Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YC Fellowship

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 399 posts

Re: YC Fellowship

#131

Post by adventured »

drsim wrote: post #110

I started my first business (web design) at 15 with a £1,000 grant from The Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust. It was a very significant amount for me. Without it I wouldn't have been able to start. My family were on income support so the money went straight on a PC, internet, phone line, business cards and public transport to reach my clients to pitch them. Thankfully I still lived with my parents: no rent unti…

The effort involved in means testing, including verification, would be extremely taxing for an organization the size of YC and doubly so in relation to the size of the money involved. I have to suspect they never seriously considered it because it'd be so impractical, and there would be inevitable abuse (each layer of complexity makes such things worse, for YC simplicity has always been integral).

Re: YC Fellowship

#133

Post by barrkel »

drsim wrote: post #110

I started my first business (web design) at 15 with a £1,000 grant from The Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust. It was a very significant amount for me. Without it I wouldn't have been able to start. My family were on income support so the money went straight on a PC, internet, phone line, business cards and public transport to reach my clients to pitch them. Thankfully I still lived with my parents: no rent unti…

Means testing adds a lot of bureaucratic overhead, especially if it's international, and it could dissuade some marginal people from engaging if they have to produce a bunch of documentation.

Re: YC Fellowship

#134

Post by katm »

foob wrote: post #123
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.

Hi Kat, we're very excited to hear about this and we look forward to applying. The FAQ for the normal YC program says that it's fine for the cofounders to submit separate applications focusing on different ideas. Does that apply for the fellowship as well?

We'd like you to submit just one idea for this. Choose the one you think is most promising.

Re: YC Fellowship

#135

Post by katm »

stormbuilder wrote: post #114
katm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes! Though we'd hope that you'd make significant enough progress during the 8-weeks that you'd want to continue working full time on your startup.

Re: YC Fellowship

#136

Post by falsestprophet »

mattkrisiloff wrote: post #126
omouse wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

No bias, but it generally is harder to build a successful company as a solo founder (though totally possible! Dropbox, Zenefits, Instacart all started with solo founders). If you're applying alone, tell us how you plan to overcome the solo hurdles of being alone / managing everything to do, and if you plan to bring someone in soon, let us know.

http://fellowship.ycombinator.com/faq/

"Can a single person apply for funding?

Yes, but the odds of being accepted are lower. A startup is too much work for one person."

I'm pretty sure you don't mean it is "too much work" for success to be a possible outcome, but that's what your copy says at the moment.

Re: YC Fellowship

#137

Post by hbhakhra »

What about a situation where one cofounder is willing to go full-time with this YC Fellowship but the other would only work part time? How does that work out?

Re: YC Fellowship

#138

Post by mattkrisiloff »

MichaelGG wrote: post #99
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.

Does YC ever consider ideas that aren't designed to be billion-dollar companies? For instance, if someone was working on a next-gen diagnostics tool for VoIP, they might realistically be able to get to $10-20M, maybe 10x if things go really well. But it's hard to see that becoming a billion+ company under any circumstances. What advice do you have for such ideas?

YC funds startups. Startups to us are companies designed to grow fast. Read this if you haven't: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

It's OK to be working on something that's hard to imagine how it would grow to be a really big thing, that's how most ideas start out. (Apple made hobbyist computers, Google was another search engine of 1000 -- how big of a deal could they have thought these would become?). It's important to be open-minded to the pathways of how your idea could become something big as it keeps growing though, and it's good to stop and think about those ideas every once in awhile.

Re: YC Fellowship

#140

Post by personjerry »

michaelochurch wrote: post #61
jordigg wrote: post #48

Don't underestimate that 12k + YC network and help. Most unicorns that came from the YC program started with 20k not long ago. Too much money can kill a small and inexperienced team, be lean, scrappy and bootstrap to prove then raise to grow.

If I hear that word "scrappy" one more time, I won't have any veins left in my neck to pop.

What's wrong with the word "scrappy"?
Post reply on HN