Applied for the 3rd time (B2B AI SaaS, 300% YoY growth, $109k revenue last month).
Decided to take a risk with the founder video. On my first 2 applications I did what everyone does and shot 100 takes to get one "right"... On this one though, I shot the whole video in one take (with warts and all) and used our own software to edit it, and then used that as the demo as well[0].
In a way, it feels like I can't win on this video thing
- if we follow instructions to "not edit" the founder video, the result is 100 takes for a basic video that is unworthy of a video-based startup.
- If we use our own tool, the video is "too polished" (even though it took less work to do!).
Hopefully the application stands on its own merits. A year ago I took the first rejection hard. I really really hate applying for stuff or having some kind of "jury" reviewing things when the only truth is what the market wants and whether people use what I've created. So as an engineer I prefer marketing to fundraising, by far.
If we don't get into YC I'll just keep bootstrapping. I see the value though, because with the right pointers we could grow way way faster. So, fingers crossed!
I think one thing that people don't realize is that the YC application process is really one of the best tools for "sharpening" your idea/business.
The written applications forces you to articulate your ideas in a concise yet easy to understand way.
And as much as YC doesn't recommend this, the mock YC interviews we did with alums was one of those most beneficial things that happened to us. Because so rarely will you get the opportunity to ask dozens of other YC founders to grill your business, and have 80%+ of them say yes.
We did about 30 at the time, which is a lot of time to be taken off product/building, hence probably why they don't recommend it, but looking back it *really helped us understand our own business. Given how young/naive/early we were.
The market is tanking again and interest rates may go up and or continue into next year. YC graduates are expected to present and raise their seed rounds around Demo Day in 3-4 months. Raising any kind of money sets an interest rate that you pay with your equity % to investors (at high interest rates they expect to own more equity as time goes by.) What are the current fundraising terms you guys see for YC startups because the timing looks dicey for this cycle?
NVDA just tanked 10% today and with it a whole bunch of AI valuations. Did YC startups from in the 2022 batches see positives or negatives?
What is the upside to fundraising in the next few months vs waiting for a better environment? If we have a startup and it’s profitable, does it make sense to apply it to wait?
Alright, yolo, I just did it. I did it because of these reasons:
> (1) "probably not good enough / won't get in" - you'd be surprised at how many people feel that way, whether because of impostor syndrome, lack of credentials, whatever—and often they turn out to be among the best founders. So this a terrible reason not to apply!
I have nothing going on at the moment. I am starting to apply to new jobs (have an interview with Google coming up). But I'm open to do the entrepreneurship thing. I always wanted to do it for years, strongly (I created my study program in such a way that it'd help if I'd ever do entrepreneurship). Nowadays it's not strong, I'm simply open to it.
> (2) "too early" - there's no such thing. YC looks for good potential founders—meaning anyone who can learn what they teach—and nothing else. You're already yourself, which is all you need.
Well, I don't have a project started. I have nothing. I did build stuff in the past and I do have a bunch of ideas, which I showed in my application. So let's see if there is no such thing indeed ;-)
> Some of YC's big successes start off as last-minute applications on a whim
Basically this.
I like the quote in your about @ Dang. Very helpful:
"Conflict is essential to human life, whether between different aspects of oneself, between oneself and the environment, between different individuals or between different groups. It follows that the aim of healthy living is not the direct elimination of conflict, which is possible only by forcible suppression of one or other of its antagonistic components, but the toleration of it—the capacity to bear the tensions of doubt and of unsatisfied need and the willingness to hold judgement in suspense until finer and finer solutions can be discovered which integrate more and more the claims of both sides. It is the psychologist's job to make possible the acceptance of such an idea so that the richness of the varieties of experience, whether within the unit of the single personality or in the wider unit of the group, can come to expression." Marion Milner, 'The Toleration of Conflict', Occupational Psychology, 17, 1, January 1943
I’ve always been intrigued by YC, but the commitment to relocate is hard to justify. I have three kids (with the oldest finishing up her junior year next month). So I’m not in a place where being in SF for the summer works very well for the family.
I remember during COVID that there was a remote option, but I don’t believe that’s available now. So for someone more established (erm, no longer 20) that lives in the middle of the country, I’m not sure it’s a great fit.
But man am I interested… I can never quite tell myself “no” and move on either… I’d love to be wrong. Because I’ve got a great one cooking right now!…
Re: "won't get in"
How do I balance this encouraging advice with everything I've heard online about YC basically being a post-Ivy League thing? Seems like there's basically a 0% chance a random person would get into YC. And often those who did get in went to Stanford, Harvard, etc. and don't even have a product - sometimes they don't even know what they're going to build yet.
I wrote the idea of VC stuff off long ago. My wife and I have a profitable business here in SF that would be perfect as a startup, but the concept of raising funds to expand literally hasn't even crossed our minds because it seems so geared toward post-grads - like something only Stanford and Harvard people get access to after they graduate.
Not only that, we're profitable, and can even articulate a realistic vision about how it becomes the next $100M household name, but the numbers I've read online that most VCs want to see are not realistic - or if we were hitting those numbers I wouldn't even need a VC, we would be able to fund our own expansion.
So we're just doing it on our own.
What happened? Not enough people applied?
Here's the last batch.[1] Gives a sense of what's being funded.
Ideas:
- MoneyNow - leverages the new FedNow instant payment system. FedNow is run by the Fed and transfers money in seconds with a charge of just US$0.045 per transaction. And they mean seconds. If the money isn't there in 10 seconds, the transaction times out. Few banks support it yet, but some do. It needs consumer-facing support. The Fed just does the back end. There's a big security problem with consumer side payments - these are irrevocable no-holds transfers, like cash. Figure out how to handle that. Competes with Venmo and PayPal; could make them obsolete. Venmo isn't really instant; try to withdraw the money you just "received".
- Reading Teacher - teach illiterate kids to read with a phone app using AI. Text to speech and speech to text all work now. A true automatic reading teacher should be possible. Gamify it so kids use it. Sell to parents, not schools.
- Rust Game Engine - the Rust language ecosystem has some game engines and libraries that almost work, but the open source maintainers got bored and didn't finish the job. Modest amounts of cash would push that over the top. Monetize by selling back-end services for such games.
My co-founder and I have applied twice and been rejected twice, and we don't regret it.
There is no real downside to applying. In fact, as others have said, applying helps you to refine how you pitch your startup.
The only negative is that there's a 99% chance that you will be rejected, and rejections can hurt. But being able to deal with rejection is important in itself.
As a long time HN reader, eventually participating in YCW21, the main thing i would like to highlight is there's so many misconceptions about YC on HN.
It would take too long to refute them all, but just remember the HN readerships' view of YC is pretty distorted. ("it's all about VC money" , "it's just for ivy league grads" etc).
I could go on, but just read Paul Graham's essays - that's probably the best way to understand how YC thinks.
After all the horror stories I have read on here about YC and VC in general, I'm genuinely surprised that many people are still keen to go down that path.
Another question (as a seperate comment incase dang is replying to the other one):
This is the equity deal: https://www.ycombinator.com/deal
What if I don’t want to raise any more than the 7% (which in itself is $125k I don’t really need but happy to give 7% for the higher P(success))
What if I want to bootstrap from that point or at least keep options open?
I'll play devil's advocate. I have applied to YC for at least 8 times in my 20s? They rejected me everytime. Not even an interview.
I now run a $XM SaaS (scale-up, not startup) growing at Y00%/annum. 100% bootstrapped with a healthy profit margin. Thanks YC.
The only thing I'd say that YC is good for is their network of existing startups. Then again, startups aren't the best customers IMO given that they die too much.
Advice is free on the internet as marketing material these days. And there are better VCs.
I wanted to sell samosa on the internet. Would YC be a good place to seek funding for such a business?
Samosa because they are versatile across many dimensions: ingredients, taste, shelf-life, and can be easily made in a combinatorics space of these dimensions. They are kind of like how Bubba describes shrimp to Gump.
I once wondered if YC is a good platform for such a business?
You forgot the best reason to apply -- because just filling out the application makes you think about your business in ways you probably have never thought about it before.
I tell every startup I talk to to fill out the YC app, even if they never turn it in.
The weirdest thing people do is make up criteria that YC supposedly uses to reject people. There was such a huge diversity in our batch: From 20 y/o to 40+. Foreign, domestic. Credentialed, not credentialed. $1M rev run rate, $0 run rate. Just apply.
I'm going to post something vulnerable, but I hope people take my comment in the right light, as in general I love YC and what it has done for the startup community.
I've been building startups for a long time, and have applied to YC several times, mainly with the same idea (although I've always listed 4-5 other ideas I'm interested in as well). I have always gotten rejected, and while that was disappointing, I 100% understood that getting into YC was the exception rather than the rule, as YC had a smaller acceptance percentage than Harvard.
After a few batches of these rejections, I decided to take a break from applying and instead build up my startup experience more by working at growth-stage startups, and just in general started focusing on my career as well.
Fast forward a few years, and about a year ago YC reaches out to me (via automated email) saying they had identified me as being in the top X% on the Cofounder matching platform, and encouraged me to apply to their next batch cycle.
I was reluctant to do so -- I hadn't been thinking too deeply about any new startup ideas in the past few months (so I'd most likely have to apply with a previous startup I had built), but after encouragement from friends and family I decided to take a chance anyways and apply once again.
I went all out on the application -- I reached out to some YC friends and mentors to get their recommendations, and had them help me edit and perfect my application as well. I even traveled for a month to San Francisco, just so I could absorb more of the ecosystem, network with as many entrepreneurs as possible, and help give back to the community if I could.
I submitted my application, waited for the fateful "interview email" day, and when that day came -- I got the standard "...we're sorry, we're not going to move forward with your application".
I'll admit -- getting that email stung. I know looking back there were a lot of things I could have done better (e.g. not applying with the same idea as previous applications, among other things), and just like when I applied years ago, I knew that the chances of getting to the interview stage were slim to none.
But yet somehow, that rejection hurt more than any of the others.
Curious about the story behind applying to YC as a founder and ending up as a moderator for hacker news.
YC is totally a non starter for non US aspirants and it's not YC's fault.
Best case scenario - you end up having a company that's registered in US, would be paying taxes in US when it comes to that but you yourself wouldn't be allowed to set foot on the US soil, and even if that, would be shuttling for visa renewals every now and then.
Got rejected twice. And twice ended up creating great businesses, not billion dollars but profitable enough to have a full team. It's so much better than VC money! No stress, you can really follow your ideas, move at your own pace, have a healthy life/work balance. If you can avoid VCs do it!
Another (is this bogus?) reason for not applying is I am not in the US and would prefer not to migrate there due to family. Can a founder do YC with minimal time in USA or even do it remotely.
It's one of my great regrets that I didn't get into YC in 2007. There was no Dropbox yet, but we were building essentially the same thing except integrated into Windows rather than on the web, with an office collaboration focus. (Doing it on the web was such a better idea!) I vividly remember droning on at Jessica through a dry demo because I thought the team that showed the most features in the least time would win.
We ended up with a modest exit - life changing but not stop-working-life-changing. There was so much startup wisdom that we didn't know, that has now become Obvious and Trivial, that I think we would have learned. We made every mistake YCombinator warns against, and I like to think we wouldn't have if we had only been told. Would have been well worth the (IIRC) $14k they were offering at the time.
Now with kids and so on the residency requirement makes it tough. But even in my dotage as I am, with 5 startups in my past, I think it would be worth it.
Big fan of YC and pg. I'm waiting for some immigration related things to fall into place before I apply, but it's been several years. Potentially crass question: what is the age or industry experience distribution of a typical YC batch these days? Would a founding team in their early 40s be dinosaurs in a room full of young stars? Asking for a friend.
We're not in AI :( and it seems like YC isn't interested in our space. Outside of the current wave of interest in AI I think we would have serious interest. Would you still apply, or wait?
I find these kind of messages distasteful. When people are focused on building, they need feedback from the market. That rejection/feedback helps, but any other kind of rejection - especially a VC or investor rejection - hurts. You could argue that founders should be used to rejection, still this is a needless rejection - without any specific feedback and from a group not their TG - not something people should spend their energy on. You apply, there is hope, then there is a rejection (given the acceptance rate highly likely), then you see the kind of companies that got in, and it becomes a distraction. That's human nature. You can correct something when a prospect says they do not want your product and understand the reasons, but how do you correct anything when a popular investor passes on and says "they could be wrong"? Yes, "keep building", which they were already doing with more enthusiasm and less distraction before the whole bandwagon of YC alums came along.
You could argue that "filling the application gives clarity to a founder". Again genius marketing. That comes at an opportunity cost of talking to their leads, their prospects. At any rate, it takes you away from what you originally set out to do. You get more clarity from talking to your target market than filling an application.
Another thing is "people got in applying on a whim". Yes, those are exceptions. But, any average founder understands that if the decision is likely to be determined by what they write in the application and their application video (and several factors outside of their control), they will optimize it to the max. The videos you see are always multiple takes. The applications are always pruned and reviewed and rewritten before submitting.
When your goal is getting into YC, all this is worth doing. When the goal is building and growing a product, such advice, no matter how well intended, hurts more than helps the founders. It's okay if YC picks 200 startups out of 15000 instead of 20000.
you need to graduate from the "right school/alumni" and i would discourage anybody else from wasting their time
I've long had a bet that these posts contain lurking single founders looking for potential co-founders. So, if you are on the prowl for a jack-of-all engineering founder, shoot me a note. I'd love to see if you might be all-in on what I've got going on or vice versa. Here's building awesome stuff with awesome teams.
It would be nice to be told roughly what the process is before having to 'sign up'.
What’s the acceptance rate, 1%, most with cofounders? So if you’re making a video by yourself it’s like 1/500 ?
Seems like a better use of time making a video and filling out the app once you have above average team and traction.
What about, "I don't ever seem to have any good ideas worth pursuing" and "everything I can think of doing has already been or is currently being done by people way better funded than me"?
You know, I wasn't going to submit anything, but now I am. I'll almost assuredly get rejected for my half-baked idea, but hey, might as well try. Thanks for the reminder.
I have applied to YC with multiple ideas in the past and have been rejected without interview. In my current iteration what I have going against me - solo founder, late 40s, building in a crowded consumer space.
I have no idea what YC looks for and it doesn't matter. I will still apply last minute. Almost all my past applications helped me refine and rethink about my ideas.
It is highly discouraging to hear a reject but that's the life of a founder.
Thanks for sharing this. I have one question: given similar quality of applications, is it just a dice roll?
I am asking this as a trying founder who:
- has built early stage engineering at multiple startups
- has applied many times and been rejected
- is reading about many others who have been rejected and ended up building without funding
Guys just pick a fun project and apply. If you get in then you get to build a fun project really fast. If not, then just have fun building your project.
Rejected nine times.
Re the “won’t get in” point..
We applied a few years ago. I won’t lie, I was sad and disappointed we didn’t get in, but even more so because our application was just ignored. Left a very bad taste in our mouths.
I won’t again spend days on an application to have it be ignored. Since then, we have been grinding away at the same business and it’s now making 7 figures, giving us the perfect life of a 20% YoY growth business with no VCs breathing down our necks trying to 10x that growth rate. Not taking VC money was the best thing we ever did, albeit inadvertently.
So sure, you won’t get in (statistically), but it could be the best thing you ever don’t do!
I wish I had applied when the sessions were still remote. Can't leave my fam for 3 months(I'm on the east coast)
OK. I finally gave it a shot. But https://apply.ycombinator.com/bio/edit is broken. So I can't submit my application.
Not interested now. You guys need to fix your website.
"in an area where there are no snakes"
Surely that isn't true, right? I'll point out the obvious truth that this funding model encourages businesses that are boom or bust. That seems like a big snake to me. Bust is like taking a snake all the way back to square 1.
After applying last time without success, I tried again this time but this time just did it super quick without investing too much time and effort.
I figure if it’s a good idea they’ll be interested and if not we’ll then I won’t have invested too much time in it.
I am on a h1b visa and can't really work anywhere outside of my primary employment due to visa restrictions. Has anyone with the similar profile gotten into YC? and if so how did you make it work with all the legal blockades of h1b?
Going through the application helps provide clarity to the founders themselves as well.
We are an early stage startup, $75K ARR (not a lot), 3 engineers, partnership with Accenture in 3 countries, working with top tier brands and got rejected 3 times.
We will apply again.
Would someone be kind enough to review our application?
Thank you so much.
Dan, can you share stats on the age distribution between those who applied and those who got accepted?
Clearly there'd be a spike in the 20s, but I'm really curious what the long tails are like.
I've thought about it, but the target market for my project isn't a high growth one; it's US middle school teachers (years 6-8, typically). Public schools aren't exactly flush with cash—individual teachers even less so—and while I (and my school teacher wife) think I'm on to something that would change teachers' lives, I can't imagine a world where that market would lead to a six figure MRR.
Starting to think I need to find grant money rather than startup/seed money.
Does anyone know if there is a way to expedite the decision-making process? We've received a term sheet and are under some time constraints to respond.
I just checked out the form and I'm pleasantly surprised. For some reason, I was sure it had questions like "what's your super power?"
My friend is part of a team of PhDs working on hard tech research problems without much interest in becoming a viable business (in the sense of counting dollars). It seems like YC would not be the right fit for them, is that correct? They seem to have gotten interest from other VCs but they have the impression that YC is more of a traditional firm focused on startups that are very close to revenue or are post revenue
We got rejected (2nd time applying) and ended up raising a substantial seed/pre-seed round at excellent terms a month later.
Is there a compelling reason to still apply?
Fuck it, I am going to do this. Thanks for writing this.
> what reason do you have not to
For starters I don’t have a passport, I wouldn’t want to create a US company, I prefer bootstrapping and dislike unreasonable pressure on growth.
I would be interested in taking advice and networking, I wouldn’t mind signing off equity unless it’s too much hassle (US company, relocation)
Sounds like local hubs and accelerators would be a better pick for me. Unless YC has a remote & chill option?
Can you give a recent example of a number 1? The problem I see is that a a piece of advice that got thrown out on twitter was "We applied without an idea and we got in, here's how we did it!" and the advice ends up being along the lines of "We didn't know what else to do, so we reached out to our Penn alumni network and got a referral"
Also: reading through the questions in the application form and thinking about them is worth it even if you don't intend to apply.
Wow what a timing? Thanks Dang for penning this. My friend and his cofounders are just getting ready to record their demo. Question for @dang. How much does it help to have a paying customer that has at least agreed to do a pilot? Is that sort of signal compensate for " I don't to Stanford"? Asking for my friends.
Thanks, Dang - for the encouragement! You made my friday with this post, so might as well give it a shot as a gratitude
Tried submitting an application for fun™ but encountered a visual(?) bug. When I tried saving a new founder profile after filling out some sections and tried editing it, I was met with hundreds of repeated rows of work/education/etc sections. Anyone else have this issue?
Do you guys still offer deferred admissions for juniors who wish to join a batch after graduation?
I wonder if there is any rules now for funded folks coming to one's linkedin saying "Hey, thank you so much for starring {{insert here YC-AI repo}} on github, that means a lot" when one's never even heard about them before.
I’ve applied a few times, considering stopping applying.
What I’m more concerned about is (a) everyone seems to be incredibly young, I’m not, and (b) being a solo founder means you’re almost certain not to be accepted.
Are these correct? Is it worth bothering with?
The forms to apply seem to have a bug where textareas often lose focus.
Also, does the product demo video have to be uploaded? Why not allow users to paste a link to an existing video?
Why would I sell my code to you guys when I'm already giving it away for free?
I applied 9 times and never got an interview. I've moved on from entrepreneurship (for now?), but would love to know what percentile I'm in for consecutive rejections as a consolation prize ;)
So does it bump your chance to practice mock interview questions? I feel it's a waste of time and energy. Or am I wrong to assume some of the brightest people YC accepts have it down pat?
A realistic perspective for non-elites to balance out opinions such as "applying will help you think through your idea" or "the upside is completely worth it".
1. Imbalanced niceness: If you get convinced or are in a good mood, you must know that YC is a private company that works to serve its founders, employees and current startups (any private individual would do that so nothing wrong!). The goodwill that is put into filling out a well researched application will be met in around 95% [1] of cases with a cold email with no feedback. The gain from "thinking through your idea" or having romantic thoughts of getting in will most likely be wiped out with the rejection trauma. Also, to temper expectations, it is useful to know that YC actively seeks elite networks with more vigor than the general public due to obviously higher odds of selection and future success of elite founders (again nothing wrong here but these things should be known by non-elites). Just search "yc mit" for how actively MIT alumni and students are reached out to by YC partners through in-person events.
2. Competition from elites: If a person with an elite background (company or university) applies with a similar idea to a person with a non-elite background, the elite person gets in due to stronger odds of succeeding in hiring, raising follow on money etc. The non-elite person's capabilities will most likely not be compared objectively to those of the founder with the elite background due to lack of resources. It will most likely be assumed that the elite person will pull it through rather than the non-elite. This is one of the reasons many highly capable non-elite founders feel a lot of whiplash because an elite founder with only an idea will often make it through while the non-elite won't. The whiplash originates from there being such small delta between the non-elite and the elite individual in many cases. The claim here is not that all elite get through. The elite are weighed with other elite but it's obvious that there are higher odds of getting through if you're an elite. It must be realized that just a couple hundred elite applicants will almost completely wipe out the odds of thousands of non-elites.
I'm a non-elite and I've applied and been rejected thrice and just don't have the strength to go for these schemes anymore. I know "we should learn to deal with whiplash" but I'm done with the way the world is designed. I believe the individual must rise higher than having to depend or listen to such schemes and feel pulled into them while in most cases ending up worse off in the process. Schemes such as these are designed to cause more whiplash to the non-elite without any fault of YC - this is just how the world works.
Follow up thoughts Q- Why didn't the non-elite strive harder to become the elite when they had the chance? A- I think we generally thought that we'll hit our home run at the next attempt but didn't know how quickly the odds slide to impossible. Also just ignoring the fact that the elite group is a relatively small and stable number of people that doesn't elastically increase with the population or with with one's capabilities. The elite just get more elite - the lindy effect.
[1] assuming 2% selection odds and 4-5% odds of an interview call
Been there, done that, got rejected. As they always point out - like here in (2) - "YC looks for good potential founders" it must have been me (or us back then), not the project.
A great way to contradict the claims here about requiring ivy league credentials would be dropping some statistics on acceptances. Curiously nobody - for or against - has done that.
I would apply but my co-founder has a kid and can't move to the US for 3 months. Also, we don't want to setup a parent company in one of those 4 suggested countries.
I’d love to apply, but I’m building FlingUp.com and there is no chance in hell anyone would ever want to fund a lone founder hacking on this project when the kids have gone to sleep.
Let’s say I have an idea but it’s a niche, I know it won’t be more than ~1M in yearly revenue at its best. What is interesting for YC and what not when it comes to potential size?
is it still no co-founder no go?
we got into YC, and decided not to take the offer. Even the act of applying was immensely valuable; it created structure and momentum for us and is the reason we're a company today. so apply apply apply!
(I'm not going to engage on whether or not YC is for you -- it's a personal decision, and it's an awesome program and we have great founder friends who loved it.)
OMG - My video was so bad, it took down the server. ;-)
Well, I did the thing... I have a very low expectation, but it's worth trying anyway, right @DanG?
Do you need an MVP or an idea? US or international?
I have a #3 - I don't have a marketable idea.
> could change your life, like it did for me
Did you apply to be a mod for this site and if so are they accepting more applications of that sort?
How much time do you actually have to spend in San Francisco? I've seen 3 months mentioned, but also relocating...
> Upload a founder video
Yeah definitely not. No thank you.
It's a great filter though. I am exactly the type of person who you don't want to see a video of, and therefore perfectly unsuited for YCombinator/SV/etc. which are all about personality.
I don't know how to "Make something people want", still applying it anyways. :)
Note that I get 422 responses from the server when I attempt to submit the form.
i applied several times and never got feedback which doesn’t help
Has there been any founders that took the money and ran?
Do they still take 7% of the company off the bat?
Makes sense to apply just with less than a MVP?
i recently updated my iOS chatbot and it grew to 100$ mrr. do i have a chance? is it me or the market? :)
Should we apply? https://www.movably.com/
Dang is basically saying what we all know: it is very difficult to predict future performance of people, and YC deliberately tries to avoid common traps like “where did you go to school?” I mean, they still ask, so they aren’t exactly all-in on avoiding noisy heuristics, but they have a history of finding founders who can perform at a level most would-be founders can’t.
Like the blub paradox, only past high performers can recognize future high performers. YC uses the “are you one of us?” heuristic, which isn’t perfect since many “high performers” are accidents of fortune, but it is (as of now) still the best way to identify high-impact people — be one yourself and talk to people.
It’s the same story with hiring, especially in sports drafting. Even with million-dollar budgets and years of game-film and intensive pre-draft workouts, sports teams are effectively guessing when they draft someone. Analytically, it would be better to trade down for more picks. Dang’s post is analogous to trading down, in the sense of letting people know that the net is wider than most of us think, precisely because high-performing founders don’t fit the same mold as high-performing non-founders.
Having said all that, I’d be very surprised if the people reading all the applications and conducting all the interviews were all true high-performers. Surely some proportion, if not a majority, would merely be excellent human beings that were fortunate enough to find success. In fact, perseverance and grit may not be as important to founders as we think. It may be that the trait of never giving up is just very effective at leveraging fortune — given enough time, something good is bound to happen. This feels like an algorithm-smell. What we really want are founders who don’t need fortune, not those who optimize for fortune.
PG is a good example. I only know what he’s told us, but it seems to me that his defining trait is not grit. After one obvious pivot, he worked hard, provided value to users, and exited. Now, anyone who works 18 hr days for years has grit. You can’t succeed at something without persevering at it. But that’s not what stands out about PG. Neither does his intellect. There’s plenty of brilliant people in the world. What stands out about him is his genius — a unique mental perspective that sees straight lines where others see jagged lines. He and his partners basically invented the web-app. Where others saw a broken road going nowhere, they saw a highway to immense value.
The problem with genius is that it is really hard to distinguish from delusion. Someone tells you the road is straight but you see nothing but curves — what is one to think? When the person telling you this obvious untruth is also brilliant, it makes it that much harder to discern genius from delusion. PG writes about this when talking about “black swans” — the best ideas are the ideas that seem wrong but are actually right.
To return to YC and applying, I think it is likely that the brilliant geniuses (like PG) have largely moved on to other things that seem of far more interest to them. Raising children, speaking from experience, definitely fits that bill. If true, then what remains of YC would be brilliant, persevering, but not necessarily genius. That still makes for a world-class accelerator, but one that would struggle at identifying the best founders.
I would propose a new heuristic: has the applicant ever accidentally discovered the truth of something already known to be true, but which the applicant was unaware of. Did they make a straight line out of a broken one, without knowing it had already been straightened by others.
Call this the “unknowingly reinventing the wheel” heuristic. When did the applicant accidentally reinvent the wheel? As stupidly black-swan as it sounds, I want founders who are not merely brilliant and persevering, but also genius enough to invent something as profoundly valuable as the wheel.
I bet there are plenty of people in this thread who have unknowingly reinvented the wheel, and would love to hear the stories!
No thanks. I've applied every year for the first ten years since I was 20 and have not received any feedback on my rejections. The only times I did not apply, I went on to raise series A & B. I've seen friends get accepted with nothing but an idea and a Stanford degree.
POOF!
"Long time listener, first time caller", as they used to say in talk radio. [This is my first post; please be gentle... :-) ]
At least two reasons my apply.ycombinator.com submission will likely forever remain in "Save for Later" mode...
1) Founder's Personal Work and Education Histories: are both (a) highly-structured, and (b) can't auto-link/-copy from LinkedIn.... Like most prospective employers' "lazy" external-facing HRIS'. [Aside: Why can't Workday at least link to/ copy from LinkedIn for job app completion already?!] I'm already spending umpteen hours on-end doing this for all the prospective employers offering jobs I'd prefer to not need to take... And thus I was "spent" when I entered this form. Alternatively... Why can't I just attach my resume?
2) 1 min video, with audio, required. Feel free to label me "shy"/ "tin foil hat"/ have a paranoid threat profile/ etc.... But I'm just not comfortable voluntarily submitting recorded audio/ video of myself for "pre-short-listed" "one-off" use cases such as this. As an HN post from earlier today illustrates... M$FT (and, presumably "et al") can now make a deep fake of me with just one still image and less audio than YC is requesting. Why do I want to help them along? ;-) [Yes, Zoom et al likely has many hours of recorded video of me, because prior employers... And said employers likely signed away my audiovisual likeness without my (explicit) consent because "AI training", etc... And I've had to consent to recorded interviews for job opp'ties (but at least those were post-short-listing)... But I prefer to remain in denial about all that. :-) I've never claimed to be either rational or consistent... ;-) ]
And no, my idea(s) aren't Bookface/ Instagrim/ ClosedAI -caliber, so... No biggie, I guess. shrugs
Anywhoo... Thanks for reading! :-)
POOF!
Slow the earth's rotation using magnets.
hmmmm maybe i should make a video game with yall? its enticing meow idk
YC has increasingly come to resemble a selective community, with an almost cult-like allure. It presents itself to a broad audience, yet only those who share its unique ethos are granted admission. Nowadays, many applicants use the platform not just for entrepreneurial ventures but also to enhance their resumes. Consequently, a number of them lack genuine commitment.
Moreover, YC is notorious for advocating an intense work ethic—bordering on having no life outside of work—and for creating a tightly-knit community that some liken to a mob. Although these dynamics are not universally appreciated, many individuals join to benefit from the network. Nepotism also plays a role, as mediocre founders who have personal connections with partners often find an easier path in. In addition, there is a prevalent sense of self-deception among the members who offer startup and life advice, advice they themselves might not be equipped to provide. This is particularly questionable in today’s era of AI and new technologies, which challenges the relevance of their supposed wisdom.
Despite these criticisms, if you are young, hungry, and perhaps a bit naïve, giving YC a try could be worthwhile if you feel your vibe might align with theirs.
no. never.
YC is just a circle jerk for rich kids.
> If you've ever thought about applying to YC, here's a tip: just do it
Please don't.
Imagine you are looking for a plumber and there are 1000 postings, 900 of them people who've watched a couple of youtube clips about plumbing.
Does that sound like a good idea to you?
This is what's ruined the internet (and society). Instead of domain experts being thoughtful, we have marketers being full of shit. Oh well :)
Reason 3:
3) They know all your alt accounts and shitposting history (via device_id)
[dead]
[flagged]
[flagged]
You would say that, wouldn't you?
For anyone saying "I definitely won't get in" here's a counterpoint that has little to do with whether your application succeeds or not: Do it for yourself, not for the approval.
I found that filling in the application, without even sending it, is a useful exercise. It makes you think hard about what it is you are trying to achieve with whatever it is your building. It's very helpful when you come to talk with clients.
You know how they say launch fast, launch early? That's part of it, because launching means talking about it to other people. Those people will have questions or objections or an incomplete understanding of pre-existing solutions. A lot of the application is about this kind of stuff.
Personally, I wanted to fill the application irrespective of YC. I figured, if I'm serious about building something useful, I shouldn't just build it and que sera, sera. I should know what to focus on. And since they've learned a bunch about building companies, if they care about something enough to ask about it, that's a good pointer that I should care enough about it to be able to answer it.
For example, I filled it in when a solution was just an idea, as if it were already built. So it made me set expectations, and clarify what I want this thing to be. Then, once it was built, the first thing that happened when that solution met with clients was this: I'd give them the short description I've written in the application, and they'd ask - Oh, but does it have to do just that?
Without the application, there wouldn't have been the short description, without which there wouldn't have been the useful client feedback...So, again: do it for yourself, not for the approval.