How's your YC Winter 2008 application coming along? | Hacker News Reader

How's your YC Winter 2008 application coming along?

17 pointswonjun33 comments

We finished the first draft of the application questionnaire, and we implemented about half of the features we'd like to show in our demo.

We are a team of two awesome cofounders, and our idea is not technically heavy.

How's your application coming along?

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Sounds like you're moving along quite nicely. I realized that I will not finish my PhD in time for the deadline, so it's been postponed 1/2 a year.

At one point, I toyed with the idea of submitting, just to receive feedback, but thought it would be somewhat unethical. Good luck all.

Okay... hey, what did you get for #6?

Do you mean this #6, "What is your company going to make?" lol

Anyone applying again who was previously turned down? I am also curious of what YC's opinion is of groups who would like to re-apply?

I am. Rejected SFP05 and SFP07, hopefully 3rd time will be the charm...

What happened after rejections? Have you ever launched your products after being rejected?

After SFP05, I took a realistic look at the product and my ability to complete it before competitors did and decided not to pursue it. I took a job with another startup instead, first finishing up a long-time volunteer coding project I'd been working on. It turns out the product (web-based collaborative editing) would've had a market, but I probably would have been crushed by Google. They folded similar features into Google Docs not long afterwards.

After SFP07, we continued working on it. We launched a side project (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16234 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18233) and put about a month of effort into that before deciding it wasn't worthwhile. We also launched an intermediate milestone that we'd mentioned in our application, which is linked in my profile. It's had the same lack of success that we predicted, though I was of course hoping that there may be an off-chance of it taking off. (We did it that way because we need the functionality anyway for the main idea, so might as well package it up and get feedback while we work on that.)

Well, some subset of "we". We had applied with 5 founders, and PG immediately shot back an e-mail with "too many uncommitted founders!" It became apparent that he was right, so the 3 that were not really into it left a couple months later.

Curiously, our schedule in the SFP07 app would've been nearly dead-on had we not done the 5-week side project. We were initially planning to launch Diffle in late April; it actually launched on June 1. Then we were going to prototype the main idea between then and the start of the SFP; we actually got our first prototypes done during the first week of July. Progress since then has been slower than we anticipated, mostly because I kept the day job through the summer (I'm in the process of quitting now, and really would recommend that anyone in a similar situation quit as soon as they have an idea - it's not worth the hassle of ensuring you own your own IP).

wow thanks a lot for sharing your stories. I think the 3rd time will be the charm for you. It sounds like you've learned a lot from the two previous submissions.

Good luck!!!

(Indeed, it makes me want to apply just for the process! I have an open-source idea, didn't PG say he could monetize anything? It would grow in use as word spread (pretty sure) but ultimately wouldn't get that big and would be hard to make anything off of.. sigh).

I really don't like telling that but your new project (Diffle) hardly is a startup at all! It's a nice website but it's nothing new. You need to solve some real problem.

Agreed. It's basically a bunch of functionality that we needed anyway and could do relatively easy. Hence, we pushed it out. http://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=Og6Bd3JpZu

Turned down in the interview stage?

No, didn't get an interview, both times.

The application process has taken us longer than I thought it would because it has made us question whether there really is a market for the idea. Yes, it does help to solve a problem, but we don't have a working product to get user feedback.

So for the past couple of weeks I've set the application aside and have focused on administering a market survey, so most of my time has been on the right wording for the test.

Hopefully with the help of social networks, email, WOM, etc... We'll be able to get a large enough sample to help us understand if we're heading in the right direction. If so, we'll submit our application with the survey results.

I am sure, though, that upon reading the questions, the person taking the survey will know quite easily what our start-up will be doing... which can be good and bad. Our positive spin on this is the survey will be our public declaration that we are up to something.

IMHO your application would look much better with a prototype than a market survey attached.

I'm experimenting with a couple of ideas to see if one has potential. If so, I might consider applying in October. I've received lunch invites from a couple of investors to chat further, but I don't need the money yet. I believe that I should take investment only after I feel confident that the idea has a good chance of success. I can experiment with ideas on my own; it's much faster and I can change direction quickly if something doesn't look like it's working. If I do apply to YC, it'll be for the community and the support, not the money.

I think you should defintely apply. YC application process in itself is another way to experiment and get feedback.

and how did you get lunch invites from investors? That sounds very promising.

I simply attended a lot of hacker/tech networking events to meet other entrepreneurs hoping to find a co-founder. And in the process, I met a lot of other people, some of whom turned out to be investors or working for investors. I also met many good entrepreneurs with good ideas, but none (yet) with an idea that has good enough potential (in my opinion) to commit myself to for the next few years. I'm still searching, but until then, I will continue to experiment.

I already submitted my application before I finished my prototype, which I now have to get done before the deadline. I'm trying to use this as really strong motivation to just finish the prototype instead of waiting until feature creep, polish, etc. is completed before submitting. I'll resubmit once the prototype is minimally functional. My biggest problem is being a single founder; pg said he usually doesn't accept them so I'm probably dead.

I sent an email asking to withdraw my application (I doubt it would be accepted anyway; but it turns out that I'm going to be busy on the "fly to Cambridge" weekend, and I don't want to waste their time) last week. I haven't seen any response, but I assume that someone reads the info@ address and has removed my application from their stack of reading materials.

Wouldn't it have been easier to resubmit the application with all fields blanked out, except for one with the explanation?

I'm not submitting an application, but my partner and I have copied it to Google Docs and filled it out for our own use. It turns out all our discussion meant when we wrote it down we were already 95% on the same page. It's still very useful as a way to refresh my memory, like pitching the idea to myself.

It isn't. I'm a wage slave for now.

I'm drafting my application now, but will probably not submit unless I have a solid prototype by the deadline.

its going great, hope to have it submitted by the weekend. last term was going to be too hectic.

This round the timing feels right!

:) Enslaved

Will learn to program first.

We're working on it now. :)

If only I had a co-founder.

You have to be more proactive in your search. Have you ever posted to any of the numerous "I need a cofounder" threads? Have you blogged about it? Have you discussed anything that interests you with any of the people who comment on here? Has anyone's comment or story they posted interested you? Why not email them? Most people have emails in their profiles.

I'm always skeptical about approaching the cofounder process that way. I wouldn't recommend doing this with someone you don't know very well. It will strain the bonds of friendship, without that, it's a crapshoot.

hackermatcher

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