What’s the chance that your team is going to blow up because of some co-founders strife? Pete had his own fashion stores, found out that number 1 reason why people don’t buy is they can’t decide. But the process of landing a spot at this prestigious Bay Area seed accelerator is no cakewalk. If you ask for a recommendation, they’ll know what you mean and exactly what to do. The questions in our application are all things you should be thinking about at the earliest stages of launching a startup. The excerpt is provided by Portfolio Publishing. The program includes dinners every Tuesday, office hours with YC partners and access to the network of other YC founders. Also, here’s a copy of One Month’s Y Combinator Application for those who have asked. In the past this was a hard requirement but we’ve since updated it. If you’re starting a company, you’ll face a lot of different problems and you’ll need to creatively solve them or you’ll need to change the direction of your company, etc. Having just come through Y Combinator, we frequently get asked whether it was worth it. Leading up to applications, partners get a ton of requests for meetings and advice, so it will be hard to stand out. They want to know whether you really understand what you’re talking about. The thing that … Please don't feel that you need to work on one of these ideas in order to apply to Y Combinator 1. — Read this next: Why You Should Apply to Y Combinator. Welcome to YC Apply! The program culminates in Demo Day, where startups pitch to a carefully selected audience of investors. It can probably at least guarantee you an interview, and is likely to be helpful if you happen to have the partner in the room with you for in-person interviews. Each week they’d fly out to California for office hours and our weekly dinner. Show them that you’ve talked to peopl… Look to their blogs for advice. More: Startups Technology Y Combinator But it’s unfair to say that they do this just to test founders. Most founders I talked to who were accepted felt as if they had fucked up during the interview and wouldn’t get the call (if you get accepted, you’ll get a call from one of the partners that very same day, otherwise you’ll get an email later that day that you weren’t selected). The program culminates in Demo Day, where startups pitch to a carefully selected audience of investors. There’s a lot in that question that needs to be unpacked. We encourage founders to be wherever their business requires. A lot of big investors missed Airbnb because they thought it wouldn’t be able to overcome the legal and liability issues involved in having people rent out rooms to strangers at scale. We felt we had a great initial idea, and after generating $38,000 of pre-sales for Proof, we applied to Y Combinator. During the in-person interview, you’re going to be bombarded with tons of questions coming at you from different partners very quickly. Now you need to convince them that your product actually addresses that market in a way that provides significant enough value that your company can grow big, quickly. I think in those cases it’s best to thank them and tell them you’ll consider it rather than get defensive or tell them they’re wrong (eg. Q: Do you need a visa to work in the US to apply? For example, you can apply to YC in September, get your acceptance in October, and start the program in June after you graduate. Mostly it’s because they’re trying to get a lot of information in a very short amount of time. They have a system that allows past Y Combinator founders to recommend startups applying to the current batch. For those of you who don’t know, if you’re a student, applying Early Decision to YC allows you to apply for one batch ahead of the current one. If you can’t submit an application, figure out another way to get in front of them. We accept companies twice a year in two batches. It’s not enough for your product to be better than any current alternatives, it has to be significantly better (in order to overcome switching costs). I don’t know much about that. Y Combinator is now bringing this type of free-form entrepreneurialism to its seed-stage fund. No. That’s kind of the point. They also want access to YC’s alumni network for hiring and introductions. ... “Anytime you apply to a program you want to look at the ... Gore came into the program with just an idea. On November 9th, we’re also opening Startup School to potential founders who are interested in starting a company in the future. Yes. The idea was that any symbolic structure could be generated from some combination of s’s and k’s.As an example, consider a[b[a][c]].We’re not saying what a, b and c are; they’re just symbolic objects. The answer is absolutely yes, no hesitation. I have a friend now applying for the June-August program with an interesting idea. The median fundraise at demo day is about $1M. MessageBird (YC S16) was making $20M a year and profitable prior to YC. Pick a partner or partners that are interested in the market or industry that you’re going after (look at other companies they’ve invested in). If you need a visa to come to YC for the 3 month program, we can introduce you to lawyers who can help with this. Investors think about four different risks of a startup: 1) Market Risk2) Product Risk3) Team Risk4) Execution Risk. Now some specific points about Y Combinator. It turned out that they were wrong, but the risk was still significantly high. You have to have a solid idea, a scalable business plan, and the stamina to withstand rapid-fire interview sessions where you’ll have just 10 minutes to answer nuanced questions about your company’s goals and strategy. For example, if you’re working on a hardware startup, befriend several other past hardware startups that have gone through Y Combinator, and then ask them for introductions to partners that have been the most helpful for them. The point of the idea’s just to prove you as founders can come up with good ideas. As PG wrote in Organic Startup Ideas, “the worst ideas we see at Y Combinator are from young founders making things they think other people will want.” For instance, if you want to build a WhatsApp clone simply because it’s the most popular messenger app in the world, you… We’re approaching the S18 application deadline so we thought it’d be helpful to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about the YC application and program itself. Go after a market / problem they already believe is big enough 2. If you think you’re too early, you probably aren’t. Finally, if you don’t get in the first time, don’t worry too much about it. Q: Can you use the YC investment to pay your salary? No. If that’s what you wanted to do before reading this post, keep doing it. No. To apply for the Y Combinator program, submit an application form. This is your idea. There are a number of ways to convince investors that your startup has low market risk: On top of investors believing that the market you’re going after currently exists, you need to be able to convince them that you can identify a core set of innovators & early adopters (see the technology adoption lifecycle), and that you have a reasonable strategy for expanding from those early adopters to a larger majority of people. This is actually a fairly large issue that a lot of startup founders don’t think about. How do you know people need what you’re making? Each batch has at least a dozen companies that have already raised over $1M. To apply for the Y Combinator program, submit an application form. “That’s interesting, thanks for your input” or “Hadn’t thought about that, I’ll consider it”). The best way to convince investors that your team is right for each other is: You want to have a team (solo founders are significantly less likely to succeed), because having more people helps eliminate some of the execution risk I’ll talk about below. Yes. I get a lot of emails like this, so I’m compiling the insights and thoughts I’ve had in the last two years, since One Month went through YC (Summer 2013). https://paystack.com/blog/company-news/paystacks-y-combinator-application Consider the (admittedly obscure) object Y Combinator announced today that you don’t even need an idea to apply for its upcoming program.What gives? Questions on Location The time is so short and you’ll forget anything else, so take it easy and just focus on those things. Even building a working prototype at least demonstrates that you can build something, which eliminates some team and execution risk. These ideas are very often solutions in search of problems, so if you come up with an idea this way, you should be default skeptical, and you should think really hard about whether it is actually solving a problem. If not getting into Y Combinator means your startup is going to give up, or won’t succeed, that’s already a very bad sign. Q: Can you apply to YC with just an idea? The ideal is that you have a product that is already out there and successful, meaning it has a large number of users, and/or is already producing revenue. Yes. If you don’t, then you’re kind of out of luck, but that’s how things go. The best way to convince investors that your startup has low product risk is: You should know that because investors get a large number of pitches all the time, your product idea probably isn’t as novel to them as you think it is. The ones that choose to do YC often want to be in the company of other founders where they feel a real pressure to ship their product and talk with customers. The best way to mitigate investor concerns about execution risk is: Now Y Combinator is in some sense is like any other investor. Getting into Y Combinator was a dream come true for me. Ideas that are generated this way often take a form like "Uber for X," or "Airbnb for Y." I believe that it might help you to have talked to one or several Y Combinator partners in advance of the interview, but it’s also much easier said than done. If you have any other thoughts about getting in to Y Combinator, please post them in the comments. Founders in this position are usually able to fundraise on their own. The program includes dinners every Tuesday, office hours with YC partners and access to the network of other YC founders. This can be very frustrating, overwhelming, or anxiety-inducing. We offer early decision for both the winter and summer batches, and you just need to specify it somewhere on the application. So the rapid-fire approach tends to eliminate the faker or non-believers. The questions I remember them asking me (and it’s been two years so I don’t remember it all as vividly as I once did) were: I prepared for the interviews by printing a big stack of customer testimonials from existing customers and putting them in my backpack. Is there any other major factor that could prevent you from doing what you need to? If you are the founder of a startup—a startup that you believe will be venture-backed one day — I strongly recommend applying to Y Combinator. Many companies raise several million, and some have raised more than $40M. There are 6 days left to apply. There are two stages in the Y Combinator application process: Once you’ve submitted your online application, if they like it or you then your team will get selected to visit for a short in-person interview (just 10 minutes in my case). That being said, Y Combinator is a very cool and valuable experience that benefits just about every startup. The combined valuation of the top YC companies was over US$155 billion as of October 2019. South America: Rappi, Regalii, Hogaru, Tpaga, Beek, and Quero Education. Almost every smart person has a good idea in them." Fast Company. While the experience is still fresh, I want to encourage you to apply for the next cycle and give some advice for getting in. A Big Idea: Y Combinator Now Lets Founders Apply Without… An Idea. Thanks to Daniel Gackle, Scott Bell, Dalton Caldwell, and Michael Seibel for reading drafts of this post. Is going to a Y Combinator interview worth it? We’re sure you learned a lot from the experience. We launched Startup School as an online program in 2017 to support founders actively working on building their companies. Q: Do you have to spend the full three months of YC in Mountain View? Getting in as a solo nontechnical founder with very little traction was also a very unique experience that I did not believe could happen.. YC’s program and being an alumni has definitely lived up to the hype; I feel like every month that passes I learn about new benefits I get from being part of such an amazing community. We started interviewing 1000+ people to … Read this article on why we 100% recommend that you should. How to spin your scientific research out of a university and into a startup, Frequently Asked Questions From YC Applicants. No. We think we can be helpful for any company that hasn’t yet raised a Series B. Q: Do all the founders have to attend the entire batch? Fewer than half of the companies we fund have launched before they apply. Also, they feel like they can get enough information very quickly. The great majority of startups we fund will continue to be the sort of Internet and mobile companies we’ve funded in the past. You don't have to sell us on you. Ryan pitching UpKeep to investors on Demo Day. You’re applying to Y Combinator and you want my advice about how to get in. Some notable examples: Africa: Flutterwave, Paystack, Tizeti, and WaystoCap If you don’t know any past Y Combinator founders, your job will be to identify past companies that are similar to what you’re working on. Q: Can you apply if you haven’t launched? There are a few cases of startups getting a special meeting with partners before or after applications, but it’s very rare. Salary, you can build something, which eliminates some team and risk! Them to the network of other YC founders my application of potential problems bombarded with tons questions! Get asked whether it was worth it worth it Anytime you apply to Combinator... 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