Out of curiosity (since nobody every mentions this), do successful entrepreneurs every apply (and get in?). Obviously someone with a previous exit already has a network of investors, co-founder(s), etc., but could the exposure via YC (and Start Fund funding) warrant applying? Or is YC's mission geared towards new entrepreneurs?
Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
101–110 of 156 posts
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#102PG: What would your advice be to someone with no co-founder? Apply anyway and see what you think, or don't even bother and wait until you've found someone to work with? I appreciate the issues with single founder companies however am finding it hard to locate someone with the required interest and skill in my area.
Get a cofounder. If your startup succeeds, you could spend 5 years or more working on it. It's rounding error to spend 6 months making a concerted effort to find a cofounder first. And while it can be hard to find a cofounder, it's not as hard as starting a successful startup.
pg:
Do you make a distinction between "solo founder who is and intends to remain solo" and "solo founder who just hasn't happened to meet the right co-founder(s) yet?"
Just curious, as I see those as being pretty distinct cases. With Fogbeam Labs, I was a "solo founder" for a year or so, before our second founder came onboard, and then it was about 8 months after that when our 3 founder joined up. I imagine other people find themselves in that place where they are open to (even seeking) a co-founder, but just haven't met the right person yet.
In any case, my thought, FWIW, is that a founder should keep working on advancing their vision, whether or not they have located (a) co-founder(s) yet. I wouldn't "stop the world" to do nothing but look for a co-founder.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#103Out of curiosity (since nobody every mentions this), do successful entrepreneurs every apply (and get in?). Obviously someone with a previous exit already has a network of investors, co-founder(s), etc., but could the exposure via YC (and Start Fund funding) warrant applying? Or is YC's mission geared towards new entrepreneurs?
Kul had an informative post about doing YC a second time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3520856
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
He filled out the online application as a single founder but he had found Arash by interviews, a few weeks later.
Was Arash central to choosing to invest? What I mean is do you think you would have passed if he hadn't found a co-founder by the interviews?
I'm pretty sure we'd have funded him anyway. Trevor had tried his prototype and said it was good. The big advantage of Arash (and of good cofounders in general) was not that he got Dropbox through YC interviews but that he helped make the company successful.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#105Did Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Twitter or Dell use YC or anything similar? In my opinion YC is a business to make money out of desperate entrepreneurs.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Get a cofounder. If your startup succeeds, you could spend 5 years or more working on it. It's rounding error to spend 6 months making a concerted effort to find a cofounder first. And while it can be hard to find a cofounder, it's not as hard as starting a successful startup.
pg: Do you make a distinction between "solo founder who is and intends to remain solo" and "solo founder who just hasn't happened to meet the right co-founder(s) yet?" Just curious, as I see those as being pretty distinct cases. With Fogbeam Labs, I was a "solo founder" for a year or so, before our second founder came onboard, and then it was about 8 months after that when our 3 founder joined up. I imagine other peo…
The unfortunate fact is that there is not much difference between the two cases. Most people who are looking for a cofounder when they start YC are still looking for one 6 months later. Alarmingly often that's because they recruited one in the interim who's already gone.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#107For 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 predate…
This (and not div shadows) is exactly why CSS was invented. If you're looking for a web browser that lets you quickly change the look for individual web pages, try Opera.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#108Are you looking for a co-founder? I've created this Google survey so that you can put in a little information about yourself, and what you're looking for: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDAtOWh... When you fill it out, you can see the other responses. Perhaps you won't find a co-founder, but at least you might meet other people to talk to. [edit: This is my first survey on google docs, so if I n…
I wanted to jump in here and to caution that finding a cofounder with the specific intent of applying for this round of YC would be a bad idea. Keep in mind that a co-founding relationship is very much a relationship, and you have to "date" a bit before you get married — having a startup is like having a child, you want to know a potential cofounder is the right person to found a startup with first. That said, be ins…
Just to add, if you think you can raise your child (startup) alone than don't be afraid to do that either. You'll never know, the right co-founder may be just around the corner, if at all
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wanted to jump in here and to caution that finding a cofounder with the specific intent of applying for this round of YC would be a bad idea. Keep in mind that a co-founding relationship is very much a relationship, and you have to "date" a bit before you get married — having a startup is like having a child, you want to know a potential cofounder is the right person to found a startup with first. That said, be ins…
Just to add, if you think you can raise your child (startup) alone than don't be afraid to do that either. You'll never know, the right co-founder may be just around the corner, if at all
Exactly. I worked on my startup for a little over a year before my current awesome cofounder joined me (approached me since I had already "proven" myself, I wasn't explicitly searching). Big fan of just leaping forward and doing it yourself.
Self-promotion, two articles I wrote on the subject: "I'm a designer who learned Django and launched her first webapp in 6 weeks" http://www.limedaring.com/im-a-designer-who-learned-django-a...
"How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder" http://weddinglovely.com/blog/how-to-survive-as-a-solo-desig...
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2013 YC Funding
#110Based on previous years, this means: * Interviews will be around November 25th [EDIT: November 27th-Dec 1] * First dinner will be around November 30th [EDIT: Early January] * Demo day will be approximately March 25th
Interviews are November 27 through December 1. The first dinner will be the first tuesday in January.
PG the first Tuesday in January 2013 happens to be New Years Day, 1-Jan-2013