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YC Fellowship

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC Fellowship

#151

Post by SoftwarePatent »

throwaway69283 wrote: post #106

(Posting from a throwaway account) > for some people, [YCF] may be the difference between going to work at a big company and starting the next Airbnb This is me. I applied to the YC summer batch and was rejected (I applied late, as a single founder, with only an idea). I've tried to push ahead anyway with my idea/startup and built a small prototype, but in the end decided to find a job. I have just now gotten a job o…

Do you really want to be a googler or an entrepreneur? Visualize yourself one year from now, have you made progress towards what you really want to be?

Re: YC Fellowship

#152

Post by ghufran_syed »

billconan wrote: post #88

this is great, but the real obstacle for me is the green card. I'm on h1b, can't do anything. :(

You can still do the fellowship: the h1b rules say you're not allowed to take other paid employment, but the fellowship will not be employment. Think of it as working for free on your project + winning a (very small) lottery :)

Re: YC Fellowship

#153

Post by mattkrisiloff »

songgao wrote: post #149
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.

Hey Kat, thanks for being available for questions! I'm currently on F-1 (student) visa, and I'll be graduating soon. And I think this may represent some other people's situation as well. In order to maintain the visa status after graduation while working, I'll need an OPT (Optional Practical Training). OPT is supported by the school AND a company that hires the person full-time, and is commonly used before the employ…

Unfortunately we don't have the bandwidth to get involved with visas before or during the program :( If you can't do it from the Bay Area though, you can still apply to do it remotely--we want to try working with remote teams!

Re: YC Fellowship

#154

Post by adamwintle »

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…

I find this an interesting point to bring up. My family were also on income support when I was younger, and I also applied for the Youth Opportunity Funding grant in the UK and was awarded £1,250.

Similar to drsim I intended to start my own media business using the money, so I purchased a cheap PC, a camera, business cards, etc

In order to apply for the money I had to go through what was quite a lengthy process, which overall took three months to complete. I had to choose every item in advance with photocopies of the catalogue; this was to prevent people cheating the funding and spending it on other things. This also made it difficult to include consumables such as an internet subscription and transportation costs.

Does YC plan to background check and make sure the $12,000 would actually be spent on what it's intended for?

Also, does YC still consider applicants based in Asia, or is it US-based for the time being?

Re: YC Fellowship

#155

Post by zkhalique »

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.

Also if you look at the TOP tech companies of the last 20 years, they were all started with a dominant founder:

  Apple - Steve Jobs
  Amazon - Jeff Bezos
  Microsoft - Bill Gates
  (Google - Larry Page)
So if you're looking for a runaway unicorn hit like that, perhaps having a very dominant founder and a founder with like 20% ain't half bad.

Re: YC Fellowship

#156

Post by arihant »

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?

I took a year off college to build a startup. I went back after the year cause we got acquired. But regardless, I learnt more about building products and leading a good life in that year than rest of my 24 breathing years.

If your school policies are as flexible as mine (I was at CMU, which is awesome when it comes to leaves), definitely consider taking a semester off.

5 years down the line, it won't matter that much. So it's not the big battle you should be fighting.

Re: YC Fellowship

#157

Post by nostrademons »

Could you clarify what sort of access to YC office hours fellows get? Will they be able to sign up for office hours with any of the partners, or will all contact have to go through a single dedicated partner (and if so, which partner is handling this)? The blog post implies that there's "a dedicated partner", but the FAQ implies they get normal access to "YC partners" and office hours.

Re: YC Fellowship

#159

Post by jerviezo »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #35
pilingual wrote: post #22

This is exactly why Y Combinator is the best. This is what leadership is (and what those other accelerators do, is follow the lead). > but as always we’ll consider solo founders too. Please be extremely open minded about solo founders. I feel that is one consideration that hasn't been adapted with the changing tech landscape.

> Please be extremely open minded about solo founders. I feel that is one consideration that hasn't been adapted with the changing tech landscape. This is something I always worry about too. I have several really amazing people that I could partner with on a few different things but due to financial obligations there isn't anyway they'd be able to join full time unless there was an investment. So pitching as a solo a…

The bias against solo founders seems to be being mentioned a lot. There's actually a solution to this in Europe - Entrepreneur First (joinef.com), a seed investment programme which you can apply for before you have a team (and even a concrete idea). Most people who come to us as individuals meet their cofounder on the programme and go on to raise some of the largest seed rounds in Europe.

Full disclosure: I work for EF - but if you're experiencing the sole technical founder problem you should check us out.

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