

You have a 1 in 20 chance of being chosen by YC.  Pretty good odds! - palish

If we assume there will be 500 applications and that YC will be accepting 25 of them then that's a 1 in 20 chance.<p>Throw in the fact some applications, maybe as many as half, are broken (thirteen year old founders, clones of existing ideas, etc) and you've got a great shot.<p>Anyone that still has cold feet, get in there and apply!
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vlad
Thanks for your advice; I just submitted 20 applications. :)

On a serious note, can one apply as a single hacker who doesn't care about
which project he takes on?

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rokhayakebe
Does anyone know if you get some feedback when you apply early?

~~~
nostrademons
In the last round, we got an e-mail from PG back within hours. It said,
basically, "Too many uncommitted founders. Ditch some and hire them back as
employees when you have money." We had submitted one day before the deadline
(I'd thought it was half an hour actually...I misunderstood the deadline), and
he encouraged us to resubmit if we could deal with the founder issue.

We ended up getting rejected anyway, but he turned out to be right. Basically,
if there's an obvious problem with the application, he'll point it out to you.
Don't expect him to write volumes or fix something that's so far out in left
field that it's hopeless, though. Maybe a paragraph or so.

I also got back a long response from Trevor when I applied to SFP05. In
retrospect it had a lot of good points, though I wasn't ready to hear them at
the time. I doubt they have time to do that sort of detailed
fixes/clarifications now, though.

~~~
vlad
Wow, I remember when this was brought up before in other threads, everybody
who answered said they just received a standard rejection notice.

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pg
Actually, if you're reading this, you probably have better odds than that. A
good fraction of the people who apply clearly have no idea how YC works or
what we look for. If you're reading this comment you're probably over that
threshold, at least.

~~~
brlewis
Either we have better odds, or we know exactly the reasons why we're unlikely
to be accepted.

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aandreev
You make a surprisingly random assumption (500 apps) and then base your entire
post around statistical interpretations of that assumption.

Bravo!

You should become an economist.

~~~
palish
Ok. There were 435 applications for this summer. I assume that YCombinator's
traffic has been growing steadily and that more hackers have been captivated
by YC, so therefore more will apply. 65 more probably isn't too far off the
mark.

As for the other assumption that YC will accept more than they did last time,
I'm basing that off of Paul's words.

Can I still become an economist?

~~~
ivankirigin
Some recommendations for intro to econ books :)

[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/08/for_introductor_...](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/08/for_introductor_1.html)

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portLAN
Why wait for someone else's approval? Don't leave your fate up to someone
else's whim.

And don't forget there are many, many other investors.

[Edit: Also don't forget you can set up Google ads on your own; or have actual
paying customers. You may not need any investment at all.]

~~~
pg
We work hard enough evaluating applications that we can probably claim our
choices are more than whims.

~~~
portLAN
All personal evaluations are subject to whims. An investor does or doesn't
like the idea; does or doesn't like the people. Cisco was turned down by 70 or
80 VCs. Nobody has a crystal ball, and at the end of the day, you guess; the
dealmaker or breaker is frequently some arbitrary factor.

~~~
asdflkj
Are you intentionally using the phrase "subject to" to obscure your logic? It
could mean "likely to be affected by", or it could mean "dependent on". The
meaning changes completely.

~~~
portLAN
You're asking me to resolve ambiguity by presenting more ambiguous choices. I
think you intend " _solely_ dependent on" when you say "dependent on".

A decision is both likely to be affected by, and dependent on, multiple
factors. In YC's particular case of selecting among many young, first-time,
unproven, possible entrepreneurs, there likely isn't much of a track record to
go by so the decision has a very large subjective component. Not only can they
not predict the market performance of what you're building, but they want you
to be "flexible" with the idea, even to the point of throwing it away and
switching to something completely different. In those cases it means they
can't possibly objectively evaluate your plan, because you don't _have one_
yet.

The greater the lack of objective data, the more subjective preference comes
into play.

~~~
asdflkj
"Subjective preference" and "whim" are two completely different things. Let's
look at the post that started all of this: "Don't leave your fate up to
someone else's whim". If you replace that with "Don't leave your fate up to
someone else's subjective preference", that doesn't sound quite so undeniably
prudent anymore, does it? Especially considering that the "someone else" in
question is highly authoritative on the subject.

~~~
portLAN
You might find it helpful to check the definition. Amer. Heritage: whim:
"Arbitrary thought or impulse". Arbitrary: "Based on or subject to individual
judgment or preference".

> _that doesn't sound quite so undeniably prudent anymore, does it?_

Good thing it's definitionally equivalent and I used the form that would
provoke a stronger visceral response, in order to get the idea across more
forcefully.

YC should just be one possible tool you can use. Keep in mind that if you do
actually have something valuable, you're doing them quite a favor by letting
them get a percentage for such a tiny investment.

> _Especially considering that the "someone else" in question is highly
> authoritative on the subject._

You're a bit mixed-up there. Starting your own investment company doesn't make
you an expert on people and ideas any more than starting your own record label
makes you an expert on music.

It's also fairly apparent that no one person is going to be a good filter for
all ideas or people. We've _all_ been surprised by various start-up successes.

~~~
brlewis
> Starting your own investment company doesn't make you an expert on people
> and ideas

True, but advising dozens of startups, some of which became highly successful,
does. Especially when your investment money came from the sale of your own
successful startup.

"Whim" and "arbitrary" have a connotation of carelessness; I don't think they
fit here.

Still, there's truth in what you're saying: The large number of applications
necessitates that they use heuristics and gut feelings to choose whom to
interview. Their rejection letter admits that the process isn't perfect, and
it would be unwise to give up on an idea on the basis of a YC rejection.

~~~
portLAN
> _True, but advising dozens of startups, some of which became highly
> successful, does._

I would be surprised if anyone on YC news couldn't get a few successes out of
60 start-ups.

YC's had its share of duds as well. And various times we've heard they're not
far in the black; considering the micro-investments they're making, that
doesn't strongly support the notion that they are especially successful.

> _"Whim" and "arbitrary" have a connotation of carelessness; I don't think
> they fit here._

I'm sure they are careful in certain ways but there's only so much to be
gleaned from a brief application, which may not include the follow-up
10-minute interview. Three people can't advise 60 existing start-ups and do
due diligence on 500 more. Not to mention, a substantial number of people
haven't even _built anything_ , which means they really have no choice but to
judge the book by its cover. There are always snap judgements and rush
decisions in any big application process.

Hence, whim.

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cwilbur
Bzzzt. Bad use of statistics, because it's not a matter of chance. The ideas
that fit best with YC's ideas of what a Y Combinator startup should look like
and look like they have the best shot at succeeding win.

This is not a matter of _chance_. If your idea lines up perfectly with YC's
vision, you get in, no matter how many other people apply. If your idea is
completely unworkable for YC's goals (such as: you have a single founder,
you're planning to run the startup indefinitely rather than sell it ), you may
as well not apply, because even if there are 25 slots and 20 applicants you'll
probably be rejected.

~~~
pg
You don't know what you're talking about. We've funded several single
founders, and we actually _prefer_ people who want to run the company
indefinitely. We make very little from early acquisitions.

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SwellJoe
Where'd you get the "accepting 25" number? Just curious. It seemed like 19 was
a bit overwhelming for them this time. But since the CA office is bigger, and
there are more former founders out here that would be able to relieve some of
the advisory role pressure, they might be willing to bump the number up again,
assuming enough of the applications are good.

~~~
palish
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47372>

Certainly not hard evidence but the limiting factor seems to be good
applications, not how many they're able to accept. That's a great sign.

~~~
blored
Maybe even more than 500. [link eludes me] But somewhere it was written that
the Cambridge session was the unpopular session. And since May 2007 YC has
been featured in _Newsweek_ , in addition to getting a groundswell press from
each individual company (eg. Weebly in _Time_ ).

I'd bank on about 700-800 applications.

~~~
pg
> somewhere it was written that the Cambridge session was the unpopular
> session

If anything it's the other way around, because fewer people are free to try
something new on Jan 1 than June 1.

~~~
blored
I guess I got it backwards then, :S woops.

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jkush
Yeah, great. That just made me feel worse.

