How secret do startup proposals to Y Combinator need to be? Should applicants avoid making any of their prototypes public?

3 points·amichail··13 comments

You don't have to keep anything secret for our sake. This batch we funded three companies that were already launched, Buxfer, Weebly, and Virtualmin.

boso was also launched and had an active community at the time of funding, though it subsequently evolved into auctomatic which we've only just launched.

Oops, true, make it four.

I think except in very rare cases Derek from CD Baby says it best...

Awful idea = -1 Weak idea = 1 So-so idea = 5 Good idea = 10 Great idea = 15 Brilliant idea = 20

No execution = $1 Weak execution = $1000 So-so execution = $10,000 Good execution = $100,000 Great execution = $1,000,000 Brilliant execution = $10,000,000

So an awful idea with a brilliant execution will cost you $10,000,000? That's quite a bit of bail money, yes?

It'll probably just cost some dumb VC 10 mil, not you personally.

Windows Vista.

To complicate matters, what if your proposal is rejected in this coming round but you are thinking of applying again in the following round?

Clearly, not making a prototype public becomes more of an issue in that case.

It's your company. Why would it be an issue whether or not it was secret?

Because they may not fund it if it is not.

But haven't they funded people with existing products?

Even if that were to be the case, it might still discourage them from funding your proposal.

This post says the wrong number of comments. Weird.

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