
Why to Apply to YCombinator - palish
Recently, a few have asked, "Why apply?  X problem would keep me from getting accepted."  If you don't mind, I'd like to explain one possible answer by telling you about my experience of applying to YCombinator.<p>I first wanted to apply to YCombinator's Summer 2007 cycle with the intention of making teachers' jobs a little easier.  I was going to make an exceptional homework creation tool, one that would be intuitive to use.  But wait, I could code it, but I didn't have any cofounders.  Without a cofounder, I had no hope of getting in.<p>So I looked around for one.  Everyone at work had families, so they were out.  But I had a wonderful, supportive girlfriend.  Why not her?  What a strange idea, to start a company with your girlfriend!  But I talked with her about it, and we started working together.  Then something pretty amazing happened.  It never mattered that she had zero technical knowledge.  She knew what worked and what didn't, what made sense and what didn't.  So we created something and ran it by my father.  He said, "This is a little hard for non-technical people to use.  I'll work with you on it."  Now all of a sudden, I had two cofounders.<p>In the meantime, I received an invitation to Startup School.  Not only that, but I was invited to the dinner at YCombinator beforehand.  Wow!  That was a wonderful feeling to be invited to something like that.  I was all smiles the rest of the week.  I was going to California!<p>.. And it was approaching fast.  I asked off work for that Friday and Monday, then everyone pulled a few crazy all-nighters to get the demo done and our YC application in top shape.  I'll always remember everyone doing a ten-second countdown right before we hit the 'Submit' button.  That was hands-down the most fun I've had in one night.<p>Since we worked so well together, and since we had a deadline to meet, we'd ended up with an excellent demo.  And had a lot of fun all around.<p>So I was off to California.  Weebly happened to fit in nicely with what we were doing (teachers could use Weebly to build their sites), so I met with Chris, Dan, and David.  They're really fun to talk with!  They had framed a little circuit and hung it on the wall that displayed a count of how many users they had.  The geekiness of that had me chuckling.  And the view from the YScraper was absolutely spectacular.<p>Up next was the YCombinator dinner.  It was amazing to see Dexter in person.  I couldn't get over that I was staring at an actual life-sized robot that was balancing on its own.  I noticed a claw on another robot, so I asked Trevor to squeeze my hand with it.  Yeowch!  But now I'm a part of a small group that can say they've been attacked by a robot.<p>I met the Zenter guys, Wayne and Robby.  I showed our demo and they thought it was excellent, which is really awesome to hear from rockstar coders like them.  Then I saw Zenter and was put to shame :)  It was great to see all the amazing stuff they did.  After talking for a little bit, I was amazed to learn that Wayne had a kid on the way.  Wowza, that's pretty brave to still do YCombinator!  But we all know how Zenter worked out.<p>The night wore on, and at one point Paul seemed to look at me and do a high-five gesture, so I high-fived back.  Then I looked behind me.  Whoops, he was going to high-five someone else.  Everyone laughed.  He asked me what I did, and I replied without thinking, "I'm making teachers' lives a little easier.  I'm making a homework creation tool that even teachers will know how to use."  "Don't use that as your tagline, or you'll alienate all your customers," he said and grinned.  D'oh, I didn't mean it like that, but everyone laughed again.  Looking back on it, that whole encounter was pretty amusing.<p>Up next was Startup School, which was a blast.  Afterwards, I had some time to kill before catching my jet home, so I hitched Caltrain into San Francisco and waited in line to catch a taxi.  I talked with the guy in front of me for awhile.  He was from the midwest and came to San Francisco on a business trip.  He was interesting to get to know, but then a taxi pulled up.  To my surprise, he offered me his place.  "Thanks!" I said, and hopped in.  "Do you know any great places to get Sushi?" I asked the taxi driver.  He nodded, and we were off.  "Hey," he said, "That guy gave you his seat.  Why'd he do that?"  "I dunno, I guess you just need to be nice to people and they'll do stuff like that."  "You Christian?" he asked.  "No sir, just on vacation."  <p>The sushi was amazing, but the oysters were pretty terrible.  I caught a taxi back to Caltrain, and the taxi driver was as bad as I was with directions.  She and I got lost about three times, and we laughed about it.  She was probably taking me for a few extra bucks, but I prefer to think she was just new on the job.  Anyway, she was nice enough that I didn't care.<p>I flew back home, and everyone anxiously awaited YCombinator's response.  All of a sudden, it showed up.  No dice.  Oh well.<p>It must've been quite an amusing application.  Some nineteen year old and his eighteen year old girlfriend with his fifty year old father.  And I let the rejection get to me for a day or two, but then I felt stupid.  If I didn't apply, I would've missed out on one of the best experiences of my life.  I wouldn't have applied to Startup School, or talked with the Weeblies or the Zenters, or made a fool of myself in front of Paul, or been clawed by a giant robot, or stayed up late with everyone working on a Really Cool Idea, or done a loud ten-second countdown before hitting the Submit button, or eaten San Francisco Sushi, or astounded a taxi driver when some random stranger gave me his seat, or felt really good about working as hard as I could on something to show someone else, or a hundred other little things.  And all those, I think, are reasons to apply to YCombinator.  So go ahead, don't apply... But you might be missing out on a whole lotta fun.<p>But if you don't care about the fun, there are plenty of other reasons.  Since you have a deadline,  you'll get more done than you ever thought possible.  You'll find cofounders where you thought you didn't have any.  And you just might get accepted, even if you think your chances are nil.  So hurry up, you still have time.
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carter
Hey, dude! You right. Never surrender. I'm 21 from Novosibirsk, Russia. When I
decided to start the startup it was REALLY hard to find co-founders. I thought
that my friends will join me. But they was too scared about the need to drop
out the college and do something cool and undiscovered. Other often very smart
people in Russia already had thier reliable jobs....And one day suddenly I
found not one but two co-founders! One of them found me from my ad at some RoR
website. The second co-founder was found by me from his blog. The are really
cool guys and I'm enjoying working with them. One of them from Denver and the
other from Dublin, Ireland. So, we are distributed across the globe)

You right, I couldn't ever imagine where I'll find co-founders.

More. I met a lot of cool smart people in Silicon Valley and in the US. I even
found one Russian guy who moved to US 9 years ago.

This SOOOO exciting! And the things become more and more interesting.

I hope we meet one day and eat that sushi)

Good luck :)

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Shalendra
PG is an amazingly genuine guy and I think it is good to apply for those
interested regardless of the result. Remember, the story of Reddit guys. Never
loose an opportunity to learn from others and in this case, even by applying
you will learn a lot from YC folks.

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AaronS
You join YC so you will be able to tell stories about how pg supplied you with
cup-o-noodles for several months in exchange for 6% of your company.

It's like the story in the Bible where Esau sells his birthright for a bowl of
lentils. Genesis 25: 30-34

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inklesspen
It's not the money. It's the contacts.

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ryanspahn
Yes - indeed! It is not the money, but the contacts and the experience of
working with passionate, like minded individuals in which you learn from!

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vegashacker
It's funny, I totally remember that air-high five and the teacher comment
thing. I happened to be standing right there (probably hovering, trying to get
my 30 seconds with you know who ;).

Anyway, thanks for the read. You trying again this time? Good luck.

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palish
Thanks. Yeah, we'll try again each time until we're accepted, or until we take
the plunge anyway. If you don't mind if I ask, what business are you building?
It's always fun to learn what everyone else is working on.

When we realized that making something for public schools was a _really_ bad
position for a tiny startup to be in (if you've ever wondered why the
technology tools that teachers use are so bad, it's because a public school's
buying process is broken), we wondered what to do about it. All Emily and I
knew is that we have a huge, overpowering desire to start a company. So I
looked at my strengths to find something that I could be really passionate
about. I've made random little video games for a long time, and I've held a
job in the gamedev industry for the last two years, so I realized, "Hey, you
don't have to work on a webapp. Just do what you really love."

Emily and I talked for awhile, and we realized that a lot of people want to
create their own game, but don't want to deal with the complicated details. I
don't blame them. Game art is complicated to create. And not only are most
games created in C++, which is a horrible language for a beginner to use, but
the complexities of the graphics libraries make it almost impossible to just
create a cool little thing to show off to your friends quickly. Plus, cross-
platform is really messy to accomplish.

So we're building something to make 2D game creation suck less. Making
multiplayer Mario has always been a little dream of mine. And imagine a day
when you can just read through some simple instructions and make something
right away, then have your creation show up where your friends can play it. Or
you're playing through someone else's game and spot a cool-looking character,
so you press a button and you can use that character in your games, too.

But, one step at a time.

It's not concerning that it's a huge project. And Emily doesn't mind that she
has no idea how to contribute. We're just working on it part of each day and
saving up our money, and trusting that one day, with a lot of hard work,
things will fall into place. And heck, our idea is for video games, something
that YC has already said everyone and their brother tries to apply with. But
we applied, even if our chances are nil, and had a lot of fun hammering out
our application and doing our traditional loud ten-second countdown before
submitting.

So however crazy your idea seems, let's apply anyway! If we all do, then at
least one of us will get in, which is really cool.

What's everyone working on?

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nostrademons
Interesting. You're probably a competitor of us. We're working on basically
the same thing. ;-)

~~~
palish
Cool! I thought so, from Diffle. Toss me an email at palish@gmail.com if you
want to compare notes.

P.S. Anyone interested in game development should come hang out with the
Gamedev crew at irc.afternet.org, channel #gamedev. They're really smart and
they'll help you with any problems you're running into.

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garbowza
My goodness, you have an inspiring attitude. Thanks for the great post!

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socmoth
this was so much fun to read.

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initself
ya, fun for me too.

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nextmoveone
Awesome post! I really feel good about submitting my application now.

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abstractbill
Nice post.

I'll always remember watching Monty (the less-famous robot) grab a beer bottle
from someone's hand at the pre-startup-school reception. That really was like
being in the future.

~~~
BrandonM
...or being on _Futurama_

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davy
Thanks for sharing your inspiring and uplifting story. It makes me hope to be
lucky enough to be chosen for the interview stage. =)

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mynameishere
A homework generator seems like a nichey thing that you could do on your own,
without investors.

~~~
rms
This criticism doesn't apply to palish more than many other things YC has
funded. I assume a homework generator was just the starting point of making
things easier for teachers.

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mynameishere
I'm not criticizing anything. Not needing funding is a good thing.

~~~
rms
Few people _need_ YC's money but it takes a lot of confidence to think that
their support won't help.

~~~
mynameishere
Few people need YC's _anything_.

Quit arguing with me. Jesus Christ. I was trying to be encouraging, as in "You
can sell your product without pg and company."

~~~
palish
It was encouraging. I appreciate it.. Thank you!

And yeah, we're saving up money. One day, we'll go full time regardless of
what our situation is. But we'd love to work alongside a group of really
talented people. Plus applying to YC is _fun_ , regardless of the chances of
getting in.

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Mistone
excellent post - it takes a lot of guts to jump into an experience like this
full force: create a demo, complete the app, fly off to CA - maybe it didn't
click that time but your on your way bro!

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jyot_singh
Just resubmitted the application, again, after reading your awesome post.
Thanks for sharing your experience.

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brianmckenzie
I found this post quite inspiring as I put the finishing touches on my
application. Thanks, dude.

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wlievens
Great story. I hope you continue to develop this idea, even without YC.

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emilykolar
Way to be. :D

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Neoryder
Thanks for this excellent post.

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yrashk
I've prepared my application ;)

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jdavid
thank you.

