
Some things to check in your YC application - pg
A surprisingly large percentage of people fill out the application form incorrectly.  Most of these mistakes we can deal with, but there are two things you really want to get right:<p>1. In the question asking about the details of each founder (name, age, education etc), one of the things we ask for is an email address.  Do please include one.  If we want to ask you questions about your application, or invite you for interviews, we need to be able to contact you.<p>2. In the questions asking for the YC usernames of all the founders, and of those who will come to CA if funded, please make sure that these fields contain nothing but YC usernames (<i>not</i> proper names), and that the second is a subset of the first.  It's amazing how often the first field contains fewer names than there are people whose details are supplied later, or (more strangely still) the second field contains a name that is not in the first.
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DaniFong
I don't know if this was my client acting up, or perhaps an unconscious mouse
movement, but I've been trying to update the application for a while now. For
some reason the update button isn't working (is the server hosed? Is the
internet cafe that I'm at breaking?) but when I checked the two fields you
mentioned, all but one of the names were eliminated from each (and the
intersection was zero).

(Edit: I was using commas instead of spaces, which might account for the weird
behavior. Does YC search the usernames for each token? Because then only the
last names would have had no comma, and so they they would remain)

So, I can't really remember if it was just me, but it's possibly a bug...

~~~
blored
I've noticed that when I was editing the application and left the window open
for a long period of time (maybe 30 minutes - 2 hours) I would find that
clicking 'Update' would return an error. I'm not sure if Refreshing my page
helped, but when I clicked the back button my application would be saved. I
only remember it from the trauma of the prospect of losing my data. I thought
it was a time-out issue.

This happened to me a while ago, I would say late August, early September.

~~~
pg
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66604>

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gabrielleydon
After i submitted my application I went back to read over it again and I
noticed only one of the three YC names were left in the fields for cofounders
YC names and the list of YC names of who will move to the bay area. I am 100%
positive all three names were there when i submitted the first time because we
went over it a few times before hand. (I spent a few years as a video game
tester so i noticed it was missing immediately) So maybe there is a problem
with the app if these fields have consistent missing info.

I fixed the fields and resubmitted so hopefully the problem was corrected for
me but just a heads up for YC. It might be worth looking into.

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alaskamiller
Reading, comprehending, and filling out an application should be the first way
to cull people.

~~~
pg
We do treat it that way. But today I came across an otherwise promising
application that didn't have any email addresses in it. I had to call them on
the phone and leave a message telling them to add their email addresses.
Obviously this does not scale.

~~~
bootload
_"... I came across an otherwise promising application that didn't have any
email addresses in it ..."_

Is the application via online form? Would it be scalable to verify addition of
email address on submit?

~~~
pg
I've been resisting adding lots of structure to the form so that people can
email drafts around when working on their applications.

~~~
bootload
_"... I've been resisting adding lots of structure to the form so that people
can email drafts around ..."_

Maybe there should (a few) mandatory fields (contact email + phone + first
name + last name) like a login. Leave the rest unstructured. You don't need
your life details, just a username and email address that uniquely identifies
users and allows contact.

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mattrogers1
I have pressed the submit button!!!

Was there supposed to be a confirmation that it was recieved?

Just double checking, peace of mind really. Thanks for the motivation and
continued inspiration YC.

~~~
german
It now says resubmit, good luck with your application!

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mrtron
pg: do you read apps that are not submitted?

If so, it could help to have a delete button for people like me that went
through the process just to see what type of questions you were asking.

