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YC Fellowship

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC Fellowship

#201

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

_delirium wrote: post #184
wiseleo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of less expensive real estate along BART. Take a look at San Leandro, for example. Other costs can be reduced as well. I consider living in SF as an unnecessary luxury.

Plus the pitch doesn't even encourage people to move to SF; it encourages them to move to Silicon Valley, which is also where YC is based. It's not super-cheap either, but there is plenty of Valley housing <$3k.

> It's not super-cheap either, but there is plenty of Valley housing You're right. You can find studio and one bedroom apartments sub-$3K in places like Redwood City. The problem for starving founders is that landlords aren't going to lease to you when you can't show a sufficient, reliable income source (read: a real job) and sufficient credit score/history.

Re: YC Fellowship

#202

Post by ianstallings »

acabrahams wrote: post #82
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.

This quote caught my eye from the FAQ section of the fellowship page: 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. A statement such as "A startup is too much work for one person" seems unusually stark and absolute for a company as progressive as YC. There are always exceptions, as mattkrisiloff as noted below.

But they use empirical evidence to back up that statement. YC is in the trenches everyday and see how much work it is. It's an observation from past experiences.

Re: YC Fellowship

#203

Post by jxm262 »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #186
aacook wrote: post #177

If you're like me and prefer to draft writing elsewhere, here's a Google Doc you can copy with the questions and word limits: https://goo.gl/K5M3LM Update: Document is fully public now.

Can you open up access to everyone versus everyone asking for permission?

^ "The app is currently unreachable." I'd like access too!

Re: YC Fellowship

#204

Post by throwaway41597 »

S4M wrote: post #145
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.

It's not specified nowhere what you are getting for your $12K and mentoring. Could you expand on that? Are you taking equities?

It's equity-free for this batch http://fellowship.ycombinator.com/faq/

Re: YC Fellowship

#205

Post by aacook »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #186
aacook wrote: post #177

If you're like me and prefer to draft writing elsewhere, here's a Google Doc you can copy with the questions and word limits: https://goo.gl/K5M3LM Update: Document is fully public now.

Can you open up access to everyone versus everyone asking for permission?

Oh, thanks for the heads up. The link should be public now.

Re: YC Fellowship

#206

Post by s73v3r »

x5n1 wrote: post #181
s73v3r wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have the dreaded "Pre-Existing Condition!", somehow I doubt that would work.

then maybe you should find a jerb. entrepreneurship is risky.

That's an extremely terrible answer that really only serves to diminish the diversity of startup culture.

Re: YC Fellowship

#208

Post by michaelchisari »

adventured wrote: post #131
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).

Especially considering $12k x20 is $240k, which is only two normal YC recipients.

If only one of these 20 grant recipients go on to build a solid company, then this project has been a success, I'd say.

Re: YC Fellowship

#209

Post by chaostheory »

tajen wrote: post #86

> $12000 France gives you a lumpsum of your unemployment benefits if you start a business. If you were paid an average engineer salary, 2200€ net pm, it makes 42000€, and it's called ACCRE. The condition is to be fired, and not on our heavy fault. Most of my friends negotiate giving cash to their employers to get fired, so they could get ACCRE. There are other grants (e.g. 6000€ for being a woman) and loans (28000€ f…

Money isn't the main motivation to get into YC. The YC network (of businesses, people, and investors) and the credibility it gives you are far more valuable than even their ~$120k seed.

Re: YC Fellowship

#210

Post by grey-area »

zkhalique wrote: post #200
SeoxyS wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is entirely misguided. People have selective memory: all but one of these companies had multiple founders. Hell, most companies we associate today with a single person had more than one founder. It's just that one held the most publicly visible role: Apple: Steve Jobs | + Steve Wozniak + Ronald Wayne Microsoft: Bill Gates | + Paul Allen Google: Larry Page | + Sergey Brin Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg | + Dus…

Having a dominant founder is different than being an only founder. But what's common to all these companies is that one founder was really dominant and had the vision. In fact, out of the top companies, it's safe to say that very large proportion have a dominant founder, who wound up having much more equity than the other founder. I don't understand why there are so many downvotes on something that is, indeed, a veri…

dominant founder is highly subjective and simply wrong in some of those cases, as pointed out above. Even if you want to argue there was a 'dominant' founder (whatever that means), your examples don't make sense:

Apple would not exist without Steve Wozniak

Google started as a partnership

Allen sold qdos to IBM which established Microsoft

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