Applications open for summer 2009 YC funding | Hacker News Reader

Applications open for summer 2009 YC funding

ycombinator.com

131 pointspg80 comments

A couple new things this cycle:

It's going to be in Silicon Valley, not Boston, in case anyone still hasn't heard about that (http://ycombinator.com/ycca.html). Fortunately the Mountain View office is much bigger. We were pretty much at the limit in Cambridge.

Also, we're asking applicants to submit videos introducing themselves this time. Thanks for Posterous for saving me from having to write code to deal with submitted videos!

I suppose that also means no more Startup Schools in Cambridge as well?

Well, Langley Steinert and Olin Shivers, who both gave great presentations, were nonetheless the only local speakers apart from VC and law firm partners, right? Everyone else was flying in anyway.

Good question, though. I went to the Harvard Summer School in high school, so I'm still infatuated with the area -- I'd love to have an excuse to go back to Cambridge again. I traveled from California to Startup School '05 with a 10-month-old, so I know it can be done!

Probably not, but there probably wouldn't have been anyway. Only the first was in Cambridge. The three since have all been in the Valley, because it's so much easier to get speakers here.

we're asking applicants to submit videos introducing themselves

I'm glad I'm not applying this time.

Never mind the irritation of figuring out how to create a video (I'm sure it's easy, but why spend time figuring that out when I could be hacking?) -- I simply don't video well, especially in artificial-seeming situations. And I don't think a video would tell you anything useful about me anyway; my most natural voice is the written voice, so that's what you should listen to if you want to learn anything about me.

I can see a couple of potential advantages to requiring an introductory video -- first, it allows you to detect some fraudulent applications; and second, it raises the bar for entry, thus removing some of the less serious applications -- but my impression from everything I've read here is that neither of those are particularly problematic even without videos. I'll admit that some people speak better in video than in writing -- although I think this applies more often to business people than to hackers -- but surely the right solution to deal with such people is to make an introductory video optional, not to make it mandatory. I know there's a lot you can see when you engage a candidate in conversation which you can't see on a written page; but a unilateral video doesn't tell you how well someone can carry on a bilateral or multilateral conversation either.

I'm sure you guys have some reason for this... but I certainly can't see it. Why?

how were you going to give your pitch & demo?

My code speaks for itself.

Of course YC won't be basing their decision solely on the video, it's just a very valuable piece of input. If your best voice is your written voice, you might want to partner up with a guy that has technical depth, but can also give a wicked in-person presentation.

I think picking a co-founder based on what they'll bring to a YC application might be the best example I've ever heard of "the tail wagging the dog".

It's not just the YC application... it's every part of the business that has to do with effectively explaining things to people - be they investors, board members, employees, reporters, or customers.

I think that's a little arrogant of a stance but that's not to say I don't agree with some of your points in you first post.

In my experience, I think you should consider working on your verbal communication skills. Nothing turns me (more importantly, team members and investors) off more than an ego-centric engineer who thinks their code is god. This can have a lot of implications in your product's quality and success on many levels. It's like the leader singer of a band thinking he knows best, most of the time the band ends up dissolving.

Your code speaks for itself only to people who care about code. Which, as it happens, doesn't include a lot of investors, co-founders, customers, employees, and all of the other people you're going to have to persuade if your startup is going to be successful.

Heck, even if you have a "smarmy sales-dude" as a co-founder, you'll still eventually be in a role where persuasion/leadership is more valuable than coding chops. What percentage of successful startup CTOs do you think code on a day-to-day basis?

On a related note, if anyone needs a smarmy sales dude, hit me up.

I'm guessing it gives pg an easy, low cost way to see how applicants present themselves and sell their ideas. It seems like he's trying to come as close to an actual vc pitch without having to meet everyone in person.

The real world requires verbal communication. You definitely aren't the only person whose been annoyed by this (I'm one of them). However, it's essential and YC probably wants to see some ability/willingness to do it.

Here's my take on it:

VC money is drying up. Without VC money, your runway is short. It's now much more important to get a lot of users excited quickly.

The best way to do this online is with video, hands down.

So if you can't produce a reasonably good video, you are at a distinct disadvantage, and your company is much less likely to be successful.

It's definitely not to test people's communication skills. We just want to see what they're like.

We've found that someone talking live is a much higher bandwidth form of communication than words typed into a form. As well as words you get gestures, intonation, the vibe between a group of cofounders, etc.

But people shouldn't worry that they "video badly." We're not (I hope) so dumb that we'd be taken in by people who are merely smooth presenters. We come from the world of people who video badly ourselves. If we'd been applying for Viaweb, I'd have had to negotiate with Rtm how many words he'd say, and I'd be lucky if I got it as high as 10.

Please keep and release a tally of "creative" videos and how they were "creative": time lapse, blue screen, animated overlays...

Higher bandwidth indeed, but you're giving out an open canvas. Could be good, could be extreme. The restrictions of "traditional" submission mechanisms are like the "traditional" formats for resumes, preventing every resume from becoming a tabloid magazine.

We explicitly ask people not to do that:

http://ycombinator.com/video.html

If they ignore us and put in a bunch of fancy stuff anyway, we'll just click on "next." We have a lot of applications to read.

I absolutely agree that a video of someone talking is a much higher bandwidth form of communication. Similarly, usenet was higher bandwidth in 1995 than it was in 1985 -- but that doesn't mean that it was more useful, only that there was far more noise.

Maybe this will work out fine, but I worry that with a video you'll pick up things like "this guy seems uncomfortable" but not be able to identify the reasons why (is he uncomfortable with the rest of his group? Or just uncomfortable being in front of a camera?) -- or worse, get a subjective sense that a video isn't very inspiring without even identifying what you're noticing, never mind figuring out whether what you're noticing is signal or noise.

There's a reason why most professional symphony orchestras use blind auditions: While nobody disputes the fact that being able to see a musician play is valuable, experience has shown that the noise it introduces is more significant than the signal. Simply put, eliminating the high bandwidth distraction of being able to see someone allows orchestras to pick better people.

We could do blind auditions if a startup had already launched, in the sense that we could just look at stats like their traffic growth. But at the stage we're trying to pick startups, we almost never have such data. So our situation is more analogous to trying to pick people who could become good musicians, before they'd taken any lessons. At our stage, you're judging the people-- so it's useful to see the people.

Nonsense.

I am not sure if we humans can really help being impressed by looks, no matter how smart we are.

Take a look at http://ycombinator.com/video.html

Gives more context - They explicitly state they don't want to make it into a video making contest.

Out of nothing more than pure curiosity, what do you gain (perceived or otherwise) from the new video requirement?

Does it just raise the bar of entry enough that you receive fewer applications; or is there something to be gained by the determination as to whether or not someone is comfortable in front of a camera?

Applying for a YC cycle is not on my to-do list for the foreseeable future, but if there is some kind of insight to be gained from video applications, I'd love to hear about it.

I ended up explaining this to cperciva (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=474457).

Basically we just want to see what people are like. When we do interviews we always feel that we know more about a group after 30 seconds in person than from reading their whole application. We were hoping that video would give us some of that a step earlier.

It does seem much more agreeable when you look at it as being a "pre-interview".

I know when meeting someone in person it's pretty easy to tell how passionate they are about what they're doing (or even how comfortable they are with their ideas). I do hope that you'll write about the results of this particular experiment once its done, I'm curious about how it turns out for you.

I am applying this year, it is definitely going to be a challenge for me since I am camera shy, but hopefully it weeds out a lot of non serious people.

Can we do anything other than video at Posterous? My cofounder and I are distance-separated, and I don't know how we'd make a video like that. Could we do a two-person audio conference, for instance? And if it turns out we're not able to submit something like that, would you say that puts us at a disadvantage versus somebody that's sending in a good relaxed video?

I've waited a year to apply, though, and this is an utter thrill! I got such a such seeing the applications open this morning.

a two-person audio conference, for instance?

How about a Skype video-conference? http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/videocall Some angel investors use it to attend far-away board meetings from home.

Huh! That's a very definite possibility.

Of course, that lacks the personal feel of an in-person film: maybe we'll both try and long-distance to New York City for the occasion.

Update: I guess Skype-to-Skype video calling is limited to just two participants, for now: http://support.skype.com/en_US/faq/FA661/How-do-I-start-a-vi...

Video calls are only possible with two participants. Unfortunately, video conferences are not possible at the moment.

So, you could "conference" between two people (or two locations), but that's it (which should be enough if it's just two founders).

Hm. Still not certain how I would record that...

It'd be interesting to see how many applications YC gets compared to this time last year (as a % change).

On one hand, people might be pretty worried about taking a risk like this now that the economic turmoil has really started to hit the labour market and not apply as much. OTOH, recently laid-off people might flood YC with applications, even if they would not consider it before.

From a personal anecdote, it's much easier to start a business than it is finding a job. Less hassle, only have to grovel half as much for money.

and even much easier to start it in so-called emerged markets (India/Nepal/Thailand etc.)

It seems like there will be a sharp decline in the number of applications because of the effort required to produce a video introducing the founders, even if it's a simple video. That is a Good Thing though because it will probably filter out most of the low-quality apps (a 13-year old single-founder applicant probably wouldn't take the time to make the video, for example).

On the other hand, if you ever wanted to Goatse PG, here's your chance.

?! Outside of setting world records for texting, pretty much the only thing 13 year olds do these days is post videos of themselves to the internet. The effort required to make a sub-minute intro video has almost reached zero.

I should've selected the example more carefully. If the first few seconds of the video is of a 13 year old, then the app can probably safely be discarded, so it's still a decent low-quality filter.

Also, if you put "almost zero" effort into your intro video, then it's going to suck. I don't know what YC is looking for in the video, but it seems like you'll have a higher chance of them funding you if they see that you have at least one naturally-charismatic founder, in addition to a very skilled technical one. The video can show your charisma, just like the application can show your technical skill.

It still seems like the total number of fully-completed applications will decrease because of the video. But again, that's a good thing.

So you would've thrown out Aaron Swartz's young face? (Aaron co-founded of Reddit)

Thirteen year old: http://www.canbymn.org/dhoyme/Zach.MVC-004S.JPG

Seventeen year old: http://www.iamthewitness.com/Bollyn/RogerHolyfield.jpg

Eighteen year old Aaron Swartz in 2005: http://graphics.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Original_Photo/2007/09...

Also, I just realized that doing a Google image search for "thirteen year old boy" at a public coffee shop might not be such a good idea.

How many applications did YC get last year?

Edit: Scratch that, guess I should've searched first. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=336635

Are applications from outside America accepted? How are they handled if they were selected?

I'm somewhat new to the YC funding process, not sure if I can find this info somewhere (a link would be appreciated if that's the case).

Thank you!

http://ycombinator.com/faq.html

Woops, I actually read that FAQ a long time ago, guess I forgot about it... Thank you :)

What if you have already registered your company in another country, i.e. a limited company in the UK?

PS: Video Applications now required, interesting: http://ycombinator.com/video.html

> In the video please introduce yourselves, explain what you're doing and why, and tell us anything else you want to about the founders or the project.

We'd been meaning to do this, but it required me to add support for uploading videos. Fortunately Posterous appeared and solved the problem way more thoroughly than I would have.

I've used Posterous for a very similar purpose. It's great when startups solve a genuine problem.

(pity the application form isn't wufoo!)

It seems like any service that lets you post a video and access it from a fixed url would be sufficient (so long as the video is as private as the submitter wants it to be). S3 could work just fine, if you made the file public and put it on an obscure path.

so either code a solution (eg, uploader, verify it's a video, verify private urls are secure, etc etc)

or just use a startup you've funded that does exactly this? :)

I was just saying you could have a place to paste in a url, and leave it at that (let the user figure out how to get their video url-accessible). If an applicant can't figure that out, it's probably a worthwhile filter.

[Edit]: Validation of the video is probably desirable, since you then don't have to ping applicants whose videos don't work. I'm willing to bet that posterous does validation and replies if the video is bad.

"If you want to apply, please submit your application online by 10 pm PST on March 18, 2009. Groups that submit early have an advantage because we have more time to read their applications."

Do we have the chance to update the submitted video with our latest video? For instance, if we decide to submit the application with the video before the deadline, then, decide to update the video later. Can we do so?

> Edit and resubmit as much as you want, but be sure to submit at least once before the deadline (March 18 at 10 pm PST), because you haven't applied till you do.

I assume they simply use the most recent application...

I know. But, are they going to use the latest video?

The last video url you put in the form field will overwrite whatever was there before. We might see an earlier video if you submit your application early, we look at it, and then you update and submit again before the deadline. But (a) it would be very unlikely that all three of us would independently do that and (b) we'd probably also check the new one after applications closed and we started reading them in earnest.

So what should I do if I want to be a part of this but don't have an idea or any partners?

This is hypothetical right now, but I am very seriously considering applying next summer.

[shameless plug - read all before modding down] find another community of people interested in starting software/online businesses. I launched http://fairsoftware.net almost 6 months ago at TC50. We host a bunch of projects, most private, but some public. Join an existing project or put a call out there for ideas.

My motto: "Succeed Together". The team is the solution, not the problem. Once you got your team of passionate people, apply to YC!

[before you mod me down, feel free to contribute other places on the web where people can find partners that would qualify to start a YC-funded business. If you have a decent list, then mod me down. If you can't come up with more places, then accept that my plug really is informative :-) ]

Read as much as possible. If You want to become a writer you must become a reader first. btw, there are many useful skills from non-IT world. Short stories writing is a good example.

"(c) Half or more of your group can't move to the Bay Area for the winter. (d) One or more founders will keep their current jobs during the winter."

Shouldn't this be summer?

Oops, yes, will fix. Edit: fixed.

Is there any place to get YC like advice and connections without the requirement of moving to Mountain View for 3 months?

the internet

Does a weak application hurt applications in later rounds?

Will applying now affect future applications?

I don't know if this already has been answered before, but how do you evaluate if a candidate has a sense of design?

By things they've made, either in the past, or the project they're applying with.

Thanks. Maybe it was lost in translation, but by Design do you mean appearance (like in graphical, interface, industrial design) or architecture (like operating system design)?

If it's the former, I hope you don't get offended by it, but I think, looking at HN and your website, that you wouldn't be accepted. :) Nor would Sergey and Page.

Both. They're the same thing.

Good design doesn't mean fancy design. Quite the opposite.

I also didn't mean fancy design.

But in your 'startup ideas', in the idea #16, you said Google has no sense of design, so I suppose that the people responsible for it (Google founders originally. Marissa Meyer with a team of designer now days, I believe) wouldn't be accepted in YC.

And that is more of a rhetoric observation. I know they would.

But then isn't the 'sense of design' requirement unnecessary?

Paradoxically, early Google both had no sense of (visual) design and yet managed to produce results that are way above average. The reason was that (perhaps knowing they weren't good at visual things) they just kept everything as simple as possible. It was like the design equivalent of a low-fee index fund, which despite not even pretending to know how to pick stocks, consistently generates above average net returns because of the low fees.

Do All founders need to submit a separate application ? couldn't find it in the FAQ?

No. You submit one for your team. However, each member needs a Hacker News username.

Good luck!

Why does the "March 18" link on PaulGraham.com go to a PollEverywhere site?

Oops, fixed. (Polleverywhere was in the summer 2008 cycle, and I used to have a link to them there.)

my idea would be really good but flights to silicon valley from ireland arnt cheap and im the only founder, not going to bother applying

thought i had a valid point, $600 wouldnt cover my costs

Reply on news.ycombinator.com