This is exciting, and appears to be just for me.
One of the hardest things to do is get enough past the idea stage to get to a prototype to attract an investor. A little cash can make that happen a whole lot faster.
YC Fellowship
81–90 of 399 posts
Re: YC Fellowship
#82This 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.
Re: YC Fellowship
#83Kat 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 answering our questions.
I was wondering what is the expected next 'round' of investment after successfully finishing the program.
Could one join the usual YC program or should he raise a larger amount of money after the program?
Re: YC Fellowship
#84I have to say that I love this idea. It addresses the biggest deficiency in the typical Silicon Valley VC funding model, in that it requires moving to Silicon Valley. It also bridges the gap in low-level seed funding which stops many ideas from becoming reality. Perhaps you could call this "catalyst-stage funding" since it will probably reduce the activation energy for getting many ideas started (to use a physics ana…
1) Around 20 -- we want to keep this test batch small. If successful, we'd grow future batches.
2) I think it would depend on your company and what you're trying to do. I can think of advantages to either way, and if accepted it's something we can talk about.
3) If you're just starting to get customers (or struggling with it), still apply. It will be a judgement call on whether you're too far along and should just apply to YC W16, but relocating or not won't make a difference in that assessment.
Re: YC Fellowship
#85Kat 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 answering our questions. I was wondering what is the expected next 'round' of investment after successfully finishing the program. Could one join the usual YC program or should he raise a larger amount of money after the program?
We'll encourage YC Fellows to apply for Y Combinator -- but they won't be required to.
Re: YC Fellowship
#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€ for being a woman, and others named CIR if you employ PhDs). For all of that, you don't even need to have a good project, as opposed to applying to YC.
What I mean is, YC isn't targetting France, or is it?
Re: YC Fellowship
#87Kat 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! I am 32 years old, have a young family, and a steady software engineering job at a large software company. I have always loved the idea of a traditional YC experience but have never applied because I feel like I am not at a stage in my life where I'd be a good fit. Is it fair to say that this Fellowship experiment is an attempt to examine the "may have a good idea but is not very mobile" demographic?
Yes! That's part of the reason we want to work with remote teams -- to get to work with people who can't make the move to the Bay Area.
That said, if you wanted to apply to the normal YC W16 batch after YCF, you'd still be asked to make the move.
Re: YC Fellowship
#88this is great, but the real obstacle for me is the green card. I'm on h1b, can't do anything. :(
Re: YC Fellowship
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you may be far enough along to apply for Y Combinator (those applications open in late August). But I don't have quite enough information -- so if you're in doubt, you should go ahead and apply for the Fellowship. If you're working on hardware you'll have to illustrate how you plan to make progress with the limited amount of funding the fellowship provides.
Thanks. The last question is: does YC have restrictions about the types of companies that can apply? Our company makes open source sex toys, and we've got an ever-growing list of places that just won't work with businesses related to adult products (stripe, square, mailchimp, kickstarter, ...). Fingers crossed that YC doesn't care.
We are open to any category of company.
Re: YC Fellowship
#90> $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…
> Most of my friends negociate giving cash to their employers to get fired, so they could get ACCRE.
Perhaps something got lost in translation, but that sounds unethical at best, and highly illegal at worst.