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Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

ycombinator.com

51–60 of 156 posts

Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

#52

PG, if my co-founder and I are currently bootstrapping a company and starting to work with a law firm to go through all the formalities of incorporation, would you recommend holding off on that for a few months in case we are accepted into YC? It's not cheap (by far) to pay for that stuff out of pocket, and I imagine YC has a lot more experience guiding young companies through the formation process, so curious about…

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2246544 : > Don't incorporate, though, if you can avoid it. It's easier to start with our paperwork than to transfer an existing LLC or S-Corp to a C-Corp. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1778985 : > It's not a deal-breaker unless it's botched. The right way to do it would be to use a convertible note written so that YC funding wouldn't trigger conversion. If you have a lawyer…

Thank you! That helps a lot.

Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

#54
I've been interested in applying to YC for quite a while, but recently I graduated and moved to the south bay (near Mountain View) for work. It really stood out to me this time that $11,000 + $3,000n is not a lot of money. With 3 founders that's $20,000. 3 founders working in the tech industry can make $20,000 PER MONTH on typical salaries. It seems like it would be more appealing to people without good paying work, or who are interested more for the connections (which maybe applies to me, I'm thinking about it). Assuming all 3 founders cohabit (which I think is standard), this is a reasonable amount of money to live on, but it would be fairly bare bones if my quick mental math is right.

Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

#56

I've been interested in applying to YC for quite a while, but recently I graduated and moved to the south bay (near Mountain View) for work. It really stood out to me this time that $11,000 + $3,000n is not a lot of money. With 3 founders that's $20,000. 3 founders working in the tech industry can make $20,000 PER MONTH on typical salaries. It seems like it would be more appealing to people without good paying work,…

It's not about the money, it's enough to survive. The founders of Reddit after selling their company for tens of millions went through YC again for Hipmunk. It's not about the money, its about the people.

Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

#57

I've been interested in applying to YC for quite a while, but recently I graduated and moved to the south bay (near Mountain View) for work. It really stood out to me this time that $11,000 + $3,000n is not a lot of money. With 3 founders that's $20,000. 3 founders working in the tech industry can make $20,000 PER MONTH on typical salaries. It seems like it would be more appealing to people without good paying work,…

I've always looked at the yc program not as a means to get funds but rather as a sort of exclusive community where you get very good advice for your startup. if money is crucial for starting your business then you might indeed be better of with more traditional VCs.

Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

#58

I've been interested in applying to YC for quite a while, but recently I graduated and moved to the south bay (near Mountain View) for work. It really stood out to me this time that $11,000 + $3,000n is not a lot of money. With 3 founders that's $20,000. 3 founders working in the tech industry can make $20,000 PER MONTH on typical salaries. It seems like it would be more appealing to people without good paying work,…

Don't forget that Start Fund offers every YC startup a $150k uncapped convertible note.

Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

#59

I've been interested in applying to YC for quite a while, but recently I graduated and moved to the south bay (near Mountain View) for work. It really stood out to me this time that $11,000 + $3,000n is not a lot of money. With 3 founders that's $20,000. 3 founders working in the tech industry can make $20,000 PER MONTH on typical salaries. It seems like it would be more appealing to people without good paying work,…

(1) You get $150,000 from Start Fund.

(2) As founders, you should NOT be paying yourselves real salary until you raise significant money. Even then, you should be paying yourselves on the order of $50-60K/year, modulo a few edge cases if you have a family, mortgage, etc.

Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding

#60

For those who prefer working offline, I've created a raw-text version of the application here: https://github.com/nickbarnwell/YC/blob/empty_app/form.txt It was very useful for me when faux-applying to have the dark glow of vim instead of the YC page's harsh white, and I thought I might put it out there for others to use.

There is a whole spectrum of vision impairments (pun intended) involving excessive sensitivity to bright light. As you might expect, there is no single answer to all of them. A lot of people have trouble with white background and dark text normally seen in applications and on the web.

The best answer is knowing how to configure your software. There's actually a reason for the ancient phrase "User Agent" which predates the web by decades; your software should be an agent for you and handle the details for you much like a Hollywood agent takes care of the details for a star.

You can configure some web browsers to take care of the pesky details for you like fixing dark text on white background:

http://www.designtools.org/pix/news.ycombinator.com_w2013for...

For me, with my config, every website looks basically like that. The web would be nearly unusable for me otherwise.

I can hear the "artistic designer" faction gathering their torches and pitchforks due to me offending their skilled sensibilities with something so ugly, but when you have a disability, often your only choice is between something less cool and nothing at all.

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