Advice for YC applicants on the fence | Hacker News Reader

Advice for YC applicants on the fence

blog.rmorrison.org

42 pointsrmorrison17 comments

I stopped applying because I realized my projects are just way too small for YC. I care about building stuff, but also just want to make something that can provide a decent passive income for myself. A few hundred grand per year in profit would be massive for me, but nothing to YC investors.

I don't think there are many YC startups that can boast a few hundred grand per year in profit, as opposed to revenue or money they raised.

Before successful exits, I bet their operating profits are quite a bit more than a few hundred grand. I don't see my projects ever making much more than that, they're just too limited in scope.

You would be wrong. For most atleast.

i've applied twice, single founder, with no success, and for the third year i still find myself without a team, by yc terms (deep-ish relation, built something together, etc). altough i have confidence in what i want to do, don't even feel like applying again.

EDIT: came back to clarify that this wasn't meant to criticize yc, just that i don't feel like taking time from the yc, that can be applied screening awesomer and more solid projects. flame on!

EDIT2: from the comments and buzz around HN, i feel like the focus this year has been much around the 150k. ppl should keep in mind the great projects that came out of YC, when there was no "easy 150k"

For all the applicants on the fence my only response is that yo have nothing to lose. If you don't get picked then so be it but there have be a lot of successful start-ups that are not chosen to participate every year. If you are placing all of your chips on the YC to help you make it then I think it would behoove you to reassess your goals. start ups are about creating something that solves a problem, changes lives and to make okay products better. The initial start up should be about creating a stellar product more than it is about money. To those critics, yes money is a crucial aspect of business but start-up have the unique ability to bootstrap and work under financial constraints that most would never be possible. Creating a start up is as much about the business as it is the experience of starting that business. So go for it you have nothing to loose.

How critical is it to have a technical founder? and what constitutes technical? I've applied this year with a team but none of us are competent programmers.

Thats not to say we're incompetent. Two of us have the beginner knowledge of university intro courses, but not the level of knowledge we would need to actually create our project.

Is our current ignorance the kind of thing that will get us ignored or overlooked?

And while you were there did you hear of any other teams with non-technical founders?

This is my biggest worry so I'd be interested to get more info.

Can't speak for YC, but I can tell you that everyone in our group had at least 1 badass hacker on their team. I've never heard of a hacker-free team going thru YC. My guess is that you'd need some pretty outstanding accomplishments on your app to overcome it, but I'd wager it's theoretically possible.

Harj and Kulveer from Auctomatic were the sole exception but had a bit of a unique situation as pg says here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2325376

in that case (and obviously this will just be personal opinion but I would appreciate it anyway) do you guys think it would be best to make note of my currently limited skills somewhere on the application and explain that Id be willing to learn what I need to learn? or would you suggest not mentioning it unless asked?

currently on the application there is no space to explain these things, just a yes/no tab "if any of the following are true", nontech backgrounds being one of the characteristics mentioned within a group of criteria.

So I gotta ask: Every start-up this session got not just YC funding but also SV Angel funding. With that much seed money, what do you do with it all?

Seems like a lot of them are hiring.

$150k is both a lot (if you're very new and need a little time to build your product on your own), and not very much at all (if you're doing traditional marketing or hiring)

Does anyone know if all applicants receive some type of feedback, even if they are not chosen for an interview? Basically, an explanation as to why they were not chosen to move on to the next step in the process and which areas they may want to improve on.

No.

http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html

Aaron also wrote a similar post about 6 months ago: http://formisfunction.posterous.com/how-to-make-your-yc-appl...

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