Applying to YC
blog.samaltman.com
blog.samaltman.com
for us going through YC, working with the partners, and joining the YC network were the best things we could have possibly done.
Thinking back to life pre-YC (Dec-13) to now the rate of change (progress/ growth/ knowledge) is unreal.
-Yousif
I signed up on HN after being a passive reader for a long time and so haven't accumulated a lot of karma.
I suppose lack of comments shouldn't be a deterrent as Sam suggested but may be the messaging needs to change a bit? Just my humble opinion.
"He has no comments, he must have been busy doing something else interesting." vs "He has 500 comments, and shows he isn't interested in considering other approaches"
Thanks all.
Disclaimer: You may also need to change your name to George McBay for plausibility.
1. Built/sold something impressive before
2. Worked at Facebook or Google
3. Graduated from Stanford
Criterion 2 is traction, which is either 10.000 users for consumer or $5.000 revenue for B2B after 6 months.
In summary, if the founder does not have a track record as described above or strong traction, she/he is very unlikely to get into YC. Explaining this will prevent people without a track record from thinking that they only have to have a good idea, because if you don't have a track record you need a really good idea with a huge market and traction to get in. I don't think many founders realise that.
I might be wrong, so I would love for others to critizise or add to my comment. I would love to hear about examples for instance, of a recent startup where the founders neither had a track record, nor traction.
There are companies that are accepted with just an idea and companies with six figure revenues that are rejected. There are founders with bad ideas that are "funded for the pivot," and founders like Drew Houston who are rejected because their initial idea was bad.
It just seems kind of random.
So for example. If you're a Stanford grad, have already started and exited a company and now are a part-time VC, you can probably get into YC with just an idea. (similar to Standard Treasury).
Alternatively if you've not made a name for yourself yet it's likely YC would look for something already built, with users, and possibly revenue.
This is obviously pure speculation.
(2) Dan and I are part-time angels really, with very small checks given to a very small number of companies. Also, as sama mentioned, we basically stopped investing at all once we got into YC. We still make an investment from time-to-time but mostly in people we know already. We don't have meetings, way too busy on Standard Treasury.
(3) We felt like an underdog when we applied to YC. I think we were underdogs when we applied! We didn't know them and certainly didn't have much of a reputation outside of financial technology (still don't?). We felt very fortunate when we got in. YC was amazing for us and has always been supportive of our mild madness.
And my comment wasn't meant to come off as "these are exactly the things Standard Treasury did to get in". It was more of a comparison of the type of founders YC would look for in a product that is still in the initial idea phase. So thanks for clearing that up.
The angel thing is actually interesting to me. You don't think that had any weight on YC's decision to admit you guys? To me it would seem like someone who could clearly support themselves financially enough to be an angel would be an ideal candidate as a founder...but I'm not an investor so I have no idea if these things are good or bad.
We raised the money from friends, neither Dan and I are really financially capable of making investments ourselves. So, we're both privileged in that we've hustled and got people to have faith in us; however, both of us came from humble backgrounds (my mom and dad were a waitress and a postman, respectively) and neither of us have done that well for ourselves...yet.
Happy to answer any solo founder related questions, if you have them.
As a solo founder, how did you improve your productivity on early stage: what kind of tasks you usually delegated to someone else (like freelancer) if you did.
I had hired a sales guy right before yc, which helped somewhat. During yc, I basically bounced between growth tasks which was really difficult. I'm still figuring it out tbh.
We now have a larger team which helps a lot... But I still often miss the camaraderie of having someone who 100% has your back.
The other thing is a sense of impostor syndrome to fight against... I feel like I don't have anyone who will see a bigger picture totally, so I find myself doubting my decisions much more frequently.
Would love to share the climb with a co-founder. Outreach efforts have put me in touch with smart, creative, educated people in the Bay Area. But to my surprise, I just haven't met a truly gritty, determined person yet. Started projects with the people I found anyways. It always feels like playing tea party with stuffed animals. Not a good experience for them, or me.
These lovely people live pleasant, balanced, healthy, entertaining, lives. Bless them. Nothing wrong with that! But they don't have crazy drive. Don't wanna run circles around a partner in any project. Want a cofounder to be my equal or superior in energy and persistence, that we can chase each other's effort, enhance each other's growth/success, and the project's growth/success.
I don't want a pampered, entertaining life. I want to struggle, grow, learn, achieve. Not sure how to find partners to share those values with. Should I make sure that partners share those values, or are these criteria unreasonable/misguided?
Flying solo for now. Later, maybe self-made success on a larger scale/stage may draw special people to me, so I don't have to actively search. A co-founder isn't a necessity for me, just a highly desired and recommended luxury, if I can reasonably get one. When a commenter above said, in paraphrase, "Going solo isn't impossible, you just need to be four times better", I just think "Fine, I'll work to get there."
Am I doing it wrong? Right? Sound familiar or was your co-founder-less situation different?
1. http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/03/12/how-solo-foun...
I roughly take the quotient (amount of impressive achievements) / (age - 15).
Basically, I feel like the YC application is a pissing match of who can piss the farthest shown on paper not outside. haha :)
I have realized I don't fit the YC type.. so I won't apply.
In fact, there's nothing in the application form that even asks about education (there used to be but maybe it moved to the additional founder info - i.e it doesn't seem important at all).
YC could do more to highlight its existing diversity but I'm not simply going to take your word for it (you still haven't explained what you mean).
My personal feeling (per my other comment below) is that weeding out people that are easily scared off (or need super special encouragement) might be a good thing and not a bad thing.
Not having a halo doesn't mean "don't bother to even try" or "non starter". It just means work harder and figure out an angle that makes you unique and sell yourself. It can actually be an advantage rather than someone who thinks they can just phone it in.
For the record this was the attitude that got me into an Ivy League business school with no family connections, no family money and what had to be the lowest SAT scores in the class as well as my high school telling me not to even bother applying that "I wasn't the right material for that school".
Another critical skill is the ability, when somebody else is confused by their general preconceptions, to point out why your special case is different and why they should abandon their general theories for the specific opportunity in front of them.
YC might very well do the highlighting you mention - it's to their advantage to draw as diverse an applicant pool as possible. However, in some ways this misses the point. It doesn't disqualify you if you didn't get into Stanford, Google, the Ivy League, etc. It does disqualify you if you think this is important enough to disqualify you.
That includes openly and directly addressing mis-impressions the talent pool may have of who the incubator is looking for.
However, I'm assuming that the YC partners are not going to be taking advice from me just because I post on Hacker News. People thinking of applying to YC might (hell, I might). They can control their actions, they can't control YC's actions. Why not focus on what you can control? That's another critical startup skill.
YC founders come from everywhere.
I think it's actually a decent barrier which may correctly hold back people who are easily scared off (or who read situations wrong) at what appears to be a challenge that they don't or aren't able to face. In that case it's probably a good thing, not a bad thing. [1]
The "take your jack and shove it" parable applies here:
http://williamhorberg.typepad.com/william_horberg/2010/05/th...
From my personal experience I've had cases where people have spammed me and I've ended up selling them things. (In one case in particular, a $160,000 sale...)
[1] In old school business these people were sometimes called "triflers". In ads people selling things would put in "no triflers" or "serious inquiries only" or "if you don't know what a junket is don't bother to even call". A person with (for lack of a better way to put it) "balls" would not be deterred by that at all.
http://www.ycombinator.com/partners/
I'm pretty sure YC has not published any background diversity numbers. It would be good for the world if you did but I doubt you would find it flattering. I think this issue is just an understandable blind spot for you.
"I think this issue is just an understandable blind spot for you."
Note that originally YC was based around the idea of funding college students to try a startup instead of an internship over their semester break. At that point it was physically based near MIT & Harvard, with a winter (?) campus near Stanford.
As you'd expect, early intakes were dominated by people from those places (ie, mostly white and asian males who attended MIT, Harvard and Stanford). Also as you'd expect, success takes time, and so we are seeing those early successes moving into roles within YC.
I agree that increasing diversity of the YC partners, but it is important to understand the reasons why it is like that currently.
I think it is excellent that YC is aware of this problem, and is taking steps to correct it amongst the companies they fund[1][2].
[1] http://blog.ycombinator.com/diversity-and-startups
[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/women2/2014/02/03/y-combinators-...
Our founders all graduated from a state school (in the southeast). We did have an early product in the wild and we had a few strong customer stories.
I think our "key attribute" was probably willingness to hustle.
YC is not for regular people that just want to do great things, but for those that are actually working hard to do them. Traction is important, showing that you have the ability to produce great results is equally important. However, in the absence of traction or an actual product, graduating from an Ivy with a challenging major, writing a book, working at Google / Facebook are suitable proxies, as they are in themselves challenging achievements that not many can claim.
People who want to do great things, and who have the right combination of talent and drive to actually do them, have usually done great things already. Perhaps not in the same sphere, and perhaps not as great as they aim in the future, but still great.
If you don't have much to show, why should you expect to be regarded favorably in any competitive endeavor? Evaluating people based on what they have demonstrated is by far the fairest method, and I can't really imagine what you would propose to replace it with.
If you don't have much to show now, you have the opportunity to see to it that you will in a few months. Just because some doors are closed to you now doesn't mean they will be forever.
Good luck to you!
Sounds like a great way to discriminate against those who are brilliant but have not been given the opportunity (through a certain type of upbringing, e.g. race, gender, income, nationality, etc.) to demonstrate it.
I don't have a solution, but I do think that by relying too much on someone's track record, it's easy to miss other types of people who can be equally successful given the chance.
However, the ability to create success in the face of failure is a core property of most successful entrepreneurs. People who stand around waiting for someone to "give them a chance" are rarely the ones who materially impact the world.
The evidence by an overwhelming margin indicates that being born into privilege is one of the most significant indicators of future success. In fact, in the world of entrepreneurs, "being given a chance" is hardly necessary for the overwhelming majority of success cases, because by accident of their birth they had such a head start. In fact, most people who "materially impact the world", by a big, big, big margin, were people who were born into privilege.
So I don't think that it's a negative indicator if somebody is particularly skeptical of their chances of getting accepted by YC for not fitting into a certain mold. In fact, it strikes me as being incredibly rational.
That being said, if one doesn't try, one will never know for sure. That doesn't mean one should apply, either, and expect anything if one isn't already wealthy or connected.
Everyone has opportunities, just of different natures.
If, for example, someone had gotten a 3.5 GPA at a state university while working 40 hours a week and caring for an aging parent, I would judge that they had done something extraordinarily impressive. Whereas just the bare 3.5 GPA wouldn't impress me all that much.
But you missed my point, which I'll make explicit.
"But you have no idea why" is condescending and dismissive. It betrays an arrogance that's very off-putting.
Save your money, make a product, get people to pay you for it. When they say "No," ask them why not.
That's it. A lot of work. It probably won't make you famous. If it's fame you want, start a Youtube channel.
You're the type of person that probably won't get accepted. Because if this is your attitude now, who knows what your mood's going to be like when your startup goes through turbulence.
You're searching for a reason not to apply. To keep failure at bay. To keep pain from the ego.
Hey, you're the one that didn't want to apply because you didn't think you'd fit in due to your preconceived notions about who gets accepted.
Yea I did say that, but you are talking about success and failure like that has anything to do with applying or not. If you think I wont have success because I don't apply I feel bad for that thinking.
If you don't have much to show yet, don't sweat it. Just get started, and work on your ideas with whatever time you can afford. Some applicants will have accomplished more, but some may have started with huge disadvantages and overcame far more adversity to achieve a much less impressive track record. Regardless of not being the type that seemingly has an advantage, if you're going to build a successful startup, then go build it.
I just returned from meeting with the CEO of the only YC company based in my state. He's an awesome guy, and I'm very grateful he took the time to meet with me and offer his advice. Throughout the meeting, it seemed like he had the impression that I had no idea how much work I had ahead of me and how hard it actually is to get into YC. Being underestimated like that is so thrilling; I love it! It means he'll be that much more impressed when I accomplish what I plan to do whether I get into YC or not.
Ask yourself... How many woman accepted and not in recent years. How many Mexicans? How many african americans? How many regular guys that just had a prototype but no background to back it up. It's ok, I just don't know why YC acts like they are so diverse when clearly they aren't.