
Non-Obvious Tips for Your YC Application - tadmilbourn
http://www.tiempoapp.com/blog/3-non-obvious-tips-for-your-yc-application
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yurisagalov
You could possibly simplify this into two tips:

\- Be concise

\- Don't bury the lede

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tadmilbourn
Thanks Yuri. If there's one piece of advice to give, it's that.

What I'm attempting to get at in this piece is a bit more tactical. The
applications I reviewed all knew they should "be concise." But, they kept
running into situations where they became more verbose while believing they
were still concise.

My hope was to point out a few of the mental traps that would add clauses to
sentences and sentences to paragraphs.

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etr71115
This is terrific all-around advice.

The last tidbit I would add is that if you don't get in this round, apply
again. And then again. And again (don't use the same application / idea/
company each time). A single application is not going to 'make' your company.
Perseverance and applied intelligence will.

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ryen
>And again (don't use the same application / idea/ company each time)

Is it not a red flag that someone applies consistently applies with a new idea
and/or company each time? In my opinion that doesn't really show commitment to
something.

Showing improvement in traction over time might be a better way.

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tadmilbourn
I've reviewed a good number of applications this go around (last day to submit
is Friday!). So I put together a quick write up that's hopefully helpful to
the broader community.

Any other tips you'd suggest?

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quantombone
It would be great to see examples of successful applications, and why they
stood out. Seeing how the initial presentation of the idea is different than
the company today would help applicants be bolder. There's the Dropbox
application which is used as an example, but are there more examples?

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asadlionpk
This page has some links: [http://yourstory.com/2014/10/guide-list-y-
combinator/](http://yourstory.com/2014/10/guide-list-y-combinator/)

~~~
tadmilbourn
Wow...that's comprehensive. Great find!

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andyidsinga
stopped reading at 'be awesomer'

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lnanek2
You should have seen the YC hackathon, it was pretty clear they took the
youngest applicants. Speaking like that is appealing to high school and
college kids rather than using more formal language. He wasn't addressing
journalists and CEOs, he was addressing kids. I think "be awesomer" is a fun
way to phrase it for that target audience that is less likely to come across
as dry or put them to sleep compared to alternatives like don't bury the lede.

~~~
andyidsinga
yup -- you pretty much nailed it :)

I do like fun, goofy language but I hard a hard time with it in this context.
..probably because I went into reading the article with a certain attitude
that didn't match "awesomer".

oh well.. :)

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MichaelCrawford
The beer-drinking robot is an example of an "Elevator Pitch". You definitely
want an elevator pitch, also a tagline. The two while conceptually related are
different.

Elevator pitch comes from the notion that you've just stepped onto an elevator
along with some obviously wealthy person. Just to be polite she says "So what
do you do?"

You have until she steps off at her floor to obtain financing for your
company.

A tagline is typically used in written marketing materials - direct mail in my
case, back in the day. Working Software's marketing director Mark Galvin and I
were discussing taglines for QuickLetter 2.0. Mark is a brilliant marketing
professional, rather shy, quiet and thoughtful, leading to my surprise when he
emailed me:

"QuickLetter, only $49.95. C'mon - you'd spend more than that on dinner for
two and a bottle of wine."

I'm working on some of my own projects right now. My complete inability to
come up with appealing taglines and elevator pitches is definitely holding me
back.

For reasons of Search Engine Optimization, it is advisable to compose an
appealing tagline, then to place that tagline as the very first paragraph
after your page's H1 element, also as the meta description element in the
page's head element. Most of my own pages do that, with the result that I get
a lot more search engine referrals. I discuss this in your detail at:

[http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/search-engine-
optimiz...](http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/search-engine-
optimization/)

