Y Combinator is accepting applications for S18 | Hacker News Reader

Y Combinator is accepting applications for S18

ycombinator.com

To anybody considering applying: I've applied twice and been rejected both times.

Just the application process itself was hugely valuable. The questions really make you think out your model. It helped us identify some [now] obvious flaws in the way we were trying to solve our problem.

You're not wasting anybody's time by applying.

I've actually applied at least 6 times. Interviewed twice. Rejected every time, yet don't regret it at all.

Both times I was interviewed, I've continued the projects and they are actually both still going strong. Ones being funded by various grants (related to EEG research). The other, which I interviewed for W18, just launched and is already self-sustaining with profits off investing + subscriptions:

https://projectpiglet.com/

The process of interviewing helps to clarify business values, and honestly - I'll be applying again with a clearer vision. The main thing they appear to look for is viable business, future vision, then team. I highly recommend applying.

Finally, and the primary reason I suggest applying is the people you meet! Just from my trip for the interview(s) I met several different teams, some of them I ended up introducing to other people to get them business. Other startups ended up helping me. It's worth the trip.

>"The main thing they appear to look for is viable business, future vision, then team. I highly recommend applying."

It seems to me — based on YC's resources I've read — the passion, personality, and relationships of the company founders come first— including how willing they are to be flexible with their idea.

Jessica Livingston on what they look for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPd5vgXJ-R4

They also often say how ideas are a dime a dozen, mentioning time and again that most businesses who join YC end up changing their idea completely. They even went as far as to accept founders without an idea at all one year:

http://paulgraham.com/notnot.html

"In a sense, it's not a problem if you don't have a good idea, because most startups change their idea anyway. In the average Y Combinator startup, I'd guess 70% of the idea is new at the end of the first three months. Sometimes it's 100%. In fact, we're so sure the founders are more important than the initial idea that we're going to try something new this funding cycle. We're going to let people apply with no idea at all. If you want, you can answer the question on the application form that asks what you're going to do with "We have no idea." If you seem really good we'll accept you anyway. We're confident we can sit down with you and cook up some promising project."

more related articles from the Paul Graham:

http://paulgraham.com/start.html

http://paulgraham.com/bronze.html

http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html

http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

On the other hand, Sam Altman discusses, in the Stanford YC Startup School videos, how the overall idea certainly does matter and that thinking "the idea doesn't matter" has become a myth in silicon valley. He says the most successful companies have been an idea first, and a startup second.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoqgAy3h4OM#t=22m52s

I think the answer is somewhere in the middle, leaning in one direction depending on the founders' mindsets and knowledge. I wish they would be a bit more clear about this since both opposing arguments are being advised through their resources.

Either way, I look forward to start applying to batches when I feel ready. Perhaps I'll apply without being ready to help gain some clarity as you suggested.

I also highly recommend Startup School, also provided by YC:

https://www.startupschool.org/

That's what helped me get my most recent project ready:

https://projectpiglet.com/

I'd describe it almost as a "startups anonymous" group, where you have a mentor who's went through a startup, weekly talks, and a group to help you get off the ground.

In regards to the resource you've read, I can only tell you what I have seen. To some extent, the viability of your business comes from the team and future vision. You have to vet with customers, know the space, be excited etc.

Agreed. I worked for a YC company who's founders went through YC before they even had a company. In fact, they still hadn't landed on one by the time they came out. But they were Stanford and MIT grads, and insanely well-connected.

When I hear that founders are more important than ideas, I wonder how much of “founders” refers to the founders’ upper-class culture sync and connections. Of course, it never represents all of that, but, could founders with only intelligence, teamwork and ingenuity skills suffice on their own?

It's definitely complex. A strong network doesn't necessarily signify wealthy background, although it is likely. Rather, it demonstrates an ability to connect with people who can aid in your success, and that ability is a necessary component of being a successful founder.

That makes sense. I wouldn't want to underrate the importance of ability to connect with the right people, which is a pretty complicated thing as it is, and there are only so many ways by which to evaluate it.

I'm curious about your EEG research. I remember getting one of the original emotiv epocs but being really disappointed in it.

Lol that's actually what we used initially (still do). We rolled our own way of processing the EEG signals (which are notoriously noisy), then we used a technique to remove movement.

Now typically those type of analysis are done post run. However,I worked on it for a while and now in real-time we can do error correction based on movement. This enables those EEGs to be within spitting distance of medical grade EEGs.

Published any info anywhere on it?

Not the completely up-to-date method(s), however we have our initial research from a few years ago:

http://synaptitude.me/blog/using-computer-vision-to-improve-...

Most of the current research has gone to a more academic route.

Its cool to see a startup with EEG technology.

My email is in my profile, if you'd like discuss further.

The 2 founders of the company I work for applied twice and were rejected 2 times. The first time was mainly because they did not have a well laid plan for a company (only had an idea). The second time was mainly because investors feared an investment in a FinTech company on another country (this was not in USA) was too risky.

Of course their experience was very good (I am very close to both founders). They do say that they learned a lot just with the application process.

Fast forward several years, and the company is very healthy and running smoothly. It is somehow a "poster child" of startup in the country and has raised good amounts of capital.

The point is, do not get afraid to apply and do not get down if you are not accepted. The process of applying will on itself be very useful. Even if you are not from the USA.

Having also applied twice with two rejections, I didn’t feel like I got much value out of it, if any, and I didn’t apply the next time around.

I might apply this time with no idea just for the heck of it, I have a dozen ideas but don’t really like any of them, which is why I’ve been building a lifestyle business instead of building a startup.

I say this as someone whose recently been through YC. YC is getting phased out anyway. Crypto economics are doing what YC did to startup financing a decade ago. It's no longer any more valuable to even go through YC since it's so jam packed and over crowded. Maybe the network is slightly valuable, I concede, but my recommendation would be to not put yourself through the hassle and just create a normal business that doesn't need YC financing (or even VC financing for that matter).

thx this is good. this is my second time applying. lets goo

YC is still the best and most open gateway to Silicon Valley investors.

But that's only true because they have no real competition and it's a closed system. An open system wouldn't require gateways. There wouldn't be a need to be walked into a private party by a trusted club member.

It looks like the answer to even this huge roadblock is new technology. Amazingly, it's not even theoretical at this point, it has actually begun.

These new decentralized protocols and "ICOs" are going to all but eliminate Silicon Valley as a center of orbit. All startup funding will move onto the internet, where it belongs.

The benefit of YC is specifically that they are a trusted club member, so investors have some idea about the chances that their investment will pay off. It's a good signal.

ICOs don't have the same level of trust because anybody can offer one. I'd rather have PG vouching for me than Kanye West. Sure, when Kanye tells his Twitter followers to buy your ICO it's going to go gangbusters, which is good for your company. But eventually enough of those ICOs are going to go sour in the public's eye and people will stop investing with them. YC will still be around after that.

The signal you speak of erodes as YC scales. From the outside we only see the effects of this a couple years later. So the tone of the conversation now would imply that the signal peaked several years ago.

I think you're making two points: one is about SV as the center of tech, and the other is about YC and similar "clubs".

For the second point, I think current ICO hype is going to have the exact opposite effect you predict in terms of clubs. ICOs are incredibly risky, and there is essentially zero regulation. To investors, a company being part of a "club" like Y Combinator suggests that some basic due diligence, idea/founder validation, and other de-risking signals. (Whether this is true or not, I'm not sure.) That's why they like investing in YC companies, I think we all agree.

For ICOs to actually be validated as successful longterm investments (i.e. scammy bubbles/pump-and-dump schemes, which many are, sadly), I think investors will need some assurances about the quality/risk of a given ICO. Since that's basically impossible (if investing were zero risk, there would be no upside!), trust and reputation are good proxies. This is where companies like YC and "valley" connections come in.

For better or worse, if ICOs are indeed the way of the future, they'll probably end up giving rise to that of infrastructure. Maybe that won't be tied to SV, as you suggest. But I think the "trusted club member" won't really ever go away, even if it isn't tied to SV.

I disagree. You need to have someway of filtering out companies that don't have potential. These 'gateways' are vetting on behalf of investors who don't have the time/resources to perform a rigorous due diligence of everyone who wants funding. Without any sort of closed system, investors would get swarmed with people asking for money. ICOs are interesting, but how do you get around the scams and pretenders without any sort of filter, if anyone can host an ICO?

How do VCs "get around the scams and pretenders?" Presumably regular people would do the same thing.

VCs have the resources and capacity to pursue due diligence, even in very technical domains. Indeed this occasionally fails and you get Theranos. Yet for the "public", Theranos will undoubtedly become the norm.

Due diligence guy here.

VCs don't necessarily do rigorous due diligence, especially at the early stages (where ICO's typically play). That being said, VC's typically do some soft diligence checks that investors of ICO wouldn't normally do, for example: personal check backgrounds within their own network, personnel reference checks, review potentially proprietary/confidential information, etc. So it's not necessarily that they have monetary resources to expend during the transaction process, but rather informal/trusted resources at their expense.

It's unlikely that VCs have more resources then the collective internet though. Of course there will be scams, but there are scams with or without VCs.

The question is -- should only VCs have the opportunity?

>more resources than the collective internet

My understanding is that, taking cryptocurrency as an example, crowds of uninformed investors will stampede on something that's popular rather than something that's necessarily an objectively good investment. Regardless of your thoughts on cryptocurrency as a concept, I would say an intelligent investor would balk at the kind of ICOs and prices we're seeing.

A lot of this, I think, can be explained by simple psychological concepts like repetitive attraction (seeing something in the news again and again makes you more comfortable with it), good first-impression traits (GOOGL performing better because it's more pronounceable than TWTQR), and other things that have been fuxing with the stock market for decades.

The market has never been rational, and as I've learned from crowd-funding campaigns, the internet didn't make that situation any more rational.

But why only one real gateway?

Not sure i like the "private party" less than the massive advertizing bullsh*t jungle ICOs are going to bring if they become mainstream.

At least if someone gets ripped off, it isn't some poor needy person hoping to win the lottery.

There was nothing stopping VCs from funding people online the past 10 years. They meet in person because they need to meet the people behind the idea. I don't see this changing very much pre-VR-boom.

All startup fraud will have moved onto the internet, where it belongs.

Even if you know your startup isn't the right fit or you and team are not the YC type, the application is hugely valuable because it makes you think long and hard about what you are doing.

We never got into YC, but we did end up with another accelerator. The one question that YC asks, that sets it apart is the question at the end: "what do you know about your industry or business that other people don't".

It's a simple question with a lot of meaning. I found that working out a concise answer to that question turned out to be key to our fundraising and product positioning. If you don't have a ready answer to that question, most investors and accelerators will just make their own assumptions about what you do. Our industry is NOT the most exciting and hot trend so having that answer left and center turned out to be key to presenting what we do in a good light.

Do the application even if you know you won't get in.

please give extra scrutiny to blockchain start ups looking to ICO. I've seen Y Combinator tossed around for a couple companies as a means to pump their coin, and I'm sure a lot of would be scam coiners would love that type of attention.

I'd be willing to bet that around half of applications this year will be "blockchain for ...". I'd also be willing to be that zero of them succeed long term.

they funded quantstamp

YC is a great option to build a business. There are more paths though, so don't be discouraged. Stream participated in Techstars NYC. The MD in NYC (Alex Iskold) is excellent. It's been 2 years and he's still helping us out. YC does a great job of selecting companies, but they can't always get it right. Qualifying early stage companies is very hard. I'd definitely recommend giving Techstars some thought as well. They really go the extra mile to help you succeed.

Can anybody from recent batches comment on the extent of actual advice and mentoring received during the program?

E.g. do you typically work closely with your advisor(s) on near daily basis, or is this more like booking a meeting with your university professor occasionally, when you need to discuss a particular topic?

If you’ve been rejected before don’t be discouraged, we were rejected twice before getting in last summer. Stick with it!

Interviews are planned for "late May", yet the program presumably starts on June 1. This seems to make for an awfully short interval between finding out one has been accepted and actually starting. Can someone from YC clarify?

Interviews are in late April. We'll update!

Generally, is there a rough percentage of their cohorts that are pre-revenue? Or does it vary wildly each round?

Most.

I'm wondering if YC will accept a block chain based startup.

YC has accepted and will continue to fund great blockchain startups.

Here are some of the companies we funded:

Dharma.io, Quantstamp, Moneytis (now Request Network), Coinbase

They have already.

Is there a list somewhere? Do some of them do ICO

Moneytis(Request Network) and Quantstamp have both done a token sale

And fairly large rounds at current Eth prices.

Okay, will keep an eye on the 2018 YC graduates in hope to fund future block chain incumbents :-)

> if your company is already incorporated as a non-United States company, to participate in YC you will need to convert your foreign company into a United States corporation

I have always wondered what this means exactly. If I'm the CEO of a company outside the US, that is unrelated to what the startup would be doing, does it matter?

Is it just a question of who owns the IP for the startup? And even if another company owns the IP, can't the IP be transferred/sold without converting the company itself?

It depends on specific circumstances. If the IP in the foreign company is truly unrelated, then there are circumstances where it could make sense to just start a new company in the US. If the US company is going to use the IP, then there are lots of potential solutions and structures.

Often we see founders with foreign companies do a share exchange so the shares in the foreign company are exchanged for shares in the US company and the foreign company then becomes a subsidiary of the US company. Particularly in the case where the founders plan to go back to their home country or to hire / operate in that country.

If you get accepted into YC and have already incorporated a foreign company, then we can help you figure out what the best solution would be in your situation.

If you aren't already incorporated and you don't have to immediately, then probably best to wait to find out if you're accepted into YC before incorporating anywhere other than the US.

Thank you!

We've been working on a hardware startup for about 7 years now, 8 years since I had the idea. It took us such a long time because we had to learn a lot of things. Our prototype is a two weeks away, and actual tests with users a little over a month away. What would the ideal time to apply? Now, as soon as the prototype is done or after actual tests with actual users?

I remember we used to apply every semester until we gave up years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2426118

Now our company has become pretty successful without taking any VC. David Heinemeier Hansson (one of our advisors btw) at least is pretty proud :)

The only thing I don't like is that it requires a US company. I wish they were more open to legal entities elsewhere. Even Canada would be a better option (for me) given its right next door.

If anyone has any info, I would love to know how often YC reject companies/ideas because of a conflict of interest or if there's any rules/guidelines around that?

We do have a policy on this. The short version is that we will fund competitors of companies we have funded in the past, so if that describes you, please don't be dissuaded from applying.

From our FAQ: Will you fund multiple startups working on the same idea?

Yes. If you fund as many companies as we do it's unavoidable you'll end up with some overlap. Even if you tried not to accept competing companies, you'd still get overlap because startups' ideas morph so much. The way we deal with it is that when two startups are working on related stuff, we don't talk to one about what the other's doing.

In practice it has not turned out to be a problem, because most big markets have room for several slightly different solutions, and it's unlikely that two startups would do precisely the same thing.

From what I've seen over the years and heard from YC founders, it is not uncommon for YC to invest in competing businesses. They have a lot of companies, and it is very likely that at some point there will be companies that evolve into competing with other portfolio companies.

If an international founder is accepted, does she/he need some special visa - like work visa or those H1B ones?

No, you do not. I am from India, and went through YC on a B1/B2 visa.

Nice thank you! That seems reasonable :)

  4. If we invest in you, your group is expected to move to
  the Bay Area for June–August 2018.

  6. Y Combinator doesn’t supply office space. We have space
  you can use if you need to, but we expect you to work out
  of wherever you find to live.

Why is it so important to be in the Bay Area? I get that for some interactions it'd be ideal to be there, but I don't see the need for a team to actually move there.

In the FAQ https://www.ycombinator.com/faq/#q21

"Can we do it without moving to where you are?

Sorry, no. We tried this once, and by Demo Day that startup was way behind the rest. What we do, we have to do in person. We would not be doing a startup a favor by not making them come to YC events in person.

However, you don't have to be in silicon valley 24x7. If you have a business that requires that you be somewhere else, we will work something out so you can participate in YC events while also being attentive to your business. Usually the founders will rotate between locations, or fly back and forth.

Of course, after the 3 month program, you can go wherever you want."

Using a single anecdote is not good evidence for this policy.

I assume the story is more complex than the one-liner from the FAQ, but I agree.

Approximately 7 years ago I applied to YC, and rightly so I was rejected [our idea sucked, our presentation of it sucked even more...i had a lot to learn in general]. Having said that, given how far the world has changed in that time, but how little progress YC seems to have made [other than diluting their value across a larger number of companies per cohort], I don't know they're still as interesting in the world today.

Additionally, i hate Bay Area "culture". I feel like it's got a lot of the problems Hollywood has, and frankly even if it didn't, i'm not sure I'd want to live in an overpriced apartment in the burbs. On the plus side, the weather is great...

I now have a business that grossed $50k+ last month just because I was forced to answer the "what did you hack lately" question. YC rejected my application but the hack idea, which I posted on Youtube, had so much interest it became a real company. Thanks YC!

> "what did you hack lately" question.

Is this part of the application anymore? I took a quick look and all I could find was

"Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together. Include urls if possible. "

"Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered. "

both of which seem to be, at best, sanitized versions of the original questions which IIRC referred specifically to hacking systems, and impressive achievements of founders.

(If somebody has saved the original questions from the PG era, could you confirms this?)

The application now comes in two parts: one for the "business" and one for each founder. I believe the "hack" question is now in the founder application.

Thank You. Very Interesting!

On the last point: I wouldn’t starting my company in the Bay Area either, both the culture and the expense, but more so because I live in NYC so I have everywhere I need. For those, say, living in middle of nowhere, I still suggest look at NYC, Austin, Seattle, Denver and Boston. Plenty of opportunities.

This question has been asked many times before; Paul Graham has answered it in several essays, the most interesting of which I think is "A Taste for Makers".

http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

Starting point for understanding why YC would want startups to move to the Bay Area would be be to read "Why to Move to a Startup Hub" by Paul Graham, one of the co-founders of YC:

http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html

The commute to the office hours/dinners?

Due to Trump, and all the negative press USA has gotten lately, I wonder if it makes an impact of how eager people are to move to the USA anymore?

Also, in case foreigners get accepted to YC, will it be more difficult than before to be able to stay in the USA for the duration of the program?

All the media coverage is causing fewer people to apply for visas, so it might actually be easier than before to get a visa (not kidding). Canadian universities are seeing 500% increases in applications, even tourism is down, because of exactly this sort of worry.

The fear is enormous, but the actual changes are small, ergo, could be easier to get a visa now.

It has already impacted tourism and international student enrollment in colleges. Logically, business creation would follow. Canada is reaping the benefits. Tourism is up 20% and college enrollment is up by significant percentage as well.

Source please?

For tourism decline: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-17/how-to-re...

For college enrollment decline: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/us/fewer-foreign-students...

We moved to SV in June from Switzerland to start a company. Is Switzerland overall a better place to live? Of course. But SV is still the best place to start a business. Trump luckily didn't impact that. And I don't think he can.

I moved to the US in 2011 with my first startup (and was lucky enough to be able to stay here). I don't think I would be able to do the same under Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/us/trump-immigration-slow...

I'm waiting for a resolution on H4-EAD. Thats going to be a very important factor for me (since my spouse depends on it).

There were numbers released recently that showed that tourism since 2015 in top destinations increased - with the exception of 2 countries where it declined (Turkey, and USA).

https://twitter.com/FitzGeraldUCSD/status/955139776901869568

Some will but not in any measurable amount the US is still the best place for start ups to go big.

Anecdotal, but: I myself turned down a job offer in SV in part due to Trump. When asking 4 random co-workers, none seem keen to move to the US, 2 of them even citing safety concerns (they are minorities from India and Africa and heard horror stories of former colleagues still in the US).

Can you name a new US law / enforcement that Trump passed which directly impacts Founders.

Trump is mostly talk.

Ummm... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/trump-begins-to-...

YC doesn't fund at $250k though. So that article isn't actually relevant to the concern over founders going to YC.

It's quite obvious that he's intend to reduce immigration. That's not likely an immediate problem for white founders from Europe. But there's obvious potential in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. And it's crystal clear that if Trump gets his way, Elon Musk would have a rather hard time getting permanent residency in the US.

Apart from these actual, specific challenges, emigrating is a huge step for most people. The general hostility against "strangers" would definitely make me think twice about moving to the US today, even though I once spent a year in the Southwest and had a wonderful time.

Just dealing with customs officers at the airport has become a nightmare over the last decade: Being fingerprinted like a criminal is the most obvious change. But I've lately noticed that the attitude more and more resembles the thuggishness usually associated with police states. They have always had all the power, but lately they seem to relish to show it to you. Need 10 seconds to find your flight number? "Go to the back of the line, NOW, and try again with the respect the greatest country on the face of the earth deserves". (actual quote).

You get fingerprinted going into Europe too at some airports.

I'd be interested to know which European countries? And does it vary by the nationality of the visitor[1]?

[1] For the USA for example, Canadians visiting for business or tourism (an implied B1 or B2 visa, respectively), are exempt from fingerprinting. Canada is the only exception to the USA's fingerprinting rules.

With Bannon gone, I think the only immigration hard-liners left in Trump's circle are Stephen Miller and his chief of staff John Kelly who could very easily quit before ICE has a chance to wreck YC. Whitehouse Chief of Statff is a notorious high-turnover position and Kelly apparently threatens to quit on a weekly basis.

Anyway, YC never threw Thiel under the bus so maybe they can call in a favor if things get dicey?

How would ICE impact YC Founders. Has YC ever sponsored an Illegal Immigrant as part of its class?

> ICE has a chance to wreck YC..

What would wreck YC is if potential foriegn applicants actually listened to the FUD and then decided not to apply.

Thiel got the cold shoulder "Trump reportedly told Peter Thiel they'd be friends for life — and then ghosted him" http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-told-peter-thiel-theyd-...

Not sure why you are getting downvoted. I feel this is a real fear many people are feeling right now.

So far, it has not impacted our founders. The international founders in the current batch did not have any more trouble than founders in the past.

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