General
What kind of team do you think YC is looking for?
YC looks for teams of good founders. They have invested in solo-founders but that is much more rare.
- They tend to look for teams that are balanced and with a technical co-founder.
- Teams that are committed full time. Startups are hard, so you need 100% of a person’s time
- Teams that split things equitably. They often will encourage founders to split equity evenly as all founders are required to make a startup work. Their minimum to be considered a co-founder is 10% equity
How do you think our program and partners can best support the teams?
YC is phenomenal at helping founders communicate clearly about their startup to investors. We spend 12 weeks perfecting their one-liner and then later their demo day pitch. I think the 886 Velocity program can help give the investor perspective on the pitch and bring other investors.
As a former founder, there are operational things that help make starting a company a lot easier that programs like 886 Velocity can help accelerate. This is from AWS credits, to dedicated services in banking or legal with some good deals.
What is the most important question on YC application?
I point all applicants to this essay.
The first question I look at is, “What is your company going to make?” This isn’t the question I care most about, but I look at it first because I need something to hang the application on in my mind.
The best answers are the most matter of fact. It’s a mistake to use marketing-speak to make your idea sound more exciting. We’re immune to marketing-speak; to us it’s just noise. They make a note about it here.
What type of response would you consider a red flag in the application?
Here are the most common reasons why teams don’t get an interview:
- Not enough progress in a short amount of time. Progress is usually measured in users or revenue
- No unique insight
- Part time co-founders
- No technical founder
- Not a venture backable business
What topics or ideas do you think the 1-minute video should cover or focus on?
I think the best thing to do is follow these topics and points.
What is the most common mistake founders make on their application or during an interview?
For application - too much jargon and not clear or concise writing.
For interview - getting pitched at from the founders vs a conversation
What is the best approach to get to the interview?
Keep your answers concise and matter of fact (see how Paul Graham writes)
Focus on showing that you are building some that people want (<= that is their motto!)
Be yourself
Good idea to have someone else in YC ecosystem read it
When do you think is the right time to apply for YC?
Certainly you can apply with just an idea. However, keep in mind that their motto is “make something that people want”. The earlier you apply, the more you have to “prove” that you are the team to do it. If your idea is common, then you will need to show traction. For example: Building a quantum physics computer can get into YC on just the idea, but the team behind is the only team in the world to tackle this problem. And this problem is a very viable big venture backable problem. If I came with an AI Photo sharing site - this business is common and accessible and anyone could do it. It’s also unclear if people will want (pay for) you are building, so you will need to show traction in the form of users or revenue.
What is the most important thing to include in the application? What is the least important?
Most important: Your answer to “what is your company going to build?”
Least important: Bio of your investors
What advice would you give to a founder who is about to enter YC?
Devote 110% of your time to it and listen to your group partners!
How can early-stage startup founders use their time effectively?
Focus on things that can bring about real traction vs fake traction. See above the difference.
How do founders know what feedback to act on and what to ignore when they receive input from investors or customers regarding necessary changes to their product?
Talk to your users/customers more than investors. You are solving your customer’s problems not the investors’ problems. When talking to customers get clear on the problem they are having and make sure it’s a good problem to solve. Good problems are recurring, urgent, valuable, and shared by many people.
What is your favorite question to ask founders?
Tell me about what you are building. That is the conversation starter that can go in any direction.
For those who have applied before and been rejected, is this a red flag? How do they come back from it?
Over 50% of the batch has applied before getting in. That means they have been rejected before. Pager Duty (an IPO’d company) famously was rejected 6 times before getting accepted. They kept at it. Just continue to show an immense amount of progress between the last time and next time. usually an inflection point has happened in your business or market for this to change your application. For example, a company that was making voice games was rejected several times before and finally got in because Google and Amazon were in a fight to make sure every household had their speaker. Everyone knows that games can push the adoption of a platform or technology. So it made sense. Another company changed their idea and started to get a ton of users, so they got in.
What should those who apply with only an idea focus on?
Team - why is this the team to build it? What unique insight do they have?
Markets - why is this going to be a big market and why will your solution be correct.
If it’s a big problem that is hard to solve, then team is really important. For example during COVID getting funding for a vaccine is a no brainer for the right team because we know there is a market there. Sometimes brilliant founders see things overlooked by other areas because they have been in that field and can prove that many people have this problem (thus a big market)
How about those who’ve already raised significant funding?
Some founders who have raised come to YC. Most of these founders are trying to recruit Silicon Valley talent or actually need funding and Silicon Valley money.
How important is a demo? What should the demo show?
Not as important, even though it’s called demo day, the presentation is very short and rarely has screenshots or time to demo.
What are some things international applicants specifically should think about?
Unfortunately YC is still very Silicon Valley; however, fortunately the world has gotten flatter during the pandemic. Oftentimes international applicants need to explain their markets to US investors. The best way to do it is to compare it to something big and well known in the US. It’s like the Amazon of Asia, Spotify of India, etc…
What are the best ways to be concise and explain clearly? How do you “write concisely but say a lot”?
Choose every word carefully =). Write out what you want to say and then edit, edit, edit. Have others help you edit.
What is the best way to incorporate numbers to the applicant’s advantage?
There is a question that specifically asks about your traction, include the relevant information there.
Team
Are there any common traits among YC founders?
- Great at communicating
- Focused on building something that people want
- Focused on real traction (users / revenue) vs fake traction (# of employees, who is another investor, PR, testimonials)
- Ability to hold a positive and negative outcome in their heads and push towards selling and getting others excited about their vision
What are some qualities you look for in a founder?
Determination, grit, adaptability, resourcefulness, resilience
Are there any qualities a founder must have?
Building a venture backed startup feels like running max speed on a treadmill at max incline, which is how to succeed being murky and unclear. Oftentimes we know what success looks like, but getting there is not the same for every team or business. Therefore a founder needs to not only practice and bring their all every day, they also need to be resilient, determined and adaptable. A little luck and good timing never hurts either. All things needed to win Olympic medals.
What's the best way for founders to talk about their startups?
Perfect your one liner. It should be very matter of fact and workshop it. How you can do that is practice telling people what you are building and asking them to tell you what you are building.
Please note that your one liner is for investors not your customers.
What is the important but often overlooked aspect in the startup process?
Choosing the right or big enough industry. I’m surprised at how many founders don’t do the back of the napkin math on how big the market is for them. Granted this method has its cons as you may have overlooked markets. Airbnb could not size up their market very well. We did not go into dating because the markets and exits were too small. However, founders should be conscious about why they choose the market they are choosing.
I think of building a business a lot like surfing. In order to surf, you need waves (good problems or tech platform shifts), these waves need to happen at the beach you want to surf (your industry), and finally you need to know how to get on the surf board and catch the wave (what is in your control - executing). Founders can control what beach (industry) they want to surf at as well as practice getting on the surfboard. But, they cannot create waves (market, good problems or even tech shifts).
Marketing & Product
How would you define a good MVP?
A good MVP is the last amount of work for you to show progress. Usually progress is measured in users or revenue. But in hard tech or biotech cases it is usually measured in progress to milestones.
What do founders need to consider about their product when applying to YC?
It’s better to know more about the problem and your customers than your product. But if you have launched a product, I’ll want to know a lot of things that answer how much do people want it or if a lot of people will want it (<= proxy for how big of a problem are you solving)
How should founders effectively communicate their vision and value proposition to the customers?
Funny enough, YC doesn’t really help on communicating with your customers. You are the expert on your business and your customers. YC knows the investor, specifically Silicon Valley, investor audience the most.