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Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

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Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#21

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #19
brianchesky wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We applied 1 hour before the deadline. The Justin.tv guys convinced us to apply that night at dinner but we were worried we might have missed the deadline. I asked Justin Kan to ask PG if it was too late. Below is the original email thread. Once he gave the go-ahead, we applied, and the rest is history. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Paul Graham Date: Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:57 PM Subject: Re: yc applic…

Actually it looks like you guys applied not just before the application deadline, but just before we actually made decisions. You can only do that if you know Justin Kan.

[deleted]

Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#22

Post by drusenko »

pg wrote: post #4
sahillavingia wrote: post #2

Can you give any examples of late applications that eventually become YC-funded companies? Just curious.

I believe both Wufoo and Weebly only decided to apply a few hours before the deadline. IIRC David Rusenko of Weebly applied without even telling his cofounders.

I applied about 4 hours before the deadline, if I remember correctly.

I found out about YC that day while reading a Slashdot article that said the deadline was coming up. I put together the application in about 2 hours and sent it off, and marked that Dan would not be able to come out, and Chris would (a total guess).

I called them both the next day and was pretty surprised that after telling them about YC, they both instantly agreed to drop out of our last semester at Penn State and move to San Francisco.

Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#24

Post by ahoff »

sahillavingia wrote: post #2

Can you give any examples of late applications that eventually become YC-funded companies? Just curious.

We learned of the application about 1 week before the deadline. We threw it together in an afternoon, spent a couple days editing, and turned it in just before the deadline. We basically thought "What the hell?" the worst thing that can happen is we don't get accepted, and then we will have only wasted the time we spent preparing the application. We had no demo and barely a coherent idea, so we focused our application on how awesome the founders were. We basically wanted to show that we were smart and we could build things, we figured that would get us to the interview round (and buy us some time to formulate our idea.)

You should apply even if you have to put the application together today. Just for the experience. At worst, you'll waste an afternoon. At best you'll get in, like we did (Cloudant YCS08 - Boston)

Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#25

Post by davidbalbert »

sahillavingia wrote: post #2

Can you give any examples of late applications that eventually become YC-funded companies? Just curious.

We (HireHive) applied 4 days after the deadline. This was the first time that YC had officially accepted late applications. We weren't planning on applying until the winter (if at all). We were just filling out the application as a way to firm up our understanding of the business and then we said "what the heck".

In retrospect this was clearly a great decision.

Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#26

Post by zbruhnke »

pg, I'm just curious if re-submitting hurts anyone? I feel like I have re-submitted quite a few times (no major changes) mainly just cutting out wordiness or marketing speak, but is there any number of times that it turns out to be a red flag for you guys? Also my video is VERY raw, I left it unedited as suggested, but never realized how much head movement I had in the beginning of the video until after watching it again, is there such a thing as too raw on the videos?

Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#27

Post by SwellJoe »

sahillavingia wrote: post #2

Can you give any examples of late applications that eventually become YC-funded companies? Just curious.

I (Virtualmin) applied hours before the deadline. I don't think I even told Jamie I'd applied until I got the invitation to the interview in Boston.

Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#28

Post by answerly »

sahillavingia wrote: post #2

Can you give any examples of late applications that eventually become YC-funded companies? Just curious.

We submitted our application within about an hour of the deadline last year. I was so convinced that we wouldn't be accepted for an interview that I didn't explicitly tell Jason (my co-founder) we were applying. We were both very happy with how things turned out!

Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#29

Post by austinchang »

sahillavingia wrote: post #2

Can you give any examples of late applications that eventually become YC-funded companies? Just curious.

The Fridge was a late applicant in the S2010 round. we missed the normal deadline and submitted a few weeks before the late deadline. we also revised and updated our applications almost up to the day we were emailed we got an interview...

Re: Advice for YC Applicants: Better Last-Minute than Late

#30

Post by someone_here »

macrael wrote: post #8
someone_here wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I submitted my application a year ago literally minutes before the deadline, and was eventually accepted to the W2010 class. Is YC funding really considered a class? Edit: Sorry, I accidentally downvoted you. I really did not intend to. I hope someone may come along and vote you back up to 1.

I'm curious, are you on a touch screen device? I've accidentally downvoted a number of times because I missed the little arrows with my fingers. It's frustrating that I can't change my vote afterwards. Does anyone else feel like this is a problem? Seems fixable.

I actually slipped when trying to highlight his comment for quoting :(
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