berpasan

Very interesting!

Apply, you lose nothing. And apply again once you get more progress.

There is no ideal stage, but they'll fund the most promissing of them. The more your startup grows and the more times you apply (= persistance and staying alive), the more interesting your startups gets, hence better the odds.

At Quero we applied 3 times before being invited for an inverview and approved.

I know it's a sensitive topic, but it would be so interesting if he could talk candidly about the co-founder relationship issues at Paypal, with PT and Max. His bio is very vague about it. Also, what he thinks a team with him, Peter and Max could have achieved together at Paypal had they worked together for 10 years on creating the bank of the modern era, instead of spliting up and exiting in a couple of years.

There's close to 110 companies in the current batch, that just had demo day last week.

Paul Graham (and Trevor and Robert) founded a company, Viaweb, that was sold to Yahoo for close to $50M in 1998. Like Jessica said, they invested $12k per company in the first batches of YC.

What Jessica has done in YC is an amazing example of how to build great culture in a Startup (and YC was and still is, in several ways, a startup!).

It's a challenge, but I believe YC can be an organization that can outlive its founders by the force of its strong, enduring culture. As a YC founder I didn't have the pleasure to meet Jessica (or Paul) yet (they are in a Sabbatical in London). But just spending those 3 months in YC and all the amazing people they put there made me feel as if I had.

Both seem so different, what are your goals?

If you want to be a teacher or hold a research or Engineering position at a more research driven corporation, and get a confortable life and safe career, get a PhD.

If you want to work your ass off for +10 years at least, life a insecure and stressed out life, have 0,1% chance of being insanely sucessful, rich and change the world, do a Startup.

Doing a startup trying to achieve only "career recognition" or improve your resume so you can land a job at Google or Microsoft is a total waste of time. You'll likely fail, lose your money (and your investors', if you get any) and achive nothing. Being a sucesfull entrepreneur would definitely make your resume better, but that's not the end goal.

When you see startups being acquired by Google you shouldn't think the founders reached their goal. Quite the opposite. It's usually a mild failure (an "acquihire" or "softlanding"), they couldn't scale their company or raise more money and selling to Google was the best thing they could do (besides shuting down the business). Or it was a mild success, the entrepreneurs sold to Google because they would get some sizeable amount of money fast enough, rather than taking the risk to see if the company would become much larger down the road, to sell or IPO at a much higher valuation 5 or 10 years later, for instance.

In either cases the founders won't usually be happy to have become employees once more, and will leave the acquirer as soon as they can and do something else. They can't leave right after the acquisition because he will be vested or will have golden handcuffs (ie.: won't get all his money if he leaves before 2 or 3 years).

Ps.: I have a startup (for 6 years now) and before that I was studying to get a Master's Degree. However, my A plan was always to start a company even once I started the program. So once I got some money to start, I dropped out. I was already quite tired of the academic life and don't regret it. Don't regret the time I've spent doing the master's also, as it was a way to keep myself ocuppied and get some ramen money, while having a lot of free time to work on my product and think.

I imagine it must be hard to get a slot with him nowadays, right?

We just got accepted into YC. Wondering if we'll ever be able to meet him.

I feel like a teenage boy going to the backstage of a concert to meet my rockstar idol. I'll probably take selfies...

Yes, I was wrong, sorry, I guess it feels like it happened ages ago...

I think he productized it... :)

Thanks! It was not easy for us, it's actually the 3rd time we apply and we have a LOT of traction... First time we're invited to the interview. Most south americans I see being selected to the interview are focusing on the American or international markets (we're not).

Glio (the only company tackling the Brazilian market that ever got in, AFAIK) had to apply 4 times before getting in.

BTW, the website (in portuguese) is http://querobolsa.com.br

Thanks! We didn't apply late, but had to take a late interview to be able to get a Visa on time for a co-founder that didn't have one.

Sure, we're like a "Booking.com for Colleges". We help students search for programs in enroll in College in Brazil, saving money on tuition. The company is growing a lot and quite big now (almost 100 employees). We're contemplation YC because fundraising has never been easy for us, investors don't get us because we are not a copycat from the US.

We needed this letter for a founder who didn't have a VISA before we're invited...

It's very simple and brief, one page, just says my co-founder was invited to an interview for funding, says when the interview will take place, says the request is urgent and explains what YC does and has the partner contact info for questions.

Hope you are not trying to forge one! They will be really quick to issue one if you need it (for legit reasons).

I'm not Sam, but I'm a Brazilian enterpreneur. The bad side of Brazil, compared to SV, is we have way less capital available to fund startups, specially earlier and more innovative ones. Our government doesn't help either, definitely way harder to be an Enterpreneur here (not only for startups, the same is true for small businesses as well). The good part is you don't have as much competition when doing a product that targets the local market. And there are much more unsolved problems and needs to be tackled here.

I believe most of YC's advice is universal and fits Brazil's startups well. Some are even more important here: try to make money from day one and spend as little as you can - you can't count on investors money here, no matter how good your KPIs are.

I would get the Visa right away. I got a B1/B2 (tourism and business). I just showed my application form and the interview dates and it was enough. At least here (Brazil) the hole US VISA process takes much longer than the 2 weeks of head start YC gives the founders it invites to the interviews.

There is always a way... I have a wife, 4 dogs and a 60 employee company to take care of, in another continent, and would definitely take the opportunity without blinking...

The fact is: if you want to be on the world's best startup acelerator, you need to live 3 months in SV. Mostly because they can reproduce the experience anywhere else. But they a flexible in all possible ways... (your company can be based anywhere)

More severe commitments are required if you want to excel in other areas as well: if you want to play on the best soccer teams in the world you need to move to Europe; If you want to be a top actor you need to go to LA; If you want to be an MIT Engineer you need to live 5 years there; If you want to be the world's best tango dancer you need to move to Argentina...

But I'm sure that, wherever you are, there must be decent enough startup accelerators nearby. (There are a bunch in my country even).

Look at what specific YC companies do, so you can infer what they might need... Lots of founders have blogs, Twitter, etc, and will speak their minds up out there. If you think you can create your own startup, you probably can do something of value to another, specially early stage ones... It can be as simple being an user of one of their products and offering feedback. I personally looked at YC company lists, saw ones that were on a similar space as mine, and, since I am from another country (Brazil), offered help. I ended up knowing a couple of YC founders that way.

Just remember to give first and always be nice... Startup founders usually have their hands full, won't always be able to help or even reply to you. And be resonable, don't think Drew Houston will become your best friend and take a bullet for you just because you sent him an email saying you like Dropbox...

Plz, come visit us: http://redealumni.com

My email is bernardo ARROBA redealumni PONTO com

Our product is here: http://querobolsa.com.br

What's yours?

Find something you can offer then and help them with... And be a hustler.

I'm from Brazil, my startup has 60 employees, and I would gladly stay in SV for 3 months if approved... If nothing else, it acts as a filter of "will power" and dedication for the selected startups... They give you the money and they are flexible (I've read a story of a guy who took the red eye flight every week to attend dinners because he couldn't stay away from his company all week).

It's also a much richer experience for the startups. If you want to be a top of the class founder, you better visit the "startup founder meca" to learn from the best... If they opened a branch in São Paulo, I wouldn't care to attend...

Wow, that would be great! Please, let us know if we can help in any way during your visit. Lots of interesting things for you to see in the Brazilian startup ecosystem. We are close to São Paulo (where Embraer, the 3rd largest airplane manufacturer in the world is located). Regards

Hi @sama, I'm From Brazil and CEO of an EdTech startup. We're profitable, with 60 employees and a lot consumer traction/revenue, but didn't raise a Series A yet. Questions:

1) What advice would you give to applicants from Brazil and other large countries (India, China, Russia), whose products initially target their local markets?

2) What advice would you give to post-Seed and pre-Series A applicants? When (if at all) would you consider them "too big for YC"?

3) If you select a post Seed startup, would YC invest at their latest valuation, or would it only offer the standard deal, even if it would be a "down round" for current investors?

Heard you are visiting India and know you've been to Mexico not long ago. Ever thought about coming to Brazil? Best regards, Bernardo

There is certainly a correlation about caring about the idea and success . But ideally you should be focused on building your product, which is more important than any investor.

Easier said than done, specially today (I firmly believe in that, and am here after all).

A partner at YC just said on another HN thread that invites will be sent at midnight PT. reply

Apparently they invite about 10% of the applicants for the interviews (I've read somewhere last year they had 5k applications and 400 interviews). This obviously must depend on the number of applications.

Great to know! My bitten nails say "thank you".