

Advice for YC applicants on the fence - rmorrison
http://blog.rmorrison.org/advice-for-yc-applicants-on-the-fence

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starpilot
I stopped applying because I realized my projects are just way too small for
YC. I care about building stuff, but also just want to make something that can
provide a decent passive income for myself. A few hundred grand per year in
profit would be massive for me, but nothing to YC investors.

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boris
I don't think there are many YC startups that can boast a few hundred grand
per year in profit, as opposed to revenue or money they raised.

~~~
starpilot
Before successful exits, I bet their operating profits are quite a bit more
than a few hundred grand. I don't see my projects ever making much more than
that, they're just too limited in scope.

~~~
taphangum
You would be wrong. For most atleast.

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zemanel
i've applied twice, single founder, with no success, and for the third year i
still find myself without a team, by yc terms (deep-ish relation, built
something together, etc). altough i have confidence in what i want to do,
don't even feel like applying again.

EDIT: came back to clarify that this wasn't meant to criticize yc, just that i
don't feel like taking time from the yc, that can be applied screening
awesomer and more solid projects. flame on!

~~~
zemanel
EDIT2: from the comments and buzz around HN, i feel like the focus this year
has been much around the 150k. ppl should keep in mind the great projects that
came out of YC, when there was no "easy 150k"

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joelsmith88
For all the applicants on the fence my only response is that yo have nothing
to lose. If you don't get picked then so be it but there have be a lot of
successful start-ups that are not chosen to participate every year. If you are
placing all of your chips on the YC to help you make it then I think it would
behoove you to reassess your goals. start ups are about creating something
that solves a problem, changes lives and to make okay products better. The
initial start up should be about creating a stellar product more than it is
about money. To those critics, yes money is a crucial aspect of business but
start-up have the unique ability to bootstrap and work under financial
constraints that most would never be possible. Creating a start up is as much
about the business as it is the experience of starting that business. So go
for it you have nothing to loose.

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camdykeman
How critical is it to have a technical founder? and what constitutes
technical? I've applied this year with a team but none of us are competent
programmers.

Thats not to say we're incompetent. Two of us have the beginner knowledge of
university intro courses, but not the level of knowledge we would need to
actually create our project.

Is our current ignorance the kind of thing that will get us ignored or
overlooked?

And while you were there did you hear of any other teams with non-technical
founders?

This is my biggest worry so I'd be interested to get more info.

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webwright
Can't speak for YC, but I can tell you that everyone in our group had at least
1 badass hacker on their team. I've never heard of a hacker-free team going
thru YC. My guess is that you'd need some pretty outstanding accomplishments
on your app to overcome it, but I'd wager it's theoretically possible.

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shii
Harj and Kulveer from Auctomatic were the sole exception but had a bit of a
unique situation as pg says here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2325376>

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citizenkeys
So I gotta ask: Every start-up this session got not just YC funding but also
SV Angel funding. With that much seed money, what do you do with it all?

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izak30
$150k is both a lot (if you're very new and need a little time to build your
product on your own), and not very much at all (if you're doing traditional
marketing or hiring)

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pdaviesa
Does anyone know if all applicants receive some type of feedback, even if they
are not chosen for an interview? Basically, an explanation as to why they were
not chosen to move on to the next step in the process and which areas they may
want to improve on.

~~~
sokoloff
No.

<http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html>

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DanielRibeiro
Aaron also wrote a similar post about 6 months ago:
[http://formisfunction.posterous.com/how-to-make-your-yc-
appl...](http://formisfunction.posterous.com/how-to-make-your-yc-application-
stand-out)

