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Applying to YC

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Applying to YC

#111

Post by skj »

rmena123 wrote: post #96
ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"people like you talk like YC is the win all" Hey, you're the one that didn't want to apply because you didn't think you'd fit in due to your preconceived notions about who gets accepted.

Like I said above... Look up the majority of founders and they all fall into a category type. Not saying it's a bad thing, but it's a type. Yea I did say that, but you are talking about success and failure like that has anything to do with applying or not. If you think I wont have success because I don't apply I feel bad for that thinking.

He's not saying that not applying causes not succeeding, but that the reasons you give for not applying cause not succeeding. That is, correlation, not causation.

Re: Applying to YC

#112

Post by raldi »

idlewords wrote: post #106
yousifa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey Brian, just messaged you in linkedin, want to ask some questions if you have some time -Yousif

You better call him and let him know you posted this comment.

Or just write to the email address in his profile.

Re: Applying to YC

#113

Post by impendia »

enraged_camel wrote: post #66
impendia wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about the regular type that doesn't have much to show, but wants to do great things? People who want to do great things, and who have the right combination of talent and drive to actually do them, have usually done great things already. Perhaps not in the same sphere, and perhaps not as great as they aim in the future, but still great. If you don't have much to show, why should you expect to be regarded favora…

>> Evaluating people based on what they have demonstrated is by far the fairest method, and I can't really imagine what you would propose to replace it with. Sounds like a great way to discriminate against those who are brilliant but have not been given the opportunity (through a certain type of upbringing, e.g. race, gender, income, nationality, etc.) to demonstrate it. I don't have a solution, but I do think that b…

> the opportunity

Everyone has opportunities, just of different natures.

If, for example, someone had gotten a 3.5 GPA at a state university while working 40 hours a week and caring for an aging parent, I would judge that they had done something extraordinarily impressive. Whereas just the bare 3.5 GPA wouldn't impress me all that much.

Re: Applying to YC

#114

Post by spigoon »

chacham15 wrote: post #107
paul wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have some very successful single-founder companies, such as Instacart. We suggest finding a cofounder not for our benefit, but for your own. Startups are hard, and doing it alone makes it even harder.

pg has said multiple times that a major downfall of a lot of companies is that the two founders have a dispute. What is the major downfall of companies with single founders?

Stamina.

Re: Applying to YC

#115

Post by CodeDiver »

randall wrote: post #103
genbit wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I know that it's much better if you have cofounder (there are so many tasks to do), but I believe it should be the right person, and wrong person can make much more damage then help. As a solo founder, how did you improve your productivity on early stage: what kind of tasks you usually delegated to someone else (like freelancer) if you did.

I had a cofounder who split about 3 months before, but he wasn't full-time and hadn't contributed any code in the months leading up to it. I had hired a sales guy right before yc, which helped somewhat. During yc, I basically bounced between growth tasks which was really difficult. I'm still figuring it out tbh. We now have a larger team which helps a lot... But I still often miss the camaraderie of having someone wh…

So glad you're open to solo-founder questions, thank a bunch. In your experience, do you think that you might just have unreasonably high standards for partners compared to people who have successfully matched with cofounders?

Would love to share the climb with a co-founder. Outreach efforts have put me in touch with smart, creative, educated people in the Bay Area. But to my surprise, I just haven't met a truly gritty, determined person yet. Started projects with the people I found anyways. It always feels like playing tea party with stuffed animals. Not a good experience for them, or me.

These lovely people live pleasant, balanced, healthy, entertaining, lives. Bless them. Nothing wrong with that! But they don't have crazy drive. Don't wanna run circles around a partner in any project. Want a cofounder to be my equal or superior in energy and persistence, that we can chase each other's effort, enhance each other's growth/success, and the project's growth/success.

I don't want a pampered, entertaining life. I want to struggle, grow, learn, achieve. Not sure how to find partners to share those values with. Should I make sure that partners share those values, or are these criteria unreasonable/misguided?

Flying solo for now. Later, maybe self-made success on a larger scale/stage may draw special people to me, so I don't have to actively search. A co-founder isn't a necessity for me, just a highly desired and recommended luxury, if I can reasonably get one. When a commenter above said, in paraphrase, "Going solo isn't impossible, you just need to be four times better", I just think "Fine, I'll work to get there."

Am I doing it wrong? Right? Sound familiar or was your co-founder-less situation different?

Re: Applying to YC

#116

Post by yeukhon »

wellboy wrote: post #63
atom-morgan wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of meeting your requirements, Ryan Hoover is a perfect example. I don't believe he'd sold a startup before, he isn't an ex-Facebook or Google employee, and he didn't go to Stanford. I'd randomly found him on Twitter roughly a year ago and suddenly I read a TechCrunch article about how a product he'd made is in YC. He came out of nowhere, so to speak.

He is hitting hard the second criterion with hundreds of thousands of visitors. It is either track record, or traction. Traction trumps everything :)

Which to me, is the most fairest way to sell your idea to YC. If you have an idea people actually want and you have some work done, sell it. But the other two are certainly true. You are from Stanford, you probably can leverage some connections outside of YC.
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