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New: Distributed Open House the day after Startup School

ycombinator.com

74 pointspg30 comments

Sorry for the late notice. We only thought of this a few days ago. More startups will gradually get added.

Awesome! Will there be some kind of transportation between some of the startups? I recall at last years startup school there were buses between the after parties in SF that were held at the different startups. I'm curious if such a thing will occur for visiting the multiple startups in SF or Pal Alto on Sunday.

No, sorry, but a lot of them are close to the Caltrain: http://www.caltrain.com

alright, cool. I live in SF so I'll probably visit some of the SF ones, but I was just curious.

We are also very close to the Montgomery BART/MUNI: http://www.bart.gov/

I like how many Bay Area startups have SF addresses now.

Heyzap (564 Howard near 2nd st) is going to have Foosball table, Xbox, probably some pizza, drinks, and a ridiculous PA system.

We will also be doing work.

Any one have other suggestions?

YoYos and Frisbee Boobie Trapping.

I fly out Sunday morning. I'd kill to stick around, but changing my flight plans will cost something like $150-$400 looking at the change / cancel guidelines.

GazeHawk (444 Castro) will have a ping pong table (if we get enough people we'll throw a tourney together) and we'll either grab burritos or order pizza.

Our office space isn't built out yet, which screams "office chair races".

Is the Open House open to startup school attendees only?

We won't be checking that your "papers are in order", at least at the Y Scraper at 153 Townsend. We've got 7 YC companies you can visit, AND a foosball table.

No, anyone is welcome.

Traveling salesman solution, please?

Here's your input: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&#...

Looks like a good way to partly solve the hiring problem (or so I hear) for the startups by bringing some likely interested/interesting people in.

pg, good use of that byproduct of Startup School!

I got in, but as a student in Austin, there's no way I can afford $500+ for a weekend, even if it is Startup School weekend. And now there's a distributed open house?! I'm super bummed.

I definitely share that feeling with ya. If there were a hardcore use case of AnyBots telepresence bots, it'd be for this weekend. AnyBot-YC-startup-roulette anyone?

Not to be a jerk, but I'm super bummed that people who knew they couldn't come applied anyway, taking the spaces of people who could have come but didn't get in.

I got accepted, so I'm not being bitter or anything, but I'm sure lots of people who were able to come but didn't get in would have loved to have your place.

Maybe next year admissions to Startup School could happen on a rolling basis?

I've wondered if startup school / yc applications shouldn't have a nominal fee to offset non-serious applications – maybe $10. i.e. nothing that would put a serious damper on folks that really wanted to apply, but enough to keep folks from saying, "What do I have to lose, I'm only wasting the time of the folks evaluating applications..."

I think it's a great idea, but I'm guessing pg might not want to do the work involving billing, even if it's really easy.

Simple solution: have a charity handle the billing and generate a pass-code. I'm sure that someone at the EFF could be persuaded to create a custom page that would generate tens of thousands in donations per year.

(This ignores that there are a couple YC companies that can handle billing stuff.)

Just the mere act of taking a payment increases workload in weird ways(tax/negotiations with venues etc.). Also, you could charge a penny and it'll flip the switch in some people's minds that YC owes them something.

So let's say YC delays the announcement by a day...no matter how good the vast majority of folks are, there will be those whining about how they paid and didn't get what was promised and sigh were ripped off. It's a hassle YC can probably live without.

Well, I RSVPed "not coming" after I got the invite, and I do remember reading something about a waiting list. So I assumed that someone will take my place.

And it's not like I knew that couldn't go. Of course I tried to go, but it just didn't work out at the end.

It is indeed a bummer that there wasn't some sort of waiting list. I am pretty interested, but also happy to catch bits on Justin.TV. In person would have been better.

A serious benefit of living in the Bay Area, however, is that it is certainly easier to attend regional events and network.

Someone suggested some sort of fee, I don't think that is right, but rather RSVP by a certain time and leaving the option open for last minute attendance by those not accepted would be good.

Ohwell, there is always next year.

Some things are worth making a stretch for, and this is one of them. Take a personal loan from a bank, or put it on a credit card and just go. It's a far cry from going into hock for a plasma TV.

$500 may sound like a lot to a student, but for a hacker good enough to get accepted to this, you'll find it's pocket change out in the real world.

The connections you'll make alone will have a net present value of much more than a piddling $500, not to mention the other things you'll learn there.

Unless your mother is dying of cancer and you need every dollar to pay hospital bills or something, make the stretch and just go.

Come by Mixpanel and we'll hook you up with a free shirt--trust me they rock! =)

I can totally vouch for the tshirts. They are by far my favorite startup tshirt. They even got me one in XXLT since I'm 6'6".

Edit: Oops, looks like a (better) map has already been made, I missed the link.

There's one on the page:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&#...

"AdGrok and 6 other startups" -- can someone expand this list?

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