Ask YC: Startup school? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Startup school?

23 pointsnurall38 comments

Has YC sent out confirmations for startup school yet? I haven't received mine yet!

Will everyone please relax? It's still the 27th here in California. Trevor's finishing reading the applications. We'll send out responses tonight.

thx pg, sorry for jumping the gun

Yups... thanks pg...

I'm curious about the number of applicants vs number accepted. Has the number of applicants gone up dramatically each year?

Actually it was slightly lower this year. 1108 vs around 1200 last year. We hate rejecting people, and since we always have more applicants than there are seats for, we deliberately made little effort to promote it. We didn't ask Techcrunch to write about it, and I even took the links off my site several days before the deadline.

Because there was so little marketing, the quality of the average applicant was extremely high. 90% were pretty solid hackers.

I'm assuming since Kresge only holds about 600 people, that's about how many attendees were accepted (give or take a little bit for cancelations).

For those who are attending, please consider adding to the wiki (http://wiki.startupschool.org/doku.php?id=).

Additionally, I've created two pages that I strongly encourage you to fill out for your own benefit: http://wiki.startupschool.org/doku.php?id=list_of_startups_p... and http://wiki.startupschool.org/doku.php?id=list_of_people_att...

Speaking from experience @ Startup School '07, we all know the speakers and their projects, but we don't know much about fellow attendees. Let's help change that.

Suggestion: Make a simple web app to support the "attendee directory" -- This way you can do sorting, etc. later when/if the list gets huge. There appear to be some sort of 15-minute or longer lock times for modifications on the doku wiki page for attendees. Message me if you'd like help building it.

It sounds like this year's Startup School is going to be active beyond the main event (the speakers) and going to be more of a Startup School Weekend. Excellent!

Got my invite, too. Very excited.

Thanks, Trevor for getting through those applications. I can only imagine what that must have been like. Thanks, pg and the rest of the people who are making this possible. I know you must get a lot of virtual "thank yous"; I want to add my explicit thank you. What you are doing is a wonderful thing. Imagine, being able to change the lives of other people in one day. I plan to be one of them. Can't wait!

And, for those unlucky ones that, for reasons well beyond the scope of this comment, won't be able to attend, would it be possible to have the presentations and any other materials recorded and published TED-style?

Justin.tv will be streaming the whole event live (which means everything will also be archived).

General Advice Needed: This will be my first startupschool and I am quite excited. I'm flying in the night before, but how long after the 5:30 event end do people hang out? I'm trying to figure out when I should book my return flight (what time that night or the next day). I don't want to miss out on any networking and meet-up opportunities.

From previous year's blog coverage, everyone brings their laptop, but is there anything else I should definitely bring/have/not have/etc...?

Any tips or info for first timers? Thanks!

I'm curious - has YC ever thought about doing startup school in other locations? I'd love to do startup school (just like I'd love to apply to YC), but a startup school here in Dallas would be more beneficial to me because it would attract others like me from my area. Maybe YC could incubate an incubator for DFW :-)

FAIL!

I'd love to know the criteria or the background of most of the candidates who were chosen. I'm a little surprised I was rejected.

Someone from YCombinator want to relieve my frustration? I'll admit my application was thin, but no less talented than most.

Maybe looking for a ticket if it's allowed.

No email OR plane ticket...

(remake of bad joke from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=136953)

Is the news.yc meetup still on for that weekend? I've heard there was something planned for the friday night before Startup School.

I'm trying to put something together. I'll post details on the wiki.

It will be the first ever that I plan to attend. So, I hope I get an invite soon.

My application got rejected. May be I shouldn't have said my company's name :).

Just got the response (11:46pm PST). I'm in, woo hoo!

I got the invite this morning!

Anyone from Seattle going?

Yup! I'm debating flying/driving down there... you?

Yup! Flying down Friday night.

Bid starts at $500.

Just got the ok!

Same here! Woot!

same here!

yippiee! My first time :).

mine too, I'm really looking forward to it :)

Same here. :)

just got it too! I'm old, but very excited. :)

I just booked my flight, looking for somewhere to stay Friday night.

I'm flying over from the UK, might be staying at the Green Tortoise in SF.

Anyone more knowledgeable think that's a bit far away from startup school?

SF is probably 45 mins (driving) from Palo Alto. You should look for hotels in Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale.

I booked a -nice- 3 star hotel on Hotwire (Mountain View). $66 a night (for 15 nights). You might be able to get the same deal for just a few nights.

Nothing yet :-(

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