For the sake of argument, suppose this is right after the 1st summer founders program or right after the talk you gave at Harvard, whichever is more interesting.
To be clear, I didn't mean to sneak in illegally. I meant that smart startups who really want to get in YC don't just write an application. They find people in (other startups in YC, mentors, investors) and network their way in. Obviously, if the startup is dumb or the application is really bad, it won't work.
Lots of current startups in YC are founded by first-employee of previous YC startups. Most YC founders I talked too knew people there before sending the application.
PG said that some startups joined YC with only the application. I trust him! But that doesn't mean that lots of others didn't networked hard. If you have a) A good application b) A good application + a previous positve experience talking with the team, who would you pick?
I know that PG himself has said himself that people they know have an advantage. In fact, that was a major reason to start Hacker News - so they'd be able to recognise people who often leave great comments.
Be careful, though. For every legitimately good startup that gets to know the YC partners through other channels, there are 1,000 founders who just look desperate.
You only have so much time. Building a great company is the most effective way to get into YC.
Apologies in advance to Sam Altman—I know writing HN comments is not work. But I had fun answering! Back to the code.
_____________________________________________________________
Tell us in one or two sentences something about each founder that shows he or she is an "animal," in the sense described in How to Start a Startup.
Paul and Robert built the first SaaS company, Viaweb, which allowed users to build their own stores on the web. It became Yahoo Stores after its acquisition.
Jessica is an excellent writer, marketing whiz and is already working on the idea for our second major product—a one-day version of our summer program in which a number of successful founders give talks to prospective hacker-founders. We think this will inspire even more of the kind of companies we like to invest in.
Trevor built a robot that duplicated the Segway’s functionality in a weekend using off-the-shelf parts.
Tell us in one or two sentences something about each founder that shows a high level of ability.
Trevor is working on the first self-balancing bipedal robot. It’s almost ready.
Robert discovered buffer overflow, which helped bring the internet into the mainstream press.
Jessica managed a highly successful rebranding of the investment bank Adams Harkness as VP of marketing.
Paul is the author of On Lisp (1993) and ANSI Common Lisp (1995). (Have you ever tried programming in Lisp?)
For founders who are hackers: what cool things have you built?
(Extra points for urls of demos or screenshots.)
How long have you known one another and how did you meet?
Several years, mostly at school. [Ed. note: ???]
What is your company going to make?
A “summer school” for young, inexperienced hackers that are interested in starting a company but lack early-stage funding.
The founders will meet with us once a week for dinner, during which a speaker from the technology industry will answer questions and speak from hard-won experience.
If your project is software, what OS(es) and language(s) will you use, and why?
ARC
If you've already started working on it, how long have you been working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written?
A few months—most of the work has been planning the program, the code for the site is fairly simple.
If you have an online demo, what's the url? (Big extra points for this.)
How long will it take before you have a prototype? A beta? A version 1 you can charge for?
Once this application process concludes, the beta should be ready for launch.
How will you partition the work this summer; who will work on what?
All partners will help select companies and advise from past experience. Paul and Robert have more experience with investors and shepherding small companies through the necessary phases towards becoming big ones. Jessica has experience with marketing, branding, and working with large companies. Trevor is a hardware/software savant and is running a growing company of his own.
If you already have a business plan, what's the url? (Don't send us your business plan. Put it on a server and tell us the url. Ascii text preferred. Don't password protect it.)
[redacted]
How will you make money? Who will your customers be, how many are there, and how will they hear about you?
Our basic assumption is that young founders can succeed in building startups with good advising and seed capital. Given our average investment is $18k for 6% of 8 companies, just once company has to be worth $2.4 million for us to break ev...
We regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you a spot in this year's Y Combinator class. Do not take it personally. It does not reflect poorly on the quality of your company, "Y Combinator," or its founding idea. We received a huge number of compelling applications this year. Unfortunately, there just weren't enough spots to go around, so we had to make some difficult choices. As a result, we were unable to admit "Y Combinator" to this year's Y Combinator batch. Please do not be discouraged. Many fantastic ideas like 'Y Combinator' were also not admitted. In fact, we strongly encourage 'Y Combinator' to apply again next year!
I don't see why it doesn't. If someone had an awesome idea for finding highly valuable companies in a previously underserved market, you don't think YC would invest in them? If you don't then you're missing the point of for-profit companies in general.
It's like every time we see an argument that some company would never do X, because obviously they are in the business of Y and Y is so far removed from X. Well that's just missing the point altogether. Companies are in the business of making money, and if X is an opportunity they can capitalize on, of course they're going to pursue it! Drawing lines in the sand is only limiting your own vision, others will not be so constrained.
If this is your aim, you should have a disposable sum of money amounting to around 10 million US Dollars available to devote this project that you don't mind losing entirely. The potential of losing all of your money is a mind game you must deal with.
You don't need to fill out any damn application, nor do you need a badge to go ahead and do this right now.
Paul Graham reluctantly came to the conclusion that he could afford to go ahead and finance this idea and did. He didn't know he could do this until went ahead and did it. You could look it up. Here.
30 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 16.4 ms ] threadLots of current startups in YC are founded by first-employee of previous YC startups. Most YC founders I talked too knew people there before sending the application.
PG said that some startups joined YC with only the application. I trust him! But that doesn't mean that lots of others didn't networked hard. If you have a) A good application b) A good application + a previous positve experience talking with the team, who would you pick?
You only have so much time. Building a great company is the most effective way to get into YC.
Tell us in one or two sentences something about each founder that shows he or she is an "animal," in the sense described in How to Start a Startup.
Paul and Robert built the first SaaS company, Viaweb, which allowed users to build their own stores on the web. It became Yahoo Stores after its acquisition.
Jessica is an excellent writer, marketing whiz and is already working on the idea for our second major product—a one-day version of our summer program in which a number of successful founders give talks to prospective hacker-founders. We think this will inspire even more of the kind of companies we like to invest in.
Trevor built a robot that duplicated the Segway’s functionality in a weekend using off-the-shelf parts.
Tell us in one or two sentences something about each founder that shows a high level of ability.
Trevor is working on the first self-balancing bipedal robot. It’s almost ready.
Robert discovered buffer overflow, which helped bring the internet into the mainstream press.
Jessica managed a highly successful rebranding of the investment bank Adams Harkness as VP of marketing.
Paul is the author of On Lisp (1993) and ANSI Common Lisp (1995). (Have you ever tried programming in Lisp?)
For founders who are hackers: what cool things have you built? (Extra points for urls of demos or screenshots.)
Trevor—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunicycle Robert and Paul—http://ycombinator.com/viaweb/ Paul—http://www.paulgraham.com/arc.html
How long have you known one another and how did you meet?
Several years, mostly at school. [Ed. note: ???]
What is your company going to make?
A “summer school” for young, inexperienced hackers that are interested in starting a company but lack early-stage funding.
The founders will meet with us once a week for dinner, during which a speaker from the technology industry will answer questions and speak from hard-won experience.
If your project is software, what OS(es) and language(s) will you use, and why?
ARC
If you've already started working on it, how long have you been working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written?
A few months—most of the work has been planning the program, the code for the site is fairly simple.
If you have an online demo, what's the url? (Big extra points for this.)
http://ycombinator.com/sfp.html
How long will it take before you have a prototype? A beta? A version 1 you can charge for?
Once this application process concludes, the beta should be ready for launch.
How will you partition the work this summer; who will work on what?
All partners will help select companies and advise from past experience. Paul and Robert have more experience with investors and shepherding small companies through the necessary phases towards becoming big ones. Jessica has experience with marketing, branding, and working with large companies. Trevor is a hardware/software savant and is running a growing company of his own.
If you already have a business plan, what's the url? (Don't send us your business plan. Put it on a server and tell us the url. Ascii text preferred. Don't password protect it.)
[redacted]
How will you make money? Who will your customers be, how many are there, and how will they hear about you?
Our basic assumption is that young founders can succeed in building startups with good advising and seed capital. Given our average investment is $18k for 6% of 8 companies, just once company has to be worth $2.4 million for us to break ev...
[1]: http://xkcd.com/356/
That might be a bit of an understatement :)
Are they accepted? :)
We regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you a spot in this year's Y Combinator class. Do not take it personally. It does not reflect poorly on the quality of your company, "Y Combinator," or its founding idea. We received a huge number of compelling applications this year. Unfortunately, there just weren't enough spots to go around, so we had to make some difficult choices. As a result, we were unable to admit "Y Combinator" to this year's Y Combinator batch. Please do not be discouraged. Many fantastic ideas like 'Y Combinator' were also not admitted. In fact, we strongly encourage 'Y Combinator' to apply again next year!
Sincerely,
Paul Graham
Y Combinator
There's a more personalized version :)
It's like every time we see an argument that some company would never do X, because obviously they are in the business of Y and Y is so far removed from X. Well that's just missing the point altogether. Companies are in the business of making money, and if X is an opportunity they can capitalize on, of course they're going to pursue it! Drawing lines in the sand is only limiting your own vision, others will not be so constrained.
You don't need to fill out any damn application, nor do you need a badge to go ahead and do this right now.
Paul Graham reluctantly came to the conclusion that he could afford to go ahead and finance this idea and did. He didn't know he could do this until went ahead and did it. You could look it up. Here.
Do you have what it takes? OK then, get going.