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Ask YC: Did you apply to the Summer YC session?

18 points by hooande ↗ HN
Did you apply to the Summer YC session? If so, with what business/idea? Feel free to use general terms if your company is still in "stealth mode"

Tomorrow is the day, good luck to everyone!

39 comments

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pius
Nope, but good luck to those who did!
zapnap
Yes, and best of luck to everyone. Remember, if you have a great idea that you're passionate about, don't let not being selected deter you from working on it!
peternicholls
How many startups are applying for YC these days?
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izaidi
I did. My thing is Streem: http://streem.us

I'm pretty confident in the idea but from what I know about YC I can see a few reasons why they'd be reluctant to select me -- I'm the sole founder, I'm more of a designer than a coder, and the amount of work I've done already makes it unclear what I need another three months to accomplish. I had a lot of fun filling out the application though.

hooande
I checked out Streem, I like the design style. I think your home page is great, but then again I am partial to highlighting =)

Have you thought about a browser button or bookmarklet?

izaidi
Glad you like the design. Yeah, bookmarklets are a popular request. A few other missing features are more important right now (post editing, account deletion), but it's definitely on the list.

Awesome Highlighter is a cool idea.

lhenriquez
@izaidi:

We should talk. I'm more of a developer than a designer, with a little marketing mixed in. A recent project is www.searchartgalleries.com

I'm working on an idea that has some commonality with streem. I was wondering if you'd like to talk to see if we could combine forces. Email logan \@\ henriquez.net

mikeryan
WTF does your site do?
izaidi
It's a new microblogging/lifestreaming service. Competitor to Tumblr, Pownce, FriendFeed, Jaiku, etc. I thought the existing tools were all deficient in certain crucial ways so I made one I'd actually want to use myself.
PeterOliver
Have you thought over if you want to build it into a system with any community aspects? I'm working on something that has very similar base level functions.
izaidi
I think it has a strong community aspect already -- that's part of the point of it, to draw microblogging into this emerging "campfire" style of social networking. You don't really get a sense of it until you have a real social circle on it, though; currently it's not super easy to add friends or import lots of friends at once, so your crowdspace isn't immediately useful. The global "universe" feed is kind of cool but not everyone wants to talk to strangers. I'm going to work on making it easier to bring in friends.

I'd like to hear more about what you're working on.

iamwil
I took a look around, and despite you saying you're more of a designer than coder, it works pretty well for what you have to do.

Less words on front page might help. I was curious about how you were going to have a different style of conversation, but after looking around for a bit, it seems like, as you said, a tumblelog and friend feed.

As an aside, I liked the parens in the menus, as it gives it a different look.

kuldeep_kap
Hey its cool! I liked it. The design is also clean and usability is awesome. Keep it up bro!
fallentimes
We did and we'll be pursuing it regardless of whether or not we get accepted in to YC. Although, like everyone else, we'd prefer to get accepted.
attack
Yes, music.

If not accepted, will pursue ninja assassin career.

hooande
Hmm...maybe you should have applied with "ninja assassin" as your idea. I bet pg would sponsor your ninja training if you gave him 2%-10% of the money you made from assassinations.
lux
We applied with what we think is a pretty big idea related to learning. We've been working on it since last Sept and we can probably launch an initial version around the start of the YC summer session. Our initial launch won't contain the big ideas yet though (we're hoping YC wants to join forces on those :).

Just showed it off today to a guy that runs a local new media group and he was totally floored. That made us feel pretty good, although we're still so nervous to find out about YC tomorrow! Good luck everyone!

ericb
Does anyone know if the emails go out one-by-one, or en masse or what the usual is? I'd like to minimize the scope of the checking-email distraction tomorrow.

Good luck to all!

nextmoveone
I'm pretty sure they all go out at once, at night, like around 9-11pm.
craig-faber
Yes. I've got a really stupid marketing idea for FOSS. My really stupid marketing idea is to actually do some.

I've got a lot of strikes against me. I'm a single founder of a company that needs three partners, with different areas of expertise, to be viable, and I'm not a programmer. Nevertheless, whatever I hear from YC, I'll be appealing for partners in a few days.

xenoterracide
you shouldn't apply with stupid ideas. One startup article I read said paraphrased. that YOU must believe that your idea is a good one. If you don't believe it then how will you convince others.

That being said most stupid ideas are good ones.

You sound in somewhat of the same position I am. I'm looking for co-founders but haven't found anyone worth my time. It's a good thing I didn't offer it to the couple I was thinking of, he turned up dead today :( he was my friend. sigh alright moving on.

If I don't win this round I'll apply again for the next.

I'd just like to hear (even if I don't make the cut) what they thought of my ideas. you know basically, you didn't make the cut because 'x'. Because I'd fix 'x' next time, I was on short notice this time.

craig-faber
I was being facetious about "stupid." I meant that it's really obvious and that it's stupid that no-one else is doing it.

I don't think that most stupid ideas are good ones. I do think some good ideas can seem stupid, that is, incredibly obvious, later, after someone's thought of it.

Sorry about your friend. That ain't easy.

xenoterracide
facetiousness like sarcasm can be hard to see on the net.

well perhaps I phrased the 'most stupid ideas are good ones' wrong. On the other hand it more likely depends on who is calling it stupid. The average person thinks computers are stupid, the funny thing, is they have no idea how right they are. I think myspace is stupid... (not the concept just the implementation). So by that logic stupid is good ;)

thanks.

dlytle
My partner and I submitted a "life management" app, but also touched on a learning aid in the "other projects" section. Unfortunately, my partner was out of town during most of the development of our demo, and I'm not very satisfied with what I had together come submission time. What I'm happy about is that I feel the work making the demo was a growth experience. (An entertaining one, as a bonus!)

Of course, we're still going to work on it, regardless of whether or not we get accepted. I'm going to start actively using it for its intended purpose within a week, which should be really informative.

Also, good luck with your businesses, to everyone who applied! Whether we succeed or fail, we'll all grow from the experience in one way or another.

aykall
Yes I did and I'm sure I have a great opportunity in my hands but I also have some difficulties to face. I had a co-founder which was the coder and unfortunately he had to drop off the idea because personal reasons. We were working in a online investment social network which I'm pretty sure is great but now I can see some reasons to not be selected. I can do really little coding and I'm a sole founder right now. Let's see what is going to happen.
symbiotic
Have you checked out socialpicks.com? Sounds kinda like what your doing. I know about it because I was working on a similar idea that never took off a few years ago. Gotta be aware of the competition :)
aykall
Yeah, like socialpicks there are many others but my idea is not about stocks. It is another type of investment.
dlytle
Got a question for any of the YC participants or partners... in the past, what percentage of YC applicants have gone on to the interview stage? According to the comments there were over 500 applicants, and the end result is around 20 groups.. I'm curious as to what the middle ground tends to look like.
rantfoil
Me and some friends of mine applied for Summer YC too, a few new ideas around online publishing.

Good luck all!

Regarding the number accepted vs interviewed, excerpted from Matt Maroon's awesome post: "[From the interview they] just kept all of the ones they liked last time. I think it was 19 out of 54, but I could wrong there. so you might think you only have roughly a 1 in 3 shot. But if they keep everyone they like, and they like you, then you have a 100% shot. So just go make them like you. Like most investors, they want to."

Full link to the article (great read, recommended) http://mattmaroon.com/?p=247

izaidi
Thanks for posting Matt's article, it's great. Good luck tomorrow.
hendler
Yup. Applied. Good luck everyone! Hope to see you in Cali!

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