distinguish the promise of the team and idea. In the case of progress, especially early progress, being full of'black triangles', accomplishments mostly only appreciated by those in the know, is there much effort put into trying to see that? Or do you more stick to the clearly understandable progress?
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- amerf1 12y agoWas there any instance where you based your judgement to fund a startup based on gut feeling (due to great founders or whatever...)? I understand most applicants are great so it might be difficult to differentiate
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- e_alexandrian 12y agoHi @sama, Seeing the recent developments in driverless car, do you think human driving startups (ours is making money while making roads safer) are not interesting for the long term even if worldwide users adopt it today (96 countries after a Buzzfeed article only)? Thanks. Eduard.
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- arasmussen 12y agoHow hard is it to become a YC partner?
- niche 12y agoSolo founder, rebel, lots of startup ideas, 0 startups (a "tutoring business"), flailing in corporate America, effortlessly producing psuedo brilliance...is YC4me? Can I apply on a really nice concept? Or a set of concepts? Like Elon's 3...ya kno?
- swasheck 12y ago> anything else i know i'm late to the party, but it just seems like place like HN, with a group of people who so vociferously speak in favor of online privacy and person data ownership, would have no methods of completely removing one's identity/posts to the site. could you please address what appears to be a discrepancy between HN's policy and the audience?
- baristaGeek 12y agoIn case we apply to YC and don't get in, the best option is to work on the startup anyway. Would you recommend bootstrapping until we get in? Or a specific group of less prestigious accelerators? Do you consider other accelerators in general a "break pedal" because they give wrong advice? Or because there's less equity to supply a potential exit in the future?
- MichielNL 12y agoDo you emulate the petrichor smell, and if so, how? THX!
- vit05 12y agoYou talked about the "two founders." How do you think is the best way to present an idea to someone else for her to help? Many people reject the powerpoint. I decided to make a landing page. If anyone is interested I send a greater amount of information in a PDF, while working on a prototype. Do you have a better suggestion than this? tks
- vit05 12y agoYou talked about the "two founders." How do you think is the best way to present an idea to someone else for her to help? Many people reject the powerpoint. I decided to make a landing page. If anyone is interested I send a greater amount of information in a PDF, while working on a prototype. Do you have a better suggestion than this? tks
- neurotech1 12y agoSam: Would you consider funding an aerospace startup? Avionics is one area that could do with some "disruption" - especially on the lower end of the market.
- kendallpark 12y agoI was wondering if YC would consider working with a startup that is essentially owned by a medical school as opposed to the founders. Scenario: I will be attending medical school next fall (this is after three years industry programming). One of the surgeons I plan to work with during med school has a for-profit medical technology project still at the seed stage. He is currently seeking venture capital investors.
- padho 12y agoI'm a master CS student and start up "enthusiast" from Munich, Germany. How do I get an internship @ YC ?
- FiatLuxDave 12y agoThere are a number of questions on here about remote/non-US/non-SV startups, and whether there is any place in YC for these. Based upon my experience in the 90s running a DFJ funded startup which was located in Florida, I completely understand why YC would not want to try to do startup advising non-locally. Some things are hard enough to explain or understand even when you are there in person. That said, YC also has the HN community, which includes many non-local founders and potential founders. For many of these founders, the YC value proposition may not meet their needs. This might be because of YC requirements (3 months, $/equity ratio) or because of Silicon Valley issues (I hear the rent may be too high). Either way, YC has an audience of potential founders which its primary product is currently not addressing. Although YC is not lacking for applications, there seems to also be a case of unmet demand here. Do you have any prospective plans which would interest the non-SV HNer? HN is a network that seems to have some value to those of us in the hinterland, but perhaps this network of people could offer value back to YC as more than just interlocutors?
- ytzvan 12y agoHi Sam, I've been working in my Startup since December, with my co-founder and even we win a local entrepreneurship contest about ideas and innovation. We're very confident about our idea and we have a working prototype, but, we're in the travel industry and we aren't generating any revenue yet, should we apply to Y Combinator? Even if we aren't generating any bucks?
- encontreumnerd 12y agoHi Sam, I have a startup in Brazil which is a marketplace for technical assistance. Within 5 months we have over 2k geeks (in 102 cities) and over 200 clients and we're only on MVP. Unfurtunately I cannot find my aquisition channel (also I'm not sure about the profile of my clients since they are very random). All the investors say's they'll invest only when we find this acquisition channel. Would you recommend me any cheap way to test my channels? We're running out of cash (which we have almost 0). Thanks in advance
- new2 12y agoWhat do you look for in hardware companies ? How do you evaluate founders and ideas ?
- hbbio 12y agoDo you think that startup ideas, in their general concept, can be confidential? Or do you think instead that a global idea, without hard details, and most importantly before the hard work of execution is never confidential?
- rdass1 12y agoWhat is the percentage of applications you accept that are not from the U.S.
- rdass1 12y agoHi Sam how many start-ups do you accept on average outside the U.S
- ioncereadknuth 12y agodo you like green eggs and ham?
- tima101 12y ago2 questions. 1) how many founders with PhD degree YC has funded so far? 2) Are you looking for partners with life science background?
- awesome456 12y agocheck me out on instagram my name is awesomearmyman
- awesome456 12y agocheck me out on instagram my name is awesomearmyman
- pariya 12y agoSO MAD I MISSED THIS!!!
- Oldmonkk 12y ago@SAM : Whats most excites you in startup (1) Team (2) Team from Harvard/Stanford/MIT (3) Idea (4) Idea with quick revenue model (5) Good idea with Avg team
- alexkavon 12y agoY Combinator? Why not Altmanator?
- FaisalRashid 12y agoDo you accept applications from Pakistan?
- ahaseeb 12y agoJust pointing you to @sama response. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9239370 I am from Pakistan and was funded by YC. I know at least 6 people in current batch who are from Pakistan however we were not running our startups from Pakistan. I have seen startups from multiple regions.Being from PK obviously reduces your chances because of the small market size if you are focused locally. In addition, VC like to invest in bigger economies and a startup close to them. Exceptions already exist. Summary: If you are from PK, be extremely good
- Rainymood 12y agoI haven't seen this comment yet. Thank you for answering our questions. I have read through all of them! Thanks Sam :)
- arsalanb 12y ago"Harsh conditions make the best soldiers". How true is this when this comes to startups? I mean, living in a country with a dead/non-existing startup scene. Bogged down by stupid irrelevant problems like lack of internet access, etc. Can a startup kick off in these conditions? (obviously moving to a better place after initial traction) or does it HAVE to take birth in a thriving startup hub?
- arsalanb 12y ago"Harsh conditions make the best soldiers". How true is this when this comes to startups? I mean, living in a country with a dead/non-existing startup scene. Bogged down by stupid irrelevant problems like lack of internet access, etc. Can a startup kick off in these conditions? (obviously moving to a better place after initial traction) or does it HAVE to take birth in a thriving startup hub?
- sandGorgon 12y agowhat is your position on non-US focused startups. We are applying based on an article on Techinasia about YC warming up to Asia focused startups as well. We have applied to other accelerators in the US and made it all the way before being told "oh hey.. non US focus".
- igauravsehrawat 12y agoTip: if you can't track each question and reply. Ctrl+ f in browser type "sama" and keep hitting enter.
- rsunder 12y agoWe are a startup from Asia and what prerequisites we need to fulfill to get a chance in YC?
- devilddd 12y agoHow I become a hacker
- thanesh 12y agoWhat is required to apply? Do you look for a prototype? Do you look at user growth rate over the past few months? How do you decide if an idea is really good?
- sunilayyaps 12y agoWhat according to you is most important thing for a startup to get selected in YC? The idea, team or the market opportunity.