I got into YC after applying six times. Here's my advice for YC applicants | Hacker News Reader

I got into YC after applying six times. Here's my advice for YC applicants

iamwil.posterous.com

157 pointsDanielRibeiro37 comments

I'm sort of confused with the obsession some people have with applying to YC. It seems like something a lot of people do now because it is sort of prestigious and because a lot of the companies seem to do well afterwards. Maybe that's good enough, but I often feel confused reading posts like "How to get in to YC" because I'm not sure I've read one of these posts yet where the author articulates a clear reason why getting into YC was so important.

The path to success is such a marathon that it's often easier to think about the smallest quantum first step. Hence the posts about YC and weekend projects. A few years ago it was how to raise a round or how to get on techcrunch. Same game, different name.

It's not unlike how we often fascinate about the gear we need to embark on a trip while we forget the hard/interesting part is the journey itself.

It seems more like a certificate or degree than anything else these days.

At the risk of linking to myself:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5218226

If by "at the risk of" you mean "I'm just going to go ahead and do it"

> I'm sort of confused with the obsession some people have with applying to YC.

Reading HN will give you a skewed perspective. This site is literally and by design the HQ for YC applicants, alumni and fellow travellers. A lot of those fellow travellers worship pg.

Read the comments whenever a new essay is posted. Lots of /r/cringe material.

Don't blame the band for the groupies.

Being in YC definitely has its advantages, it will - all other things being equal - give a stamp of approval to a start-up that will translate into easier funding, more press coverage and more 'buzz'. Those are real advantages when it comes to competition.

Right now, planetwide in my opinion there is no other single advantage as large as YC for as little dilution. If you can spare the time for an application when you're seriously (that's the bit that many people seem to overlook) working on a startup then applying to YC is an absolute no-brainer.

This has 0 to do with pg worship. And being part of the YC alumni network is a benefit all by itself.

Plus 1 on this

In fact I would say that any entrepreneur / startup Network will far exceed in returned value the costs of setting up. For example a mailing list and regular meet at the Starbucks nearest londons silicon roundabout would mean more to introduce new startups into the area than any government program

There may already be one

I don't know how we got from pg worship to the benefits of being a YC alumnus. Those are well known at this point and YC has essentially gone from being a plucky outsider to part of the valley establishment.

I'm sure somebody somewhere is writing breathless blog posts about how to get into Stanford.

Developer starfuckers.

I'm not saying YC is without value, I think for certain people it's fantastic. Not everyone knows how to build a business out of the box. But the obsession with certain types of getting into YC is purely so they can be in the club and get rich and get onto TechCrunch.

I read "how to get into YC" as a guide what traits will make me a more successful academic. After all, a fellowship is much like YC financing, except my high-risk project does papers, grants, networking instead of software.

I am slightly annoyed from the fanboyism glorifying YC between the lines. The post is full of good advice + quotes from PG and I highly appreciate YC's contributions to the startup ecosystem but people shouldn't think that being part of YC is the only option. People like the OP telling us that they needed six attempts to get in YC send the wrong signal: that YC is the one and only way to get a real entrepreneur. PG created a great brand and yes, it must feel amazing going through YC but it could also mislead young entrepreneurs -- instead of building a great product they focus too much on the application process and potential credentials they might get from YC. You can get all the knowledge, peer pressure and get in front of any investor you want without being part of YC.

I don't think it's "fanboyism", and it's obvious that there are other ways to succeed than going through YC.

Having been through it, YC is similar in a sense to a great university, except better. It's not a requirement to attend a great university to be successful, but it certainly helps.

It's an opportunity to meet amazing and ambitious people, be inspired by them, and seek your own success. By the end of the program you haven't just "done YC", but you are YC. It's an experience hard to describe .. like going through 4 years of undergrad in 4 months. I wish more people could experience something similar, it would lead to a better world.

I started applying to YC back in 2005. That's why it was six times between 2005 and 2011. I wrote it assuming you already know what the benefit of YC is and want to get in, or that you know, but are on the fence about it.

It's specifically titled as advice to applicants, not "Should you apply to YC?", right?

Hey all. OP here. When posterous announced the acquisition a year ago, I moved all my posts from both blogger and posterous to wordpress.

https://iamwilchung.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/i-got-into-yc-a...

Excuse the ugly template, but the story's still there.

As a 4 time YC reject I really liked this post. I'm surprised I haven't come across this before given how much research I've done on YC.

On monday we're starting our beta, so we'll finally be able to apply with traction data.

“Be so good they can’t ignore you” are words to live by.

Wow--the author wasted five years of his life trying to get into YC? Talk about a huge opportunity cost. He could have founded multiple companies in that time and learned air more by year 2013. Sometimes you just have to stop making excuses for procrastination ("I'll do that hard stuff once I get into YC") and just start doing.

How do you know he wasn't working on his companies WHILE he was applying to YC?

Yeah, it's not like life stops in-between YC rejections. I applied to YC 4 times between SFP2005 and SFP2008. In the meantime, I redid the backend for a 100,000 user website, wrote one of the top Haskell tutorials on the web, launched 2 products for a financial software startup, founded a company, pivoted said company 4 times, watched said company die, ported Arc to JavaScript, and learned a whole lot about programming, startups, and myself. I did eventually have a chance to be a cofounder of a YC startup (not by applying the normal way, but because PG put me in touch with one of the applicants in SFP08 that needed a technical cofounder and they offered me 20% of the company), but by then I'd realized that it wasn't really what I wanted at that point in my life. If the need arises, I'll apply again, but by now I've realized that my drive is to innovate and I don't care whether that happens in a big company or a startup.

I'd like to think of YC as something like the SATs, APs, or patent applications. It is a credential. It makes life easier for you in the future. Pick it up because you're ready for it and have already learned the skills you need for it on other more worthy projects, but don't make it your life's goal. Once you do that, it's only a weekend's worth of work.

He doesn't, and I was, or working for a YC company.

That's a good point; I don't. I assume not, though, because I view YC as a program for those without much experience. Otherwise, one wouldn't trade so much equity for being but one out of a huge crowd of YC companies.

A sad moment, as Posterous shuts down[1], we can lose some amazing history on the web.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5228997

A lot of people will migrate their content, but there's hope that a lot of it will be preserved by the Internet Archive.

You're covered at least! http://web.archive.org/web/20120106215046/http://iamwil.post...

> there's hope that

Is there some way to poke the Internet Archive, saying "please get a fresh backup of this whole thing right now before it goes down?"

I don't know. Maybe there's some way we can reach out to someone high up to make it happen quickly.

Will, I'm glad you wrote this. I'm sure it'll help some people who were unnecessarily discourage by a YC rejection.

Slightly OT: This post could really benefit from some editing (re clarity, overall length, succinctness). I like to think a lack of editing is why some people think they "can't write". They don't realize how much editing helps, even if they do it themselves.

Next time you write something, ask a few friends to review it, especially if you intend to channel PG ;). I'd be happy to help, too (I'm by no means an expert, though. I'm not even a native speaker)

I've never been much of a joiner, and suspect that many entrepreneurs are of that mold. The concept of incubators as a sort of real world B school makes a lot of sense to me, sure it works for many people. For those who choose to follow their own path, the following advice served me well.

* Position yourself as an expert on X, where X is a skill/trade/industry that is hot but not overcrowded (and where you can stand out, even if you're not the smartest person in the room)

* Get consulting gigs, which should be pretty profitable if you avoid tournament type situations with too many people chasing work (see above)

* Work on a couple side/hobby projects that could turn into a business, experiment with them, and watch results

* When something starts to roll, scale back on consulting biz

* Archive every contact you have, always be networking by sharing ideas with people (versus networking by hard selling).

Odds are any one of your ideas sucks. Eventually one of your ideas will click with users, and you'll be in a good position to build on it. Until then, you're building skills, network and stashing cash for future use, plus you're not under arbitrary deadline pressure to succeed or else.

> If you're a single founder, It's definitely harder to get in. But that doesn't mean you can't be a single founder. For single founders, if you can demonstrate traction, it's much easier to get in. Traction solves everything.

I would have thought that the reason a single founder would apply to YC would be so that the program would help gain traction (or pivot till product/market fit).

If a single founder builds a product and demonstrates traction then IMHO the hard work of building a company and getting customers is done and advantage of applying to YC is less apparent (atleast to me).

In other words, if you build a product and get traction and have customers then what is the value of applying to YC vs just pitching to VCs?

I'm sure I'm missing something here. I just don't know what it is.

Getting traction does not necessarily mean having customers, FWIW.

I'm surprised YC doesn't do more Skype interviews, especially with teams right along the cutoff line.

Still relevant advice to people applying to YC today.

And still single founders are frowned on...

By YC. You absolutely don't need them to be successful - see Rob Walling's approach, for example.

I agree completely.

> Founders are more savvy now, and no longer ask questions like, "So when we get money from investors, when do we have to pay them back?"

this is frightening, where are the first-timer business-clueless technical-geniuses who did the innovation?

I'm not so sure that applying for YC is different from any other VC firm. But it is good advice here.

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