

YC got a record number of applications this cycle - pg

One bit of good news about the economy: would-be startup founders don't seem to have been deterred by it, yet at least.  YC got more applications this time than ever, and by a large margin: 10%.  The number usually goes up, but rarely so sharply.<p>It wasn't due to the essay I just wrote about starting a startup in a bad economy.  We were already on track for a record before that.<p>We don't quote actual numbers, lest it tempt competitors into a competition on that account
(which could easily be won by encouraging instead of discouraging single founders and undergrads).  But we have a long week ahead of us.
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prakash
Wouldn't the next cycle be a better indicator? I am guessing it took a while
for folks to get co-founders, work on idea towards a prototype, etc. -- all of
which took longer than the past few weeks.

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pg
Probably. But you'd be surprised how many people decide to apply in the last
week, or even on the last day.

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amrithk
We spent a few weeks before the deadline editing and re-editing our
application. We only submitted it a day before it was due.

Perhaps there were many groups like us who had thought about applying a while
and spent time editing their application before sending in the last few days.

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pg
I didn't just mean that people submit the application on the last day. That is
certainly common. But from talking to founders I've learned that a lot only
decide to apply on the last day.

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morphle
When you already run a startup like we do, you do not have much time to
submit, you code, so the deadline sneaks up on you. I would say you can not
read much into the submission date.

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scott_s
I don't think you understand his point. He's not just looking at the
submission time of the application. He _talks_ to the applicants, and some of
them say they didn't decide to apply until the last day. This is different
from deciding to apply weeks before the deadline, but not doing it until the
last day.

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netcan
Could be that YC is being treated like Grad School. Something you do when it's
not a great time to get a job.

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jraines
I doubt it. I think by the time you're about 21, 3 months and ten or fifteen
grand no longer seems like a long time or a lot of money to play with.

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netcan
Are you saying that YC is not attractive to anyone over 21? Then the numbers
seem to be against you. I assume they get a good number of over 21 applicants.

Either way that does not have much to do with it being treated similar to Grad
School. There was a thread on here a few days ago on how people got to grad
school when jobs get hard to get. It is an alternative to going out & getting
a job that becomes more attractive as going out & looking for a job becomes
less attractive.

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jraines
No, not at all. I'm saying that no one over that would think of it as a "kill
time before I get a real job" solution.

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walterk
At this point, I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to require a demo along with
the application? As I recall, virtually all of the summer interviewees had
demos, which gave them a significant advantage over other applicants. If YC
only continues to get more competitive, I assume there will be no practical
downside to requiring a demo, as the few applicants without a demo that are
competitive with the top applicants with a demo are presumably not worth
wading through all of the other no-demo apps.

Or there might be some other way of capturing them.

(Disclosure: I'm a no-demo applicant.)

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ram1024
As an attempt to defend my no-demo application, i think requiring a demo is a
poor route to take. I just found out about YCombinator ten days before the
deadline. i can see merit to reducing the number of applicants to sift
through, but i think erecting such a significant barrier-to-entry isn't the
way to accomplish it.

~~~
walterk
Fwiw, I'm also a no-demo applicant. But odds are odds, and if last summer's
less competitive round tilted almost exclusively in favor of applicants with
demos, in virtue of the fact that they _had_ demos, then we're de facto
excluded from the process anyway.

~~~
ram1024
it's okay though. i have faith that really great ideas backed by great people
<cough> will persevere despite the tilted odds.

i'm sure you feel the same way, if we weren't dreamers we wouldn't be here.
may fortune smile upon the applicants who aren't selected, i hope you don't
ever give up.

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adityag
Will YC fund a reconrd number as well this year?:-)

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timr
Could the bump be due to the large number of recent graduates who (presumably)
can't get jobs right now?

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pg
Doesn't look like it. The age distribution is about what it always is.

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orib
What about people that got laid off due to the state of the economy?

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jlouis
I don't know. Are most of the people that gets laid off prime material for
startups? I don't _think_ so, but I might be wrong.

I think you should look at a more technical factor. Right now, it is looking
better for startups than ever. You have programmable mobile phones, clouds at
Amazon and Google, fast Javascript in browsers, computers so fast that
interpreted languages can compete and so on. Combine this with the webs
ability to reach a massive userbase in a short amount of time. In short: The
toolset for startups has never looked better than this. The idea-space on
which startup ideas thrives is just getting wider and wider.

Also note that most companies do not get it. The work they want people to do
is horribly boring. People have, via the buzz, realized that taking the chance
with a startup might be more interesting. Even if they don't succeed they have
tried. And here is the killer: they might have failed, but they have learned
more compared to a "common" job.

~~~
orib
I don't know if they're prime material, but that wouldn't stop the supply of
people who are willing to apply. It's just a hypothesis, anyways -- if there
are more people than jobs, the number of people looking for work will go up.
being a YCombinator startup is still some sort of job.

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vlad
You sound very, very excited. Congrats on reaching so many people, and I hope
the quality of the applications is as strong or better than ever.

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wastedbrains
It feels weird not applying to YC since I have applied for all the cycles in
the last 2 years. Good luck to everyone I know how nervous I would get waiting
after applying.

I guess the good news is that I am not applying because we are doing well with
out startup and moving forward with customers.

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amrithk
Congratulations on moving forward. Are you bootstrapping your operations?

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wastedbrains
We got some small funding, and have been working to raise a larger round.

We also are hoping we ca start making break even revenue pretty soon.

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mdolon
Best of luck to all the applicants and to you PG on reading them! =)

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jwilliams
Indeed -- having applied I've got to say there is benefit in even just
applying. So well done even if you got that far.

This is even aside from the individual questions on the application (which are
good questions to ask none-the-less). Going through the process lets you look
at your idea and your proposition in a bit more of a structured way. Our ideas
didn't change, but certainly our focus and outlook did.

~~~
redrobot5050
Also, one thing that's interesting about ycombinator's application, compared
to a competitor such as alphalab.org is how much their application focuses on
you, the founder, and your relationship to other founders.

The advice my friend Jeremy has given me, through his own start up venture, is
that you really have to be solid on the founders. It certainly let us 'narrow
our focus' in terms of who we'd want to be working with for our start up.

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preetam
Obviously- YC is a perfect place to learn (and practice) efficiency +
frugality, both key success factors for any company, start up or grown up.

Add to that the fact that this is an excellent time to be doing a start-
up(especially if you can offer a distinct cost advantage, and complement it w/
a business model that works at an empirical level).

So we ought to see some sensible wonders coming out of YC soon enough. Cheers,
and good luck to all YC applicants..!

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bayareaguy
I'd say for a young company like YC which seems to be getting plenty of
attention from blogs and the overall startup community, 10% doesn't sound very
impressive.

In comparison, YC news readership must have grown a lot more then 10% in the
last year.

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bigthboy
Good luck to all the entrants and may the force be with PG in looking through
them all! Perhaps my group will be lucky enough to be a finalist invited to
the meeting, despite not having an active demo that they have access to.

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fallentimes
That's awesome. I thought people would be more risk averse in this economy.

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swombat
Although risky in terms of the likelihood of failure of a business, I think at
this point in time funded start-ups are actually significantly less risky
careers than regular jobs.

It's good to know exactly where your money is coming from for the next X
months, and to know for sure that no one can arbitrarily fire you so long as
you do your job (your job being to ensure there's enough money to cover your
salary, whether by fund-raising or, better, making sales).

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fallentimes
I agree - and man I can't tell you how glad I am I left a finance job to do a
startup - even if we end up failing.

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swombat
Funny story, I almost took a job at Lehman. I had an offer, but I hesitated to
take it because I knew it would seriously decrease the chances that I could
launch my start-up successfully... I told this to my girlfriend, and she
pointed out that starting my own business was many people's life dream, and it
was within my reach, and might be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

On the other hand, the Lehman job would still be there in a year if my
business failed.

Well, she was wrong in one of those statements!

~~~
fallentimes
Sounds like a keeper :).

~~~
swombat
Oh yes :-)

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rodmaz
Best of luck to all applicants! I think the financial situation in the world
only helps separate the wheat from the chaff, i.e. those true entrepreneurs
wishing to work hard through the bad (now a bit longer) and good times to
build a real business from those with a "strike-it-rich-fast" attitude,
typical of economic bubbles. I also believe YC is expected to see an
improvement in the quality of the applications.

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run4yourlives
You are growing as a company, so one would think that with extra press and
more success stories, your applications will continue to go up regardless of
the economy, because your audience is larger.

It's more likely that you've reached the "tipping point" than any other macro
variable out there.

Regardless, your message is getting through to more and more people. Given
that I like your message, congrats!

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rashmiranjan
All the best to all the applicants ....

I wanted to apply but this model suit me ... as I am a single founder ... and
I am not a hacker...

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sfphotoarts
I would suspect that the number would continue to increase as the reader base
here, and the YC effect continues to propagate. However, what I'd be
interested in knowing is if the _type_ of start up ideas has changed due to
the economic climate; possibly fewer that are CPM based (and I don't mean the
one with PIP).

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smoody
I wonder if, during the next application cycle, you'll receive a bonus uptick
in applications due to people having been made redundant, as our friends
across the pond say. Being jobless can turn even the most mild mannered
programmer into a super entrepreneur.

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jwilliams
I guess the applications vary significantly by nature - but it would be
interesting to see if the economic climate had caused the general flavour of
the applications to change... or at the very least caused the founders to put
a different lens on their idea.

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ankeshk
Ah - I think its because of the success of companies like reddit and
posterous. As they get popular, so does ycombinator...

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ritug84
All the best to all the applicants...and to YC for the tough week ahead! :P

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netcan
Does this mean YC is "recession proof?"

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rockstar9
best of luck to everyone!

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joseakle
competitors at last

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pjharrin
Best of luck to the other teams, we'll see you in January

