
Applications for YC S2015 Are Open - philip1209
http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/#S2015
======
gojomo
Free idea:

"Our startup wants to change the world by reselling the free $500K in Azure
services [1] to outsiders for half-off, then liquidating itself. This may not
be a 'traditional YC play', or 'scalable', or even 'honest', but we'll give YC
half the loot (approximately $100K) and don't even require the traditional
investment/convertible note. Just tell Microsoft we're a YC company! Oh, and
let us know whether you like the name 'Azurbatrage' or 'Arbitrazure' better.
Stretch goal: resell all the unused Azure capacity of our classmate companies
– 50X the profit opportunity."

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9023582](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9023582)

~~~
AlwaysBCoding
Better idea, make a script that can spin up Azure instances and mine Bitcoins
on them. Then build a web app on top of it that will liquidate Azure credits
to cash as a service. When someone dumps their credentials into your site you
spin up $500,000 of computing power on Azure to mine Bitcoins from and then
liquidate the Bitcoins you mine into cash and take like 15% off the top.

I'm not sure what the conversion rate of Azure computing dollar to mined
Bitcoin would be, but this would work to some extent with $500,000 wouldn't
it? What YC company wouldn't want a Azure -> cash liquidation web app.

~~~
gojomo
"At Arbitrazure, we are of course open to any idea for converting free Azure
credit to cold hard cash. But our research indicates that without special
mining chips, Bitcoin mining is not competitive, and $500K of Azure per month
(15,000 'A1' VMs) would take 8-16 years ($48-$96 million) to earn one Bitcoin
($225). That's why we remain committed to _resale_ , rather than direct
exploitation."

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zaguios
As a solo founder, is it worth the time to apply if I don't already have a
finished product and significant traction?

P.S. I know many people would suggest to find a cofounder, but that hasn't
worked well for me. In my area there aren't many experienced programmers with
an entrepreneurial spirit. The few people I have tried to start something with
usually fall through due to not being able to keep up. I'd rather stop wasting
my time with the hunt and start just building something by myself.

~~~
paul
Drew Houston applied as a single founder with no product or traction, so yes
:)

~~~
zaguios
Several years ago when there were less applications and he got turned down
initially...

~~~
paul
And also fewer partners reviewing applications. He was turned down for a
previous batch because he applied with a bad idea (SAT test prep), not because
he was a single founder. If we would now pass on DropBox, something has gone
very wrong. I can't believe I have to argue this point...

~~~
jsonchen
With all due respect, the reason you might have to argue the point is probably
because even back in 2007 the application page said:

    
    
         The people in your group are what matter most to us. [...] Your idea is important too, but mainly as evidence that you can have good ideas
    

And Drew was passed up because his idea was bad (not given a "we like you more
than your idea" option). It seems like a skating to where the puck is and not
where it's going kind of thing.

YC probably won't miss out on a DropBox that looks like a DropBox, but you
might miss out on a Drew Houston that eventually creates a DropBox.

------
arjunnarayan
How do you guys deal with conflicts of interest? For instance, suppose
hypothetically someone is building a startup who's goal is to eat the company
who's CEO is in your list of YC partners... How's that going to work?

~~~
haky_nash
From the FAQ:

Will you fund multiple startups working on the same idea?

Yes. If you fund as many companies as we do it's unavoidable you'll end up
with some overlap. Even if you tried not to accept competing companies, you'd
still get overlap because startups' ideas morph so much. The way we deal with
it is that when two startups are working on related stuff, we don't talk to
one about what the other's doing.

In practice it has not turned out to be a problem, because most big markets
have room for several slightly different solutions, and it's unlikely that two
startups would do precisely the same thing.

~~~
aptwebapps
That's a start but the GP wasn't asking about competing entrants in the same
batch but about a theoretical entrant that would compete with an established
YC partner.

~~~
haky_nash
Umm I think that was a more general comment. And the reason that makes up the
later part of the answer sounds very general and applies to the GP's question.

~~~
aptwebapps
"The way we deal with it is that when two startups are working on related
stuff, we don't talk to one about what the other's doing."

This seems easier to do with two startups in the same batch than with a new
startup and an existing YC partner, although I suppose they could use the same
approach.

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tonysuper
Well. Now I'm completely terrified.

I've been working on a project for about 8 months, with about 3 months on-
going after a decision to re-write and reign in focus, with YC as a major end
goal the entire time. Now that it's actually time to apply I'm extremely
nervous—especially since I'm an 18-year-old kid who hasn't even finished high
school yet (1 semester left) and I'm competing with people twice my age and
with several hundred times more experience. We're quite close to a major beta
release so that should help the process along.

Is there anything somebody in my (and my co-founders) circumstances should
seek to convey in order to increase our chances of getting accepted? I've read
quite a few articles on the best application type, but none of them had a
"What to do when you're completely unproven and also extremely young" section.

~~~
dlu
I'm not twice as old as you, but I've been feeling old for a while now, so
I'll give this a shot. I'm going to start by pretty much channeling Paul
Graham.

If you're close to a major beta release, make sure that happens on time and as
smoothly as possible. Then, as Paul Graham says, know your users. Talk to
them, email them, Skype them late at night and into the wee hours of the
morning. That's where expertise matters the most and where you're on equal
ground with everyone else. I don't know anything about your users yet either.
Well, I might know a tiny bit by accident because I worked on something
similar. So go learn more than me.

To quote PG: "This class can teach you about startups, but that is not what
you need to know. What you need to know to succeed in a startup is not
expertise in startups, what you need is expertise in your own users.

Mark Zuckerberg did not succeed at Facebook because he was an expert in
startups, he succeeded despite being a complete noob at startups; I mean
Facebook was first incorporated as a Florida LLC. Even you guys know better
than that. He succeeded despite being a complete noob at startups because he
understood his users very well."

Beyond that, I would say expect there to be what feels like near-death
business/startup experiences.

If you run into trouble, great! That means you're doing something right. It
isn't like school where if you prep enough, everything should be smooth
sailing. You're not going to be able to ever prep enough and everything should
feel chaotic. If it all goes really well, it is possible that you're super
oblivious.

It is ok if things aren't going _that_ well. Treat all the lows like team
bonding. If you're lucky this won't be the last or worst of it all and nothing
kills a startup like a cofounder who is only in it for the good times.

------
Killswitch
I'd love to apply to YC, but I cannot under any circumstances move to the bay
area. :(

~~~
tptacek
Technically, you only need to be there from June-August.

That said: speaking as a cofounder of a brand new company, and despite being
corrosively skeptical of YC in the past, if it weren't for the SFBA prereq,
we'd apply. You're right, it's annoying!

~~~
_sentient
YC isn't just about credentials. A significant part of the value is
concentrated in the Tuesday dinners and in-person office hours. Even if YC did
accept remote companies, the value of the program would be greatly diminished
if you didn't move to the bay.

And that's to say nothing of investors, over 70% of whom are concentrated in
the valley.

Plus, there's also probably some signal value here for YC. If you're not
sufficiently committed to be willing to move somewhere else for 3-4 months,
you may not be that serious about your startup. It's not the strongest signal,
but its impact is probably non-trivial.

~~~
logn
> If you're not sufficiently committed to be willing to move somewhere else
> for 3-4 months,

... Then you might be older than 30. I don't blame YC at all; I'd do it the
same way. However, lots of the industry's demands for evidence of
passion/interest/excitement are things only applicable to young people.

~~~
mrkurt
A non-trivial number of YC founders are >30, married, have kids, and don't
live in the Bay when they apply. It's not that big of a hurdle.

Consider how many people with similar commitments (kids, marriages, mortgages)
get deployed for military purposes every year for roughly the same amount of
time. It's manageable for families.

~~~
23david
Military families have a ton of existing social and community support
structures to help ease the difficulty of military deployments. Startup
culture is not developed to nearly the same degree.

But there are possibly easier solutions to consider. I'd recommend that people
with families consider flying back every week or so for a few days. Working
remote for a few days and then spending the weekend with the family will be
fine, and I've seen lots of people keep that type of arrangement going for
many months.

It's very common in the film industry for people with families to work remote
on location for most of 12-24 months.

------
zpatel
If I have an alpha/beta version of a product, should i be working to launch it
to build traction or rather apply for YC ?

Also, I have a day job which pays well and i need the job but my passion is to
build innovative/useful solutions. I wonder how i could be full time at YC or
is it ok to be working part time?. I have also heard that investors would not
even look at your proposal if they know you're working part time on it.

~~~
Jihoon
I don't think it will hurt to apply regardless :) it will help you hash out
some of your thoughts as well, if you are serious about doing a startup. Good
luck!

------
peteretep
An idea I would be interested in submitting requires rather a lot of
explanation on what makes it sexy; let's call it 1,000 words.

I realize it probably needs to be a little snappier than that, but the
fundamental idea sounds a little tired and not particularly new without some
explanation.

There's an opportunity to split this out in the "Idea" section, but really
several strands need to be tied together in a specific order. Will it look
weird to stick 1,000 words in the "What is your company going to make?" field,
rather than something short and pithy like "AirBNB for Bees"?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
One potential way to make a snappy one liner (and you do need a snappy one
liner) is to describe it in terms of who it helps instead of what exactly it
does, even if it is just "A new approach to stopping the pain felt by the X
Billion dollar a year industry of Y".

~~~
peteretep
That's a really good idea, actually, and I can see how to apply that. Thanks.

------
mpr3
I wonder if pre-launch Slack would have got in to YC.

~~~
2arrs2ells
I bet they would have. Impressive team with big ambitions.

~~~
randall
Not to mention Grove / Convore was in a few years before Slack.

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haky_nash
Just asking. Does YC value the IITs(Indian Institute of Technology) as much as
they value Harv, Stan, etc. Lots of other people do value it quite a lot. How
does YC see them?

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pskittle
i'm constantly amazed by how quickly yc moves. thanks for working towards a
better future and inspiring some along the way.

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miguelrochefort
Looks like my "universal communication UI" project will once again be
rejected.

~~~
super-serial
I'm making "the future of storytelling"... but it won't be ready until summer.

I'll get traction/users first before getting rejected again.

------
curiously
So...here's my question to everyone applying:

What is the single motivation or incentive for you to get in? Does YC offer
something that you are unable to find or obtain on your own?

