Hiya!

Though I don't know your company, I do believe it is viable for the 3 founders to do YC with the rest of your team remote. Even in our batch, I can think of at least one company that was in a similar situation to what you're describing, and they got a lot out of YC.

It is still valuable even if the entire team isn't able to be in California. It comes down to the founders and the team committing to regular and open communication, making sure that the founders and team stay in touch and that the founders are able to share as much of what they are learning as possible with the team. Keep in mind, there are many companies that operate entirely remotely--Stack Overflow and Automattic, to name a couple. All it takes for your company to succeed working remotely is to build a good remote culture.[1] Your company, and therefore you and the rest of your team, will still get value out of YC from everything the founders will learn and can share with you, as well as from the YC network, mentoring, community, and branding that will stay with the company for the rest of its existence.

We were lucky that we were able to be able to bring our whole team--but that doesn't mean it's a prerequisite. Many companies can't bring their whole teams, for all kinds of different but valid reasons.

[1]: http://www.inc.com/aaron-ohearn/the-right-way-to-build-a-rem...

Most were very supportive, especially David and Adam who are mentioned in the post, but not 100% of our investors were completely bought in. One concern that was brought up I mentioned in the article--it could be a big distraction to uproot the entire team and move to California for three months, when we already had some traction and a team in New York.

The team's complete support and unanimous decision to do YC made us more confident that rather than be a distraction, living in a house together in California would immensely improve our productivity and motivation. To commit ourselves to that, we decided as a team that we would work 13 out of 14 days during YC--we only took one day off every two weeks. In the end, we worked really hard but had a LOT of fun, and we accomplished so much more in those three months because we were living and working together. Also, missing the worst NYC winter on record while working in the sun was pretty nice.