
Applications open for summer 2007 YC funding - pg
http://ycombinator.com/summer07.html
======
amichail
Why are you reluctant to accept one person companies? One person is often
sufficient for a workable prototype. Others can join later. In fact, Y
Combinator can act as a match maker of sorts, encouraging mergers among
similar proposals/prototypes.

~~~
omarish
Amichail, I know exactly what you mean. Some people work better on their own.
But even if you're looking for a founder, there are some places where you're
out of luck. I go to the University of Virginia, and to tell you the truth,
it's nearly impossible to find good hackers to work on startups with (even
though 50% of Reddit went here). And without that, there's no hope getting
into something as prestigious as the YCombinator.

I propose we make a simple site that allows hackers find one another, locally.
A single hacker isn't going to make a Meetup group to find other hackers; that
takes too much work. It should be more like Craigslist, but for this startup
community. Sorted by city, people can exchange email addresses, screen names,
and most importantly, ideas.

All it takes is two founders, and you never know what kind of matches people
will find.

Granted, they should know that they can work together before taking on a huge
project, but I think that something of this sort will really help people
discover one another and get their startups going.

I'm not suggesting we re-invent Craigslist, but there are enough people here
to merit something like this. Ruby on Rails, anybody?

~~~
mattculbreth
Actually, why not do it here? I bet that sort of functionality could be
integrated somehow into this site, and from Paul's first post to the group on
the reasons for the site I think it would fit in well. Then again you won't be
able to use Ruby...

~~~
sharpshoot
yeah if we fill out the profiles - and add a location and status field. It'll
work pretty well at first - as you can browse people's profiles to see if they
are also looking for a co-founder etc. Things can then be taken up on email

~~~
omarish
Very good idea. We can assume most people here are in the startup community.
So perhaps there should be a search by location field on a page here so that
people can find each other.

------
danw
Has anyone considered applying to YC 07 with the idea of creating another Y
Combinator? Passing a Y Combinator to itself..

~~~
omarish
haha sounds like O(y) instead of O(n)

------
pg
See http://ycombinator.com/s2007.html for details. The application form lives
at http://news.ycombinator.com/apply. Probably time to make urls in comments
turn into links.

~~~
python_kiss
If news.ycombinator.com is running on php, then the following code can be used
to convert into links:

$Insert_Message =
eregi_replace('(((f|ht){1}tp://)[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\\+.,~#?&//=]+)','<a
href="\\\1" target="_blank">\\\1</a>', $Insert_Message); $Insert_Message =
eregi_replace('([[:space:]()[{}])(www.[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\\+.,~#?&//=]+)','\\\1<a
href="http://\\\2" target="_blank">\\\2</a>', $Insert_Message);
$Insert_Message =
eregi_replace('([_\\.0-9a-z-]+@([0-9a-z][0-9a-z-]+\\.)+[a-z]{2,3})','<a
href="mailto:\\\1" target="_blank">\\\1</a>', $Insert_Message);

I hope that helps :) \- Jawad Shuaib

~~~
jwecker
I'll bet when Arc is really ready that whole thing will take about 4
characters, right Paul? ;)

------
Alex3917
The best things I've learned from previous startup attempts is how to tell
good product ideas from bad ones, and the difference between a good product
and a good company. The bad news is that now I've weeded out all my own ideas.

I guess I won't be applying this summer.

~~~
python_kiss
I like Alex, Danielha, and notabel :) Keep up the great posts guys. Feel free
to email/call me if any of you guys wish to discuss startups with a fellow
entrepreneur. - jawad.exe@gmail.com, 1-416-879-4659

------
JoeEntrepreneur
I would love to apply to YC for my upcoming startup http://www.onista.com but
YC had made it clear so many times that they do not like either "Single
Founder" Or "Moonlighters" and unfortunately or fortunately I am both.

Not sure why YC guys think that way (May be they want to play safe bets) but I
am on very well course to release my application "Onista" for public use in
Summer Timeframe.

Honestly I do not even need the funding (Amount) that YC offers, but what
would be great to have is their brand-name with my startup.

May be YC should start some category like "YC Certified Startup". Funding is
not major worry here. I got that.

------
vikram
Paul there seems to be a bug. I've been just entering some stuff in the
application and it seems it forgets the answers that I entered for the last
few questions. It also seems to be truncating answers. I entered 1 month and
it truncated that to 1 mon. Is there a restriction to the length of the entire
application?

~~~
pg
Can you let me know precisely how to reproduce it? Has anyone else experienced
anything like this?

~~~
vikram
For the question:

Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?

I entered: Don't know

I can only see:

Don

I also tried Dont know

still only see Don

~~~
pg
This is weird. I believe you, but I can't reproduce it. Can you send me an
email at pg@ycombinator.com?

~~~
vikram
I tried it again and it seems to work fine. Thanks for looking at it.

------
volida
Is there any way for someone from Europe to get a green card in US if he get
funding from YC?

~~~
pg
IANL but I'm pretty sure YC funding is not enough. But I've heard there are
ways to get into (or rather stay in) the US if you go on to raise larger
amounts of funding.

~~~
jwp
IANAL either (although I do date one), and I too have heard of these things. I
think they are called E-2 visas. They require you to raise or invest around
$100k in a US business. The lawyer who told me about the E-2 was quick to warn
that the applications get scrutinized hard. It sounded political, vaguely
sketchy, expensive, and complicated.

~~~
gustaf
it's kind of complicated, whatever process you choose. email me at
gustaf@gmail.com if you want help. I'm from sweden and our company got funded
by Y Combinator in November.

------
mattculbreth
Awesome. Been checking the site five times a day for months. :) BTW the ASCII
application has a few dates off. Looks like a copy/paste issue from the last
application.

~~~
chandrab
Having been part of a few startups before, I it definately easier to do it
with a partner(s). I'm currently doing my latest startup alone - but I dont'
consider myself alone. I have two great programmers, even though they are
working for me...I treat them like co-founders, we discuss everything not just
technical issues, business model and even their love-lives! I'm also getting
assistance from my network, people I've worked in the past with and people
I've looked up to during my professional career. Each one of these guys have
stepped up to mat and offered me guidance each step of the way. Some mentors I
talk almost on a daily basis...I treat these guys like board members/quasi-
founders also because without their guidance and support I'm sure it would be
much harder. Startups are not built alone - they are built by teams...these
teams are composed of people who may not be traditionally considered co-
founders but I'd argue they are. So I respectively disagree with YCombinator
shying away from one person startups - they really need to consider the entire
infrastructure. (Sorry for the long post- Chandra)

