Ask HN: Advice after a decade trying to get into YC

If you have a good idea, a good team, funding arranged for now, and you’re talking to customers, why focus on anything else than that last item?

YC sounds like a distraction and personal obsession rather than something that would benefit your company at this stage.

My focus has been heads-down on product not on YC. But realistically I think it's a huge advantage, even if the plan remains to build the product either-way.

For example, if I didn't have my "other job" of running my other company I would be able to go a lot faster.

If it's funding you need, make sure to look more widely at the options. There may be local investors in your region, or you could pitch to American investors who specialize in your vertical.

Thinking you must get into YC to focus on your company is like thinking you need to get into MIT to learn calculus.

I agree. And even if I didn't, that MIT analogy is very persuasive.

So your advice is to not apply at all, or just not focus on it?

My advice (which of course comes with the caveat that it's from a random Internet stranger so objectively not backed by anything) would be to focus on building up traction, figuring out small-scale funding now if that's what's keeping you from focusing on this company, and then applying to YC some time later when you're so busy with the company that you feel it might actually be better if you don't get accepted. Investors want to invest in businesses and founders that aren't desperate for their money and connections.

I think it does benefit but I don't think many startups have any chance of getting in even if they have all the positives. People are incredibly biased (I basically only look at fundamentals myself; I don't really even care about the product if the spreadsheet makes sense) in how they select opportunities; there are enough examples of unicorns or very profitable companies that were shot down by YC or other similar high brow incubators. So I would say I agree with you; it's a big distraction unless you just pop over a video and sheet and they are begging for you to come in after seeing that.

In my experience, the best founders who show up here on HN are product driven people who are eager to show their idea and prototype. Here are some off the top of my head:

Brian Armstrong: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754664

Drew Houston: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

Peldi Guilizzoni: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=238772

When I read those 3, each time I had the strong feeling something would come out of it. And each time it did.

Your post leans rather on the "I have a great, secret idea and team" side and features a lot of social proof and other convincing arguments. Your early career success, how much "monetary value" you invested etc.

This focus on tools of communication will probably also show when you present the actual product. My feeling is that more focus on the product itself will help you to get further.

This is SUCH a good response. Thank you. Really solid advice.

And thank you in particular for taking the time to find the links to emphasize it.

I think this is exactly my learning also from "Act 1" / "Act 2". Specifically solving one narrow problem very, very well. And viewing anything else as a temptation.

One problem. One target buyer. No side-quests.

The problem I'm solving is "what comes after the demo in B2B SAAS sales".

Personal experience has shown me that the demo tends to be a high-point and the follow up is like "hey just checking in...". So I've built something that edits the demo recording into a highlight-reel, and uses that summary to re-engage people.

The metric my product owns is really specific: re-engagement after the demo.

My previous attempts lacked this kind of focus.

(Applied twice, got in second time)

Don't hide anything.

Applying again is not a problem, from what I have seen. One thing you'll see in Paul Graham's writing is that persistence/resilience is the most important attribute of a founder. PG's thinking has defined YC's culture, and that does not seem to have changed.

Secondly, don't do things to get into YC. Do things because they are useful for your business.

Assembling a strong founding team is the foundation of your business - you should do this because it's intrinsically useful.

Don't focus on getting into YC - focus on building a product people want, and a company to seize that opportunity.

Ironically, if you stop devoting mental energy to getting into YC, and devote that into your startup, this will make getting into YC easier.

I have some general advice, although it’s hard to be specific with the details you give.

1) Don’t lie / make a new account - poor ethics, poor signaling about ethics, poor signaling about thinking about being rejected from YC.

2) YC today is not what it was ten years ago; different people, different place in the market, different cohort makeup. It’s still a thing that will boost your social capital in the west coast startup world, but I think from reading your post that you’re probably a little stuck on the white whale of your early 20s - might be worth looking at recent batch companies with a hard eye to see if they still fit your dreams for yourself. In particular, I would note a tendency over the last ten years for more and more of a batch to be companies that service other YC batch companies. This is a sensible strategy during a glut of VC in a startup boom market - you have high trust early sales, and your company gets to scale along with the peak scale of the rest of your batch - however, in choppy waters, this high volatility strategy may not work as well, or at least needs some consideration.

3) If you have a team, talk proudly about them, bring them along for interviews, etc.

4) Don’t spend too much time on this - go get some sales. If you have a great team, some sales, and have bootstrapped, you’re golden - perhaps more likely to get in to a batch, but definitely more likely to win and build something valuable.

Finally, I’ve solo foundered nearly 30 companies, and cofounded a number (5-ish?) in my life - YC’s preference for non-solo-founded companies is a reasonable preference - but it’s informed, at least in part by the milieu - early stage startup with (originally) grad-student age founders. As you know, starting a company is super hard. It’s super lonely, and you want to get off the ride, all the time. Building those co-founder social and ethics skills are a good thing to do, but they’re not the be-all and end-all of business - your best partners for your new company might not prefer equity to cash, or you may just have a lone wolf type temperament where cofounders are going to piss you off and be distracting.

Like so much in startups, it’s up to you to decide what parts of the preferences of others (in this case VC) are because they have real wisdom about your situation and what parts are, while generally helpful, not the best thing for your company / your leadership.

Good luck!

> I’ve solo foundered nearly 30 companies

How/why did you end up with so many? Over what time span?

amazing freudian slip! should have been founded :) first was age 13; I am 46 right now. They just seem to have added up over the years; I now have a venture studio which means the pace is accelerating.

Somewhere in there I read papers on venture portfolio construction which calculated that a vc needs roughly 50+ companies in the portfolio before they have enough hedging against random bad luck. Every entrepreneur should think hard about those stats - my response to it has some obvious down-sides but made sense to me.

Do you need to get into YC to make Act 3 successful? Or do you just want it because you've wanted it for a long time? If you need external funding or connections, I can see it being helpful, but otherwise it sounds like you're doing okay already.

First, thanks for the advice. :)

You are right I don't actually need YC. But it would make things faster. So any advice on the best way to approach it would be useful.

I'm worried that they will write me off since I had a first interview 10 years ago.

>> "CMO of a $180m company by age 23"

>> "And bootstrapped a small SaaS to $20k MRR and applied again."

What is it you actually want out of YC funding? It sounds like you've got a good handle on business. This is the kind of thing banks are for. Why not get a real small business loan? Seed/VC funding is speculative. You're well past that point.

What you're doing is like a scientist trying to find grants at a high school science fair. Try pitching a bank instead of YC.

I've got ~zero burn atm (because I'm funding my small team of 5 with my old company).

So I don't absolutely need funding. But I still think YC has huge value, just I'm going to do it either way.

What I specifically want is to put all my focus into the new product and not have to split my time across my companies. And to go fast, as in many years of trying I've not seen such levels of interest as my current thing gets.

Honest question: What must-haves do you need YC for? Sounds like you’ve already learnt the hard lessons and you’re on the right track.

If you need cash then go and pitch some investors. Either you’ll get some cash or you’ll get a reality check. Both have value.

Being outside the US doesn’t stop you pitching US early stage investors and then flipping the company to move there (if that’s something you want to do).

You're right... YC isn't a "must have".

But YC clearly still has value. For me specifically it's about speed. It's not like YC itself is some North-star, but I think it would speed things up a lot.

Also very specifically: it would mean I can quit my "other job" running my other company and focus 100% on "Act 3" instead of splitting my time.

A quick question, what benefits do you think applying to YC will give you at this stage of your company's life?

Will it make launching easier?

If the difficulty with launching is that you need to get the product to work consistently, and the money that YC gives you makes a real difference in hiring someone to fix the consistency issues, then sure, go ahead an apply.

Otherwise your efforts may be more usefully directed at actually solving the issue with the product working consistently.

If there are other benefits to applying to YC, and you don't have to spend much time to do it, then there is no harm in applying. At worst you'll get a no. I would not get overly enamoured of YC. It's a great accelerator. But there are other good accelerators as well.

I'm not anyone to give advice, but just to ask this: does your and yc's end results match? Seems like you have end goal of just to get into YC like it's some kind of gold medal..?

I'm also in tha stage of finally found and chosen good app&service idea that has potential to make millions$ of revenue. I would need an investor of 60 - 100k$ to be able to concentrate on it 100% and make it polished and at fast phase. would anyone know how and where to attain such investors ? I have been making other web apps before with < 100k$ revenue, but it's not enjyable anymore to grind your health and relationships away for months for a product with 0 marketing budget..

Accelerators/individual angel or VC investors.

Put an email in your profile?

> The resulting idea is excellent but it's technically hard. > Talking to customers it's very clear there's demand. My small team is excellent. > There's clear demand but it's hard to simply launch as the product is complex and I want it to work consistently first.

You don't need YC. You need a fiscal path from here to break-even. YC would invest $500K. Would that amount get you to launch? Be realistic.

Have you done the YC online Start-up School? It may give you good insight into the program and get you on track to a successful application.

It sounds like you don't need YC, to be honest.

I'm curious are there any examples where solo founders were accepted by YC?

https://www.ycombinator.com/faq

The FAQ says they regularly accept solo founders.

I still think the chance is very small if you apply as a solo founder. And I have never found a startup in throughout all batches that have a solo founder.

Coinbase, Flexport...

> The resulting idea is excellent but it's technically hard. I've put all the resources of my company and myself into getting it made.

I'm with you and want you to crush it! Playing devil's advocate for a minute, there might be some issues with the current state of things.

Parts that will make it hard to get in (and could put the company health at risk):

- the company is default dead right now with no revenue stream[0]

- employees were hired so the burn rate already started with no product

- currently locked into doing a big launch

- the majority of the focus is on software development

- it's harder to do significant product changes since you already have a team of employees coding the technical solution

- there are no customers on board yet

Sorry if any of those parts are off base from the actual details. From what you posted it sounded like there was positive user feedback but no customers/revenue.

Before focusing on a development team you also need to know that your product is something users love. Don't get emotionally invested in creating the "right" thing off the bat. Learn how to talk to different users frequently and set up development cycles to know that you're building something people need. It's better to not be attached emotionally and learn how to iterate quickly then to start a big development push early on.

The more you invest into building an initial idea, the more locked in you are on that solution. If you have any way to prototype a $500k solution manually or with a cheap automation that doesn't scale, do that first. Your goal is to know that you're solving the right problems.

An early launch should be able to solve something to prove viability but be easy to build. The faster the future product build times are, the more chances you have to iterate and measure your solutions with UX research. Getting user feedback early and often helps de-risk your product build cycles. With only one big launch, it puts most of the risk into things going well with the initial product build. It will also miss out on early growth opportunities that you can have with customers. They won't be able to give input as the parts are built and they'll have less connection to the early product if they weren't part of shaping it.

Actions also speak louder than words. Many people are nice when talking to you because people like to help each other. Get people to pay for your product. Any promise without money is worthless.

For a pre-seed stage bootstrap your best investors are your customers. They'll give you money without taking equity and help you prove out the product market fit. That gives you leverage later when talking to investors because you'll have a nice picture of how the company has been solving real problems, acquiring new customers, growing revenue, etc. Any prospective investors should be worried about missing the chance to grow with you.

I think these line up with problems 1, 2, and 3 from the startup lessons essay.[1]

Having prior experience with a bootstrapped company is great and they'll probably be neutral or positive on re-applying. They'll also like that you've talked extensively with users before building the product. I don't know much about launching SAAS businesses so that initial build hurdle could just be part of the process. My bad if that was overly critical. Building something in front of users can be extra nice though.

YC put out the online startup school for free.[2] If you're only looking for advice, that may be more bang for the buck. It's a different story if you want to take funding and use YC as an on-ramp for that.

Either way, it sounds exciting. Sorry if this post sounded all negative. I was trying to give advice from where I think YC would be coming from. Things can go well without those call outs. I'm just a random internet person. I hope it ends up being successful!

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html

[2] https://www.startupschool.org

Overqualified.