YC Fellowship • Hacker News Board

Re: YC Fellowship

#111

Post by vishalzone2002 » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:43 PM UTC

mattkrisiloff wrote: post #47

vishalzone2002 wrote: post #42

can people working on side-projects/ideas while having a Full time job take part in this?

You can definitely apply while still having your job, but you must be willing to work on it full-time for at least the duration of the Fellowship program. We hope you'll commit to it longer than that too -- if your startup is promising, you'll be working on it for many years to come.

sweet. thanks !

Re: YC Fellowship

#112

Post by _delirium » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:44 PM UTC

s73v3r wrote: post #23

Any mention of health insurance, or other things like that? One of the biggest reasons people do go to work for large companies instead of starting their own business is things like that. Without them, you're really only targeting the young kids right out of school, most of whom (but not all) don't really need that much in healthcare.

If you're a U.S. resident, PPACA has made this a lot easier. I recently bought an individual health plan on healthcare.gov for $250/mo (not including subsidies). If you make less than $50k/yr the amount is further subsidized. It can be more if you have a family, but in any case, with a fellowship income of $6k/mo you should be able to buy a health plan, at least for those two months.

Re: YC Fellowship

#113

Post by hbhakhra » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:47 PM UTC

tstactplsignore wrote: post #33

katm wrote: post #2

Kat from YC here. Sam, Matt Krisiloff and I are happy to answer any questions about the Fellowship. You can also send questions to fellowship@ycombinator.com.

How do you feel about teams with a year of college left?

As Sam said, take a semester off. I did that during college just for some personal exploration and its one of the best decisions I ever made. Once you get started with work, taking a 6 month break is MUCH harder - aka it'll never be this easy to get time off again.

Re: YC Fellowship

#114

Post by stormbuilder » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:47 PM UTC

katm wrote: post #104

stormbuilder wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Kat. Two questions: 1) If we are still looking for / selecting technical co-founders, can we apply? 2) Does the entire team need to dedicate itself full time to this? Alternatively, if the "paying bills" job is quite light (2-3 hours per day), and we are willing to forego some sleep, can we still apply? Cheers

1) You can apply as a solo founder, though we do think it's important that the fellowship teams we fund are able to build product themselves. Working with contractors is expensive and can slow you down considerably. If you are non-technical, try to make a strong case for why that won't be a problem. 2) We prefer that you are able to work full-time on the product for the 8 weeks of the program.

Thank you for answering.

The same way students can take a semester off, could employed people take a sabbatical to focus on this?

Cheers

Re: YC Fellowship

#115

Post by omouse » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:49 PM UTC

Definitely will be applying to this; I was going to apply for the regular funding cycle as well (still will apply because I want a few more months of my own time to work on an idea).

Glad to see YC experimenting with new ideas :D

Re: YC Fellowship

#116

Post by omouse » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:51 PM UTC

katm wrote: post #2

Kat from YC here. Sam, Matt Krisiloff and I are happy to answer any questions about the Fellowship. You can also send questions to fellowship@ycombinator.com.

Is there a bias against solo founders? I've yet to find any coworkers or friends that want to work on a project together (not enough technical skills or too busy working overtime at their jobs).

Re: YC Fellowship

#117

Post by tuberry » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

YC is so great at pushing VC in the right direction. Thanks for doing this.

Re: YC Fellowship

#118

Post by logn » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

s73v3r wrote: post #23

Any mention of health insurance, or other things like that? One of the biggest reasons people do go to work for large companies instead of starting their own business is things like that. Without them, you're really only targeting the young kids right out of school, most of whom (but not all) don't really need that much in healthcare.

Older people are more likely to have a spouse with insurance or to already be freelancing/contracting and used to providing their own insurance. Even in the days before Obamacare, I think there was a short time you were allowed to be uninsured without being excluded by insurance companies. COBRA also helps fill the gaps (in addition to Obamacare itself).

Re: YC Fellowship

#119

Post by adamzerner » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

Is there a catch? What does YC gain from this? A larger pool of applicants to chose from for YC? Or is this philanthropic?

Re: YC Fellowship

#120

Post by katm » Mon, Jul 20, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

xenophon wrote: post #69

mattkrisiloff wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! Matt here -- I'll be managing YC Fellowship. I'll be answering questions here throughout the day alongside Kat and Sam.

Thanks for making yourself available, Matt. Sounds like an incredible opportunity. What kind of progress do you expect founders to make by the end of the Fellowship? Put another way, if the goal of participation in Y Combinator is for companies to build enough traction to become top-tier candidates for an institutional fundraise, what is the outcome that participants in the Fellowship should hope to achieve?

We'd like teams to make as much progress as possible during the 8-weeks of the fellowship. If you have a prototype, that would mean launching and getting your first customers. If you're at idea stage that would mean building a prototype and talking to users. At the end of the 8-weeks we hope the teams will be ready to apply for YC W16 (it's not a requirement -- but we'll encourage it).