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Some things to check in your YC application

news.ycombinator.com

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Some things to check in your YC application

#1

Post by pg »

A surprisingly large percentage of people fill out the application form incorrectly. Most of these mistakes we can deal with, but there are two things you really want to get right:

1. In the question asking about the details of each founder (name, age, education etc), one of the things we ask for is an email address. Do please include one. If we want to ask you questions about your application, or invite you for interviews, we need to be able to contact you.

2. In the questions asking for the YC usernames of all the founders, and of those who will come to CA if funded, please make sure that these fields contain nothing but YC usernames (not proper names), and that the second is a subset of the first. It's amazing how often the first field contains fewer names than there are people whose details are supplied later, or (more strangely still) the second field contains a name that is not in the first.

Re: Some things to check in your YC application

#2

Post by DaniFong »

I don't know if this was my client acting up, or perhaps an unconscious mouse movement, but I've been trying to update the application for a while now. For some reason the update button isn't working (is the server hosed? Is the internet cafe that I'm at breaking?) but when I checked the two fields you mentioned, all but one of the names were eliminated from each (and the intersection was zero).

(Edit: I was using commas instead of spaces, which might account for the weird behavior. Does YC search the usernames for each token? Because then only the last names would have had no comma, and so they they would remain)

So, I can't really remember if it was just me, but it's possibly a bug...

Re: Some things to check in your YC application

#3

Post by pg »

DaniFong wrote: post #2

I don't know if this was my client acting up, or perhaps an unconscious mouse movement, but I've been trying to update the application for a while now. For some reason the update button isn't working (is the server hosed? Is the internet cafe that I'm at breaking?) but when I checked the two fields you mentioned, all but one of the names were eliminated from each (and the intersection was zero). (Edit: I was using co…

What do you mean by "isn't working?" What happens when you click on update?

Re: Some things to check in your YC application

#4

Post by [deleted] »

DaniFong wrote: post #2

I don't know if this was my client acting up, or perhaps an unconscious mouse movement, but I've been trying to update the application for a while now. For some reason the update button isn't working (is the server hosed? Is the internet cafe that I'm at breaking?) but when I checked the two fields you mentioned, all but one of the names were eliminated from each (and the intersection was zero). (Edit: I was using co…

[deleted]

Re: Some things to check in your YC application

#5

Post by DaniFong »

pg wrote: post #3
DaniFong wrote: post #2

I don't know if this was my client acting up, or perhaps an unconscious mouse movement, but I've been trying to update the application for a while now. For some reason the update button isn't working (is the server hosed? Is the internet cafe that I'm at breaking?) but when I checked the two fields you mentioned, all but one of the names were eliminated from each (and the intersection was zero). (Edit: I was using co…

What do you mean by "isn't working?" What happens when you click on update?

Well, it says "loading" and "waiting for YCombinator". It does this for an arbitrarily long period of time. It's quite possible that the network providing wireless changed something which breaks AJAX, because since this morning I can only get Gmail to work in HTML mode here. I think that this service with used all across the bay area though (it's called Freeva, I think), so that might explain why many people are having problems.

Edit: Does edit work? I wonder... Okay. Apparently, yes for here, but not for another post I made.

Re: Some things to check in your YC application

#6

Post by pg »

DaniFong wrote: post #5
pg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "isn't working?" What happens when you click on update?

Well, it says "loading" and "waiting for YCombinator". It does this for an arbitrarily long period of time. It's quite possible that the network providing wireless changed something which breaks AJAX, because since this morning I can only get Gmail to work in HTML mode here. I think that this service with used all across the bay area though (it's called Freeva, I think), so that might explain why many people are havi…

It's the same server (in fact, the same process) you're submitting this comment to.

Re: Some things to check in your YC application

#7

Post by blored »

DaniFong wrote: post #2

I don't know if this was my client acting up, or perhaps an unconscious mouse movement, but I've been trying to update the application for a while now. For some reason the update button isn't working (is the server hosed? Is the internet cafe that I'm at breaking?) but when I checked the two fields you mentioned, all but one of the names were eliminated from each (and the intersection was zero). (Edit: I was using co…

I've noticed that when I was editing the application and left the window open for a long period of time (maybe 30 minutes - 2 hours) I would find that clicking 'Update' would return an error. I'm not sure if Refreshing my page helped, but when I clicked the back button my application would be saved. I only remember it from the trauma of the prospect of losing my data. I thought it was a time-out issue.

This happened to me a while ago, I would say late August, early September.

Re: Some things to check in your YC application

#9

Post by DanielBMarkham »

pg wrote: post #6
DaniFong wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it says "loading" and "waiting for YCombinator". It does this for an arbitrarily long period of time. It's quite possible that the network providing wireless changed something which breaks AJAX, because since this morning I can only get Gmail to work in HTML mode here. I think that this service with used all across the bay area though (it's called Freeva, I think), so that might explain why many people are havi…

It's the same server (in fact, the same process ) you're submitting this comment to.

FWIW, I got a server timeout earlier today when I took just over 30 minutes to start on my application. It looks like it is easy to lose your cookies just under normal use.
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