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

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

#51

Post by Animats »

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

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

#52

Post by RowanH »

_akhe wrote: post #23

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

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...

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

#53

Post by threeseed »

datascienced wrote: post #8

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.

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.

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

#55

Post by sosodev »

999900000999 wrote: post #27
_akhe wrote: post #23

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…

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'…

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.

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

#56

Post by dang »

Animats wrote: post #51

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 co…

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.

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

#57

Post by andrewmcwatters »

Animats wrote: post #51

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 co…

That's a whole lot of "AI"...

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

#58

Post by elevatedastalt »

dang wrote: post #11
ipsum2 wrote: post #6

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.

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

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

#60

Post by chenxi9649 »

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.

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