Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

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.

I mean, I didn't even graduate college :P

> So we're just doing it on our own.

IMO if you can become a $100M household name without VC, that's absolutely the way to do it.

Even if you do take the VC path, YC for me was a massive boost in network, knowledge, and resources that I didn't have before, but it's also not the only way to acquire those things. You can even find that YC knowledge online, e.g. https://www.startupschool.org/.

That said, if anyone's even considering applying to YC, I'd recommend it, at a minimum it's a forcing function to think more deeply about your idea or business when assembling the application.

> I mean, I didn't even graduate college :P

Yes, but did you go to one of those colleges where dropping out is even better than graduating? Because most of us didn't even get the chance to drop out of one of those.

> My wife and I have a profitable business here in SF that would be perfect as a startup

Keep doing what you're doing.

Being VC funded shouldn't be the holy grail - the holy grail is having a business you enjoy doing, that's making you the life you want.

For some the life you want is pitching, raising, getting the kudos of the big numbers, onto the next raise etc.

For some the life you want is the complete opposite and bootstrapping it.

For some it's just all about the technical aspect, coding the next crazy thing.

There's no wrong or right answer in how you get to the 'happy place'.

You know in your heart of hearts what drives you, and what you'll be happy doing.

Me : I'd been with the money men for a period of years and it's super stressful, board reporting, projections, market analysis etc.

Now I've got my little B2B SaaS startup that's blended a life long passion with my software chops, and our clients love us, we get to work with the absolutely best people in our industry, we're making a difference in their lives, and they in turn pay us money.

It's hard, rewarding, graft. At the end of the week when the money lands in stripe (for me..) there's nothing artificial, there's no projections, there's no-one to pay back, it's a 100% value exchange of 'heres my(our) hardwork, here's a product and you're giving me money for it'.

Sure - could I potentially have gone the VC route (maybe!). Would it be different, hell yes. Would I (probably) earn more ultimately 5 years down the line (sure?). That 5 years would be very, very different...

> YC basically being a post-Ivy League thing

I have a lot of friends of mine who are decade+ YoE first time founders who have done very very well in YC.

Lots of Enterprise SaaS companies have went thru YC and done very well - you just don't hear about them as much because Direct Enterprise Sales doesn't require as much marketing.

There are similar B2C successes by older founders and non-Ivy/Ivy Tier founders.

> we're profitable, and can even articulate a realistic vision about how it becomes the next $100M household name

You could easily pitch a Seed or Pre-Seed round depending on the numbers and location right now.

I guarantee you that you are a 2nd or 3rd degree connect with plenty of VCs.

Leverage that network you have and doors will open

The YC label does help to open doors if you don't know or don't have the network to do it.

(Note: this advice is US centric)

How many years do you have to go back to find 1 company that is on par with a dropbox or airbnb

i feel like if you went back 5 years it would be hard to even find more than 1-2 companies that has achieved a moderate level of mainstream success in the same way

The LinkedIn page for a lot of these companies showing you "Where they studied" can be a bit intimidating. Chockablock with Stanford and Ivy League.

I was filling out the Co-Founder matching service application and it has a required text area for education. The placeholder text examples? Standford MS in Comp Sci, NYU BS in Physics.

As a college dropout with "some college" but a 14+ year career in systems/software engineering roles, that was quite discouraging.

Just finished W24 batch with no Ivy/FAANG background.

Everyone I met in our batch was very friendly, curious, and razor-sharp. Many people have credentialed backgrounds, many people do not.

I generally buy YC’s justification that many of the smartest people happen to go to Stanford/Ivy which is why they are over-represented.

I'm with you and wish that we were more careful with this sort of signaling risk. However, there are tons of college dropouts and uncredentialed software people who make it in to YC.

What I'm basically trying to tell everyone, and hoping to convince a few, is: don't listen to any of this, just do it.

I'm also with you! Just wanted to share my experience in case it helps as a data point.

Gates, Jobs, and Zuck all famously dropped out of college of course.

It's an interesting and tricky social dynamic matching within and between these somewhat distinct groups.

Didn't they ask drop out from Harvard or something? It's a bit disingenuous to say that.

> Seems like there's basically a 0% chance a random person would get into YC

This is simply not true.

There are countless examples of people from outside the US or who went to non-Ivy league schools. Does it move the needle ? Probably. But it's easy to counteract it by having better answers to the other questions e.g. traction, team.

It’s not false, either. What were the stats on the last round? IIRC 20k applications and how many got there? It’s not zero, but it’s a small chance.

I had ambitions of cranking out an MVP and pitching it to VCs in my late 20s. After a year of solid rejection ( including YC not even responding), I gave up.

You end up spending alot of time trying to pitch your work. I've had a few idea guys expect me to build MVPs for free with an offer of like 1% or something silly like that. Never any pay, poorly thought out concepts.

I've accepted I'm never going to be rich, it's easier this way.

The filters are self-fulfilling.

For twenty-somethings ideas are easy and all opportunity is in front. Might as well swing for the fences and yes people do hit home runs. At this stage, debating the actual statistics is misguided use of energy. Because justifying a reason not to play still means you're not playing.

And the older you get the more gray this calculus is. There's more reasons not to do something. We put the filters on ourselves.

This isn't a moral argument. No one really knows how the statistics will land, we can only back analyze them. Yes it's statistically very unlikely you're going to get funded. So you stopped trying. Maybe your ideas really weren't very good. That's ok, you've got a lifetime.

edit: fwwiw I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur and now decades later when I'm more financially secure and the reality is here, I really really really question if I am cut out to be an entrepreneur. I don't think I care all that much. Not really.

It's more like I don't think cold calling ( tweeting) VCs yields results.

It's the equivalent of singing with a guitar outside of Columbia records. It's not like Paul McCartney is going to just tell you to step into his office and record a demo.

I do plan on taking some time off to work on my side projects though. Maybe I'll try again...

I’m in the same boat, except now actively planning to take off to work on a side project. Rather than spend another year building a prototype for a potential $100M idea (last two landed me really nice jobs) I have my eyes set on ideas that will generate $3-6M/year that I can realize on my own with minimal/no outside funding.

I may apply to this YC round for giggles, but totally get the same feeling as you that I’m probably not good enough in their eyes. As Paul Graham said, if you are out chasing VC funding, you are not building your product. So just going to focus on making my life comfortable and launching another successful product or service.

Good luck!

> YC not even responding

The only way that would happen is a bug. YC always responds to applicants. Rejections usually aren't personalized because that can't scale - but not hearing back at all should never happen.

If you want me to look into what might have happened there, I'd be willing to try if you email [email protected].

Correction, I got a response, but no specific feedback.

I double checked my emails.

Anyway, I'm realistic in knowing my ideas aren't going to garner investment.

I would love if you had a YC Junior for just getting help on ideas vs capital.

You can still be rich. Tech culture, or rather modern capitalism, tells us that businesses need to raise a bunch of money, capture a bunch of users, and then squeeze them for all they'll take.

It fails us in two very distinct ways. It encourages us to think that is the only viable option and it's unethical. Primarily because it requires the perception of customers (and often employees) as a means to an end (not humans).

However, the possibility for ethical, sustainable business models is still very real. I tend to believe we're going to see another wave of those soon as people figure out that it's actually easier to make a living that way.

I'm seeing a few "founding engineer" roles that pay pretty well and offer up to 1% equity for highly experienced candidates. Honestly some pretty unique opportunities.

But yeah, I'm not building out and MVP without pay for 1%.

When the startup I co-founders applied to Techstars, we had to fill in the lean canvas diagram and it makes you think and write down a whole bunch of stuff that we were lacking. channels in, user-acquisition strategies etc.

That process was super worth it. Ultimately we got rejected, but going forward I'll use that (well I try) to do that when joining/founding any startups.

Worst case scenario is they say no, best case scenario... :-)

All I can tell you is it's not true and that's why I posted this!

(and if it's true that everything you hear about YC is telling you otherwise, then YC has a serious messaging problem)

> YC has a serious messaging problem

It does. I've met some founders who went with Tribe8 (edit: Team8) or Sequoia Surge due to YC messaging issues and the (imo incorrect) perception that it's B2C or SMB B2B SaaS oriented.

The Open-Core RFS will probably help though, but maybe highlighting additional successes beyond B2C or Coinbase types would help.

One of the reasons I like this site is that it feels slightly academic in a way that a competing site like Reddit does not.

And being a somewhat exclusive post-academic institution is not a bad image or message IMO. Maybe there are more pros than cons in terms of curation (of content, of founders).

Really didn't see it as a "everyone should apply!" kinda place, thought the messaging was intentionally "here's the latest out of Stanford" which I'm fine with.

You're right about HN - pg always used to say he wanted it to look 'bookish'. But not for academic reasons. He's just a bibliophile and a massive reader.

When it comes to YC, however, I'm way closer to the "everyone should apply" end of the spectrum. Or rather: everyone who thinks they might like to start a high-growth startup.

One of YC's biggest impacts has been in growing the number of startups that get created in the first place. It's not so much about picking founders out of a limited pool, it's about the much larger set of potential founders who can maybe get bumped out of the "I could never do that track" into the adjacent "maybe give it a try track"...which can lead to life-changing places.

pg's essays have been one of the biggest such bumping devices. I would like HN to be that too. (While remaining interesting in all the other ways it can be.)

Bookish, yeah, the look has aged well.

My intuition was that there are more overly-confident types who think they want to be a founder rather than those not confident enough to do it, but after reading some comments here maybe my intuition was off. Then there's people like me who became a founder out of survival lol I'm a founder whether or not I want to be, need a cohort for that! xD

Thanks for sharing the motivating insights!

"then YC has a serious messaging problem"

People have been signaling this for quite some time.

Throughout this thread you attempt to dispel this perception, but I can't help but wonder why this isn't being addressed on a higher level at YC. Whether misperception or not, this view is certainly not contained to just HN, and is even shared by those who have no idea that this forum exists.

Also understand the VC industry is inherent with learning from the ideas submitted to them as part of curating deal flow; and it's common for them to justify it with a mantra that ideas are supposedly not worth anything, and it's all about execution.

When and who to share ideas with - and any market traction you may have as proof points there's an opportunity - is possibly the most important part of executing, and where you may be shooting yourself in the foot if sharing that with people in the business of funding ideas.

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.

[1] https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/?batch=W24

No idea how many people applied but I'm sure there's no lack - I just felt bad for forgetting to put the usual footer at the bottom a month ago. And I worry about the comments I see on HN interpreting YC as just for credentialed-elite applicants. It's deeply not true and I have a personal feeling about the question - being one of the uncredentialed-unelite-self-doubting types who could have been dissuaded from applying if I had been reading comments like that instead of pg's essays at the time.

Forgetting something like the footer thing happens. Forgive yourself for it. Maybe set a calendar event now for one month out from the next batch. It's how my ADHD brain remembers things.

As for the 'uncredentialed' thing, there are a ton of forces at play and I'm sure there will be more credentialed folks applying due to financial and access reasons. I'm an uncredentialed person (state SUNY school) who got flown out for an interview for YC Winter 2020. I didn't get selected due to my proposal itself and shortcomings within it, not due to a lack of any credentials. I enjoyed the experience and learned a bit about it. I may apply again at some point for another venture I'm working on.

"And I worry about the comments I see on HN interpreting YC as just for credentialed-elite applicants".

Eh, I feel like it's partly true but not by design. The people who are smart enough or connected/rich enough to get into ivy league schools are more likely to be able to dedicate resources to an idea or creating a better sales pitch. I would guess that post-grads and ivy league grads are over-represented compared to the population in general or the population of college grads.

Of course a good idea can come from anywhere, but I'd imagine the data supports the idea that the odds are better for some groups vs others.

This is just an empirical question, right? What are the proportions of credentialed elites among all applicants and successful applicants? If this number is surprising, it would mean a lot more to people than any amount of insistence.

Unfortunately the rust game engine idea (as much as it kills me to say this) is a perfect example of not YC material. Every VC, whether early stage or late stage, must fund companies that have a chance of growing by 5% every week. It’s remarkably hard to start anything that can maintain that growth. https://paulgraham.com/growth.html is worth internalizing.

But there’s a second caveat here: YC invests in people, not in ideas. From pg himself: https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/the-reddits

> Their idea was bad though. And since we thought then that we were funding ideas rather than founders, we rejected them. But we felt bad about it. Jessica was sad that we'd rejected the muffins. And it seemed wrong to me to turn down the people we'd been inspired to start YC to fund.

So it might be worth applying with a particularly bad idea. Or at least it used to be; I have no idea whether YC ever encourages strong founders with a bad idea to re-apply with a better one, or if you get any feedback from the partners that they almost accepted you but rejected because of the idea. (One of my neat memories as a 19yo is getting a thoughtful email from pg saying we almost made it to the interview with an idea that was essentially “blackboard sucks; make better school software," but the biggest factors against us were my age and the fact that selling to schools was about as hard as selling to governments back in 2008.)

I know that. I just threw that in because I've been doing game work in Rust and the graphics stack suffers from too few devs.

Better school software is worth another go-round, now that we have large language models.

Somebody already emailed me offering to fund the MoneyNow idea. That's a bad idea for another reason. The big problem with money transfer is fraud. PayPal is mostly a fraud-management service. Money transfer and user interface are the easy part.

I’d be very curious to see what you’d choose to work on if you were forced to pick something with the highest probability of growing at 5% per week minimum.

I suspect you have a few ideas, but it becomes a different sort of question when you imagine yourself committing to one for the next 10 years. Which idea could you see yourself throwing all of your effort into growing each week till you’re today+10 years old?

> the highest probability of growing at 5% per week minimum

I don't think this is a helpful frame, because you can't know this in advance, and I'd hate for anybody to read something like this, feel "I have no idea what could grow 5% per week minimum", and close the page on getting started. No one knows this in advance.

What YC teaches is to start by making something a few people actually want, no matter how small it is or seems, and then iterate. It's much more important, for example, to work on something you're personally interested in than something you've persuaded yourself has a chance at growing "5% per week minimum".

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.

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"

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.

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.

I had the same question.

Most YC founders seem to be new college graduates instead of seasoned FAANG folks. I'm in the latter camp and believe I'm better off leveraging my connections because I've aged out of YC.

I was in the last batch. The average is probably ~28 years old, but there are plenty of founding teams in their 40s and on. Plenty of folks with families. You wouldn't be a dinosaur.

Apply.

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.

Not a YC founder, but this is factually not true. YC allows Delaware, Cayman, Canada, and Singapore corporations [0].

Pre-empting the accusation that "cayman companies are about tax dodging": Cayman companies are a great fit for heavily international businesses that do not reside in the USA, but that want to be governed as if they were, because cayman corporate law is basically delaware's.

A good example is Nubank, which is a cayman corp that does most of it's business in LatAm.

The reason a company like this should not be a delaware c-corp is so that, in case of an acquisition of the companies assets, the holding company doesn't have to pay usa taxes (which is reasonable, since the company didn't have usa operations to begin with).

[0]: https://www.ycombinator.com/deal

YC has apparently been helping many founders get the O-1 visa.

And there are plenty of services that allow you to manage US companies remotely.

There are tons of international startups in YC including many successful ones. And YC has well over a decade of experience helping international founders navigate all the barriers including visa issues. Don't let this stop you!

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!…

For better or worse, the relocation requirement is probably a good proxy for "can commit to their startup 24x7 without any other responsibilities standing in the way".

Maybe, but that’d be playing into a tired stereotype.

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?

This is my biggest worry. I'd like to get some help building my stupid golf wiki (which I actually think is an extremely profitable long-term venture), but I'm desperately trying to build something that is good for golf, which is a space notoriously saturated with bad actors. I'm honestly even considering going in a not-for-profit direction eventually, so the idea of applying for a bit of VC money honestly hard to square, but the connections would be what's valuable.

My understanding is: it's fine. You're not required to do follow-on financing. Perceived preferred access to the market for syndicated convertible rounds is a big reason people do YC, though, so I think most people do end up raising.

tptacek answered your question, but here's a rule for answering similar questions in the future: YC supports what founders choose. That's partly because it's the DNA of the organization (whose origins go back to a time when founders were much lower on the startup totem pole than they are today) and partly because it's a losing bet to do anything else (which is related).

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.

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.

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.

YC is leaning into in-person heavily.

But e.g. there was a great team in our batch (W24) with very young kids who flew to SF for in-person events. Some people were unable to come to the US (visa issues) that took part remotely.

No requirement to intend to stay in the US – many foreign teams heading back, but many more haven chosen to stay in SF on O1 and other visas (YC helps with this).

I think YC admissions see the intention to be based in SF as a net positive, because SF is in most situations the very best place to start a startup (regardless of YC).

The last I heard (but my information may be out of date), that remains an option.

You don't need to migrate to the US.

But I believe you do need to be there with your co-founders for 3 months.

And if you can't manage that then running a VC backed startup isn't what you should do.

Because you will need to visit customers and it's often not feasible to just fly to/from constantly.

Do you guys still offer deferred admissions for juniors who wish to join a batch after graduation?

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?

Not only do I not know the answers, I am so devoid of such knowledge that you would find it hilarious. But from my perspective (FWIW) it's all sort of optimizing for the wrong thing. If you want to do a startup, YC is such a force multiplier that none of these details matter much in the end.

I do know that one reason the YC deal is far larger than it used to be is to give founders resilience against market ups and downs. You get a lot of runway now.

Curious about the story behind applying to YC as a founder and ending up as a moderator for hacker news.

Startup in W09, worked on it for 4 years, started saying no to pg about moderating HN, ran out of money, needed a job, said yes to pg about moderating HN.

Seems like it was a needed option for you at the time. Are you still enjoying it? Waiting for someone to take the baton?

You all talk about the work Dan does moderating this place, which, fair enough, but "Launch HN" is low key one of the coolest jobs in startups. The before/after on what those launch posts become after Dan gets involved would knock you out. A sibling comment asked him what his comp was (which is very funny) but it's a question with a simple answer: whatever he's getting, it's probably not enough.

How much are you paid for this job? Is this your only source of income?

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?

YC is a good platform for founders who want to build a high-growth startup (which is basically the original pg/YC definition of what a startup is). So your question reduces to whether selling samosas on the internet can be a high-growth business or not, and whether you would want to optimize for that.

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.

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.

That's the spirit :)

But I can't count the number of times I've heard about YC saying 'we don't think it's a great idea, but we like the founders'. YC funds founders, that's the whole deal. It's hard for many people to believe this because it sounds too simple and it's counterintuitive in all kinds of ways.

It would be nice to be told roughly what the process is before having to 'sign up'.

You're already signed up, because you can use your HN account to log in. (All YC accounts are HN accounts and vice versa.)

The process is that you fill out a form and make a 1 minute video* and click 'submit'.

(* I know...I hated the video thing too... but it gives a sense of what someone is like that doesn't come through in text, and you just talk for a minute about what you care about. nothing fancy.)

(edit: also, if you're the type of founder that my post is trying to reach - the video is very much in your interest. Other people can see potential in you that you don't see in yourself, even after just a minute. Especially because the people reviewing applications have massive amounts of experience with this.)

Video is fine(it's just a minute), but why LinkedIn URL is required(not optional)?

LinkedIn is about education, career, and networking. I am under average in all of them, so I'm not registered. This is the only thing which holding me back from applying. Otherwise, I work full-time on kick-ass product for months with 1000+ commits.

I have a #3 - I don't have a marketable idea.

You don't need a marketable idea. YC cares about founders and that's it. Everything else can be taught.

But you're absolutely right that that is on the short list of bogus reasons not to apply.

Well then I have the real version of #1 - I have no meaningful skills. I have enough problems that I can't even see myself as a founder, stuff like lack of soft skills from a disability and massive home responsibilities.

Going through the application helps provide clarity to the founders themselves as well.

"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.

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.

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?

YC's in the business of high-growth startups. You don't have to know how to build a high-growth startup—YC partners are experts in teaching and helping founders to do that. But if you're sure you don't want a high-growth startup, that might mean it's not a good fit.

However, your question is trickier than it seems because so many major startups begin as 'toy' or 'niche': https://paulgraham.com/altair.html. If you make something people want, there are often ways for it to grow—and perhaps grow big—that aren't obvious at first. The Airbnb founders stuck for a long time with their 'airbed' idea before making the obvious-in-retrospect (but not at the time) leap to a much larger market.

you need to graduate from the "right school/alumni" and i would discourage anybody else from wasting their time

That's definitely not true (I wouldn't be here if it were), and it's mistaken assumptions like this that I'm hoping my post can nudge some people out of.

If you noticed any of these phrases in what I wrote: "lack of credentials", "needn't look impressive", "doesn't look like", "nothing else", "out of nowhere", "you're already yourself"...that's why I put all those in there. Edit: oh and "impostor syndrome" of course.

No right school/alumni people at Fly.io (W20). I don't even got no learnin'.

As much as the YC app is gamed (based on winning applications I've seen from friends and strangers), alumnist is only one piece of the puzzle of a few.

im not saying you have to graduate from ivy league to get into YC but bulk majority of people in YC are.

they are almost always going to favour people from their own league.

im basing this off people who are coming from YC and telling me how it is.

some folks applied to YC in the past, get rejected and then find some Harvard graduate running with their ideas they submitted.

isn't this just correlation vs causation?

2 people submit the same idea. 1 gets in, the other doesn't. yc, basing their decision on the founder themselves and not so much the idea, chose person 1, who had more of the founder characteristics (determination, ... i forget the rest).

maybe there's a higher chance that between 2 people, 1 from harvard 1 not, the harvard person has those characteristics. could be they "learnt" it there, or they had to use those same skills to even get into harvard, or whatever. but it doesn't mean they got in because of the harvard degree

apply that same logic of thousands of people, maybe it looks like they prefer harvard candidates.

Do you need an MVP or an idea? US or international?

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.

You don't need traction. Team is good because having a cofounder is statistically such a huge success factor. But YC does found solo founders, and you shouldn't make a team just to make your application look better - I'm pretty sure doing that would weaken your chances.

I was under the impression that this idea of cofounders being a huge statistical success factor was pretty much just a myth.

Moreover, all reasons given by YC as to why you should have a cofounder are qualitative e.g. https://www.ycombinator.com/library/8h-how-to-find-the-right....

Would love to see the statistical evidence because if anything it seems to be the other way round and this is pretty much just reflective of YC’s personal preference as it were (and many VCs advise prefer otherwise). Personally I would only advise someone to take on a cofounder if they already know them well and need their skill set. There is so much risk in a poor fit that it far outweighs any theoretical benefit.

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.

Makes sense to apply just with less than a MVP?

Yes - there's no such thing as 'too early'. Of course if you've been working for a while, you should certainly show what you've made so far.

If you consider the rather common case of a YC application where the founders (1) have been working on X, (2) get into YC, (3) eventually drop X, and (4) eventually find something else that goes better...you're essentially skipping to step (4). (Not that the analogy holds in every way, but it does for "should you apply" purposes.)

hmmmm maybe i should make a video game with yall? its enticing meow idk

You would say that, wouldn't you?

Yes, I'm super interested in reaching people for whom YC would be a great fit, but who don't apply because they doubt themselves. Partly because that's been such a big part of my own experience.