I have two questions:
1. Do the US applicants have significant advantage over the foreign applicants?
2. Does YC help to get visa?
Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
111–120 of 126 posts
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#112If we have a project that we think has potential to be turned into a sustainable business, but simply haven't had enough time to be able to even identify a good co-founder candidate... should we just wait and apply next cycle once we've found someone that's a good fit?
I can imagine that bringing on a co-founder type later on in development might be the sort of thing that always turns out badly, but I don't really know. It seems shortsighted to let important things like product development and identifying customers take a backseat in favor of finding a co-founder when you're not even sure precisely what you're building yet.
I also find this question challenging since I applied for a previous YC with a solid co-founder who has since moved on to stable work since we got little interest from competent angel investors, so it seems like a step backward to even consider applying without a co-founder this time.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#113Shameless plug: I want to do this 100%. I have exhausted every single person I know who codes for the passed 4 years. It pretty much comes down to "They don't want to do the work and are completely happy in their current job". If anyone is interested, I would love to be your co-founder. I have built several websites. I am experienced in both C# and Java. Ive built several Android Apps. I know DBs like the back of my…
What is your amazing idea? http://www.humbledmba.com/startups-in-stealth-mode-need-one-...
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#114We are already a registered Ltd company in the UK, is this going to cause problems? I understand you must incorporate in the USA.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#115From this thread, it almost seems that a founder dating section of HN would be pretty beneficial to a lot of people. Granted, there are already too many find-a-cofounder sites out there, but the caliber of people and ability to see the past posting history of a potential cofounder on HN seems to be potentially valuable.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#116The link to "Directed Edge's successful application video" at http://ycombinator.com/video.html points to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=855057, which in turn leads to a 404. The video can, however, be found at http://scotchi.posterous.com/directed-edge.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
$20K is a LOT of money. You can form an LLC for a hundred bucks, lease a server for another hundred, and do your own graphic design at the outset (or hire a student for a couple of hundred). To hire a sales guy, just use the money from all the sales that are taking up so much of your time you need to hire someone else to handle them. That comes a little bit later...
I wouldn't suggest creating an LLC. I think it's a standard practice to incorporate all Y-Comb companies.
* LLCs are corporations.
* My understanding is all YC companies are C-corps.
* That's because LLC's and S-Corps have limitations on shareholders and share classes.
* The C.W. is that any major external investor is going to rip up your corp structure no matter what you do.
* It's almost certainly not the case that YC would turn town a promising team because they were already an LLC. The principals just need to unanimously agree to convert.
* You should get some kind of limited liability structure ASAP when you start, because until you do, most/all of your company obligations attach themselves to your credit, your assets, your mortgage, &c.
* Of the limited liability structures available to you, LLCs are the fastest and cheapest. S-Corp and C-Corp only change taxation and equity structure.
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#118How do people start up with less than $20K? That's barely enough to cover basic icorporation + lawyer + equipment + website graphic design. If you need to hire somebody professional (like sales guys), what do you do?
$20K is a LOT of money. You can form an LLC for a hundred bucks, lease a server for another hundred, and do your own graphic design at the outset (or hire a student for a couple of hundred). To hire a sales guy, just use the money from all the sales that are taking up so much of your time you need to hire someone else to handle them. That comes a little bit later...
$20K is NOT a lot of money. Consider that hiring anybody will cost you at least $40K/year. Hiring a senior level programmer will cost you $130-180K/year (counting his salary, benefits, taxes, accounting, work place).
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#119I have two questions: 1. Do the US applicants have significant advantage over the foreign applicants? 2. Does YC help to get visa?
No and No
Re: Applications Open for Winter 2012 YC Funding
#120I started looking for a cofounder about a month ago. I am not sure if I will find one by October 31st but the search is on. How is this evaluated on the application? Also, there was a recent clarification by the USCIS that a H1-B visa holder can work for his/her own company. Is YC cognizant of this and can it help the visa holder jump through any hoops (legal or otherwise) to be a H1-B start-up founder?
They don't help you with visa stuff, you need to do it on your own. An H1B holder can work for his or her own company now, but you need lots of money (~400-500K) and need to pay a real salary (60K ish for a software engineer). The H1B is not a startup visa, perse, it's meant for established companies.