Live data from Hacker News

I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

news.ycombinator.com

71–80 of 458 posts

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#72
Hey Sam. I'm considering applying with my nonprofit edtech startup (a new crowdsourced education system that's peer-to-peer and mobile -- built around software, like Watsi). I'm a solo-founder still currently building the MVP.

Quick question 1: Is there a "Delaware C Corp" equivalent for the incorporation process/legal structures of nonprofits by state, or does it not matter?

Real question: Is there something to be said about founders waiting until they have users and initial growth to then use the YC opportunity to transition towards growing their company? In other words, if a startup is only getting one shot to go through YC, generally is finding initial product-market fit harder, or is growing the company?

Granted, the latter can't happen without the former happening first. But it would seem that for some founders that have genuine insights into real big problems, it would suck to waste the opportuniy of YC just "checking the boxes" of building their MVP, which they could know how to do already from PG's essays/YC's blog/Startup Class -- whereas they could be getting genuine advice on problems unique to their specific domain problem if they just waited and applied later.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#73
Sam,

are the odds stacked against us if we have 5 founders? (EE, ME, EE, SW, Sales/Business)

Also does a startup that can help reduce carbon emissions/move from something that generates lots of emission classify under the energy section of request for startup?

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#77
post #70

Hi Sam. Can you explain the process for considering a Non-Profit a little bit more? A friend and I naturally think that we have a significant value proposition in the non-profit sector with everything other than the technical part flushed out thus far. EDIT: Particularly if there is potential synergy with a business component as well?

For non-profits, we're looking for large impacts on the world. A lot of the evaluation criteria--how good the founders are, how good the idea is--are the same.

Thanks Sam. I appreciate it.

Re: I Am Sam Altman, President of YC Group. AMA

#80

I want to be a farmer. Is there a place for me in YCombinator? (p.s. I have several other follow up questions I'd love to ask if you entertain me with a response)

If you want to be a farmer, why do you want to be in YC?

We are the best in the world at helping people be some things, but probably not that :(

Post reply on HN