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Apply to YC on Your Schedule

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149 pointstodsacerdoti40 comments

Nice, I've been waiting for the next round to open up. Application #3 (for this startup), here I come.

That said, I'm seriously considering just not bothering with the fluff questions this time around (ie, "describe a time you hacked something to your advantage"). I know what they're going for (they want to see if someone can be clever without being unethical), but I always feel I feel like I put too much effort into appearing clever and it doesn't really matter. I'd much rather be talking about and building my company anyhow.

That question has gotten stale and game-able. Ycombinator has a motif of not asking the kinds of questions that could be gamed on a test, but this question is exactly that.

Wow I didn't know that's why they asked that question. I just put down a hack to get more ice cream from Baskin Robbins for less money. Is that unethical? I guess it's subjective.

I also don’t like these questions. I don’t know who is reading them and some hacks are personal.

"If you're in talk-to-VC mode, talk to YC (who is just a VC in hacker branding)" This is some of the best advice I got. You need to "have something to show" when you talk to VCs. The partner in the Startup School videos gave an example of having a mailing list of 100k subscribers and links that to getting in (in 2006).

Is this a reference to a specific Startup School video?

"deadline to apply is Thursday, January 27 at 8pm PT" Actually Thursday is the 28th :)

In year 2022, YC will 10x profits, all ran by a python script:

0. You got in "Mr. Carrot Top" with idea "Uber for cats"!

1. Here is $5k (amazon gift code attached) and a link to a bunch of youtube videos

2. Work hard.

3. Give us 7% of anything you do. [Docusign enclosed]

The 7% is a real downer, especially with the meager amount of cash they give you for it. However, that's highly tailored to their target audience (quarry?) of fresh college grads (or dropouts) with a plausible idea and a lot of moxie.

"Old" geezers like me are better off building a product and getting some traction before contacting VCs or angels through common connections.

You are missing the point. The biggest advantage of YC is not money; its the human network. I have 0% interest in their money and 100% interest in their network.

We have been turned down more than couple of times and I am not shameless enough to apply again.

But if I had better chances of being accepted, I would even though my current ARR is 20x of their funding amount.

The biggest advantage of YC is not money; its the human network.

That was definitely true a decade ago when being a YC company was a very exclusive club, and practically every startup that went through it landed VC money from some of the best funds afterwards, but these days YC takes in nearly 200 companies in each batch. That must be diluting the value of the network a bit.

> The biggest advantage of YC is not money; its the human network.

This x100. YC opens the kinds of doors only places like MIT/Stanford/Harvard open. If you can get in, it really is a cheat code.

I’ve seen enough YC companies fail and enough non-YC tech companies succeed to question the value of this supposedly exclusive human network.

This is a bit myopic. YC doesn't imply success, and obviously not all YC companies are successful. But I have enough of an "upper-echelon" network (UCLA, Berkeley, USC, Caltech, LA startup scene) to know how priceless a network like the YC founders one would be. Having smart, motivated, critical people willing to give you the time of day is pretty key in refining ideas, reaching out to potential customers, or hiring. Not to mention getting funded (if you need/want to).

IMO, one of the key mistakes of technical founders is not networking enough. Wish I could go back 10 years ago to my early 20s and tell myself to just go out more and network.

Sure. I’m not discounting the value of the network entirely. I’m suggesting that it doesn’t appear to be worth what you have to give up in return. Apart from the 7% and other preferential investor treatment, YC requires that you commit your time in ways that may not be optimal for your business in the long run.

I used to think so too. But then look at all the recently successful companies that IPOed and mega billion dollar companies. There is absolutely nothing great about their tech or their business model or their intelligence.

Lyft is just smaller uber clone. Doordash is just another food delivery service. Pinterest is just a spammy link aggregation service. Faster and better home sharing services existed before AirBnb (VRBO is more than 10 years older than airbnb). And the list is endless. They are all successful because they got the right network, got the money, early investors, early users from network.

Business models, tech, intelligence, smartness, timing all means jackshit. The only thing that matters is networking (and persistence)

I would argue that AirBnB is successful because of its "growth hacking" -- I remember they were spamming all of their listings into all of the various Craigslist temporary housing, housing swap, vacation rental, month to month rental categories. Obviously don't remember a specific timeframe but this was well before they were even a well known name in tech.

> Business models, tech, intelligence, smartness, timing all means jackshit. The only thing that matters is networking (and persistence)

I'd say there a self-selection process here. Certain companies possibly wouldn't have succeeded without connections. So one can always find examples where that contribution was most critical. And perhaps that is even the category targeted most by YC, since anyone can do software, to oversimplify somewhat. But many other companies do succeed by timing and performance.

> The biggest advantage of YC is not money; its the human network.

I feel very lucky to be in a position where I don't have to buy my friends.

You are not "buying" "friends". You are being introduced to other individuals that can help you succeed and believe in you. If you already have a network of people who can invest, buy your software, introduce you to other people then yes you are right YC is of not much value.

> You are being introduced to other individuals that can help you succeed and believe in you.

I said I can get this for free rather than for 7% of my company, and that I'm aware this is a fortunate position to be in.

Also, I hope you have friends who believe in you and can help you succeed.

It's not a substitute for the friends you make in high school. It's a substitute for the friends you make at Harvard, Yale or Stanford.

It depends on how fame along the program is. It instantly values the company at ~1mm dollars. The YC halo also increases the valuation (and decreases dilution) of subsequent rounds.

7% at like a $2M valuation for many starting unproven without connections. FWIW, $2M val, that’s higher than like the majority of Shark Tank deals on TV. And by Demo Day, you’re raising at $6M minimum just by virtue of YC. If $120k-$150k is meager and you are well connected and perhaps don’t value the network, I agree you might not be the target audience.

lol

I did the future founder program of startup school and they really didn't tell nothing new there.

I mean, the videos were polished and had good info, but nothing I didn't already hear on other channels.

At least it was a motivation for me. When there is nothing more I can get from courses I might be at a place where I should start somthing for real, haha

(I work at YC on Startup School.)

Yes, if you're at the point where you know everything we teach in the Future Founders program, you'll definitely learn more by actually building something than continuing to watch our videos. If you do, you can keep getting value out of Startup School by switching to our "active founders" track [0], which lets you submit weekly updates and get access to deals from partners. Good luck!

[0]: https://www.startupschool.org/track

One request I would have for SUS is to add the ability to add a weekly update in the past.

More than once I was working late Sunday and well into Monday morning. When this happens I can no longer provide an update for the prior week so it looks like I've done nothing for that week.

Yeah, this makes sense as a feature -- we didn't build it out originally because we were worried about founders gaming it to back-date updates and earn their "streak"/certification without sending in 8 weeks of updates. But there's probably a middle ground that lets you backdate updates at least for a period of time after the deadline.

Ah, cool

So I can (start) do(ing) this at any time?

Edit: ah, just for people who work +20h a week on their startup.

I don't even work 20h a week in my regular job, haha.

there definitely is tension @ ideal timing re founders (stage) vs programs (efficiency and quality thanks to batching)

being more flexible with the applications as well as access to the overall platform is great

It would be nice if you could just apply whenever. Like apply this year and go next fall. It's hard for 2+ people to get their lives in order to drop everything in a short window.

An incubator focusing on those who can’t drop everything on a moment’s notice seems like a good idea.

I’d love to see an incubator focusing on people who can’t commit 100% of their time.

Because of kids, or other obligations, whatever. I bet there’s a lot of entrepreneurial talent that gets left out of the startup ecosystem because of the expectation that you spend all your waking hours working.

Very happy this is remote too, I can be anywhere now!! no need to move to SF Not sure networking will be as effective though

One of the things you see is that companies that do in-person networking end up trapped where their network is. Moving can kill the company.

If you don't want to be running a company in the SFBA, establishing your network remotely is probably the way to go. It won't break if you decide to run it from someplace other than the SFBA at the end of the school session.

I've done a lot online for years. This has helped make my life portable and that's helped me solve problems that should have been "impossible" to solve.

The pandemic helped set the standard that we can do a lot of things remotely that there used to be a lot of resistance to doing remotely. In the future, a remote network may be more valuable than an in person network. That idea just hasn't yet caught on, but it's possibly the wave of the future.

Out of curiosity since it is in June, is the next batch in person?

From the application page: "This batch of Y Combinator will be remote due to COVID-19"

Thanks, obvious place to look now that I think about it, I looked at the blog section instead.

You could find out by just reading the Apply page, linked in the footer.

So awesome, so simple.

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