
How We Got into Y Combinator - lloydarmbrust
http://lloyd.tc/how-we-hacked-the-y-combinator-application-process/
======
sethbannon
There's a lot of great material in this post, but as a recent YC alum myself,
I have a number of problems with it.

1) "If you’re writing your Y Comb application and it takes you less than a
month of work, you’re not trying hard enough."

No. You should not be spending that much effort on your application to YC --
or any accelerator. Should you have a few people read it over? Yes. Should you
spellcheck? Yes. But not much more than that. Focus on building your product
and building your business.

2) "no one’s video is under a minute."

Ours was. 50 seconds, to be exact.

3) "But my point is, if your company and team is solid, than you will get in."

This is the most dangerous statement in the post. This is simply not the case.
Every successful entrepreneur was told "no" and turned down time and time
again on their path to greatness. Facebook got "no's" from VCs. Airbnb's
founders were told they were crazy. Many people outright laughed at Elon
Musk's dream to build rocket ships. SendGrid was rejected from YC. If you
believe in your team, and you believe in your idea, trek on. The YC partners
are some of the smartest people I've ever met, but they're not infallible.

YC has been absolutely amazing for my team and my company, and we're very
grateful for having gone through the program. But we likely wouldn't have been
accepted and wouldn't have benefitted so much from the program if we weren't
focused intensely on what matters -- building our product, talking to our
customers, and staying healthy. Apply, hope you get in, but if you don't,
carry on.

~~~
ibdknox
As a data point, I was rejected by YC 3 times. Once after the interview, once
at the application, and amusingly enough the first time we applied for the
last batch. We got in after applying again late with LightTable.

There is certainly no guarantee that with a "solid" team you'll get in. At the
end of the day, it's all a matter of serendipity.

~~~
lloydarmbrust
You were rejected three times for the same company?

~~~
ibdknox
Nope, they were all different ideas/companies.

Typewire - disqus for liveblogging

Attend.me - conference management software

Prospector - medical chart review

and finally LightTable. Oddly enough we had/have domain expertise for all of
them :D

~~~
lloydarmbrust
If you switched projects four times, I can only assume that the last company,
the one that YC accepted, has the most potential... otherwise, you would have
continued working on the other projects.

I think it's way more than serendipity. I think the YC staff is extremely good
at identifying where good teams and good products meet.

~~~
ibdknox
This was over a series of years. There are lots of reasons why we stopped
working on the different projects, but I'm not sure I believe there was any
less potential in them - especially Prospector.

While I agree that they've gotten very good at identifying potential good
team/product pairings, that just means they have relatively few false
positives. It makes no claim to how many people they pass over who may in fact
have an amazing team and product. As the noise in the process increases,
you're bound to end up with more and more people who for completely random
reasons didn't end up being what they wanted that day. This isn't a purely
objective process (thank goodness).

All other things being equal, anything that relies on the judgement of a few
people has an element of serendipity to it.

~~~
amirmc
I think Prospector sounds very interesting, even only from a three word
description. I know three friends running startups in the healthcare market
and it's a tough one (with a lot of entrenched interests).

 _"All other things being equal, anything that relies on the judgement of a
few people has an element of serendipity to it."_

Also recall that the judgement is made on the basis of a 10minute interview.
Ask any of these startups if they'd ever hire a group of strangers into their
company based on a 10 minute interview. (I'm aware that's not really a fair
comparison, but it should still make people think).

------
pg
I went back and looked at their application to see what we liked about it.
What we liked is that they really understood their domain. This was not random
undergrads making up some idea about social shopping. These people clearly
understood local newspapers.

~~~
aidenn0
Out of curiousity, do you find that a lot of people applying under RFS don't
understand their domain? It seems to me that a lot of those things are things
that are both clearly broken, and not yet fixed, which means you get a lot of
people from the sidelines saying "Oh all you need to do to fix that is ..."
not knowing that the exact thing has been tried and failed dozens of times.

~~~
pg
A lot of people who apply don't understand their domain, but I've never looked
at whether this is more or less true for applications that mention a specific
RFS.

------
cletus
Looks like they put a lot of effort in here and are excited about what they're
doing. Congrats.

But, as an aside, can we please kill the abusage of the word "hacked" because,
as far as I can tell, it's being used as a synonym for "did a lot of research
and spent a bunch of time on".

~~~
amirmc
I've noticed that too. Alas, everybody wants a shortcut -- and the word
'hacked' implies that someone found one (for stories like these).

~~~
brown9-2
I think it also makes the link that much more attractive to readers:

"How we Did A Very Good Job on the Y Combinator Application Process and Got
in"

versus

"How we Hacked the Y Combinator Application Process and Got in"

~~~
cletus
There's a word for when you choose a snappier title that doesn't reflect
reality to get more clicks.

It's called linkbait.

~~~
davidw
"How we got into YC: by storming the building with assault rifles and smoke
grenades!"

~~~
rohern
Now that article I would read.

~~~
jrockway
For once "Pics or it didn't happen," might actually be on-topic!

------
CaveTech
I'm not sure if this is something good to admit or not, but I only spent about
2 hours writing my YC application, and we spent about 15 minutes planning and
filming the video, no editing. The video got 2 views. We got asked to do an
interview.

Seems like every "YC Application Advice" blog is about spending hundreds of
hours doing an APPLICATION. To me this sounds absurd. If you're really using
the time to figure out the direction you want to head, or where your product
focus is, then fine. But then it's not really for your YC application, its for
your company.

In the end we didn't get in. We didn't have a sound business strategy; our
focus was on the product. Nieve, yes, but lesson learned. It was one hell of
an experience.

------
Alex3917
Who knew, all this time you just had to add &accept=1 to the end of the URL.

~~~
phillco
Our company is called "DropTable".

------
polyfractal
I'm curious, why did you apply to YC if you were already bootstrapped and
bringing in revenue? For the connections?

Unrelated, I like your "Tweet this quote" sidebars...clever idea. :)

~~~
lloydarmbrust
Because when you start a company, everything is against you. Being a YC
company, for the knowledge base and the connections, removes a lot of barriers
and opens a lot of doors.

Plus, being two guys from the Midwest, we really didn't know what we were
doing. After YC, our path was much clearer.

~~~
polyfractal
Cool, thanks for the honest response. :)

------
dbecker
"Y Combinator is the most exclusive thing in the world that you can openly
apply to."

I hope you don't actually believe that... if you do, start-up groupthink is
definitely getting to you.

~~~
padobson
What's more exclusive that you can openly apply to?

~~~
dbecker
There are admittedly a few ways to measure exclusivity and define openness.

If you account for applicant quality in how you measure exclusivity: NSF
fellowships, top medical schools, top JD programs, top science PhD programs,
many jobs, some country clubs,

The Rhodes and Marshall scholarships come to mind as "most exclusive." They're
arguably not "open application" due to age requirements. I suspect YC has an
age requirement too, but it is less restrictive (and less explicit.)

If you don't control for applicant quality, then even entry-level jobs are
more exclusive than YC. I've been in charge of hiring for a jobs where we made
job offers to less than 0.5% of applicants. Which is just to say that
acceptance rate alone isn't the right metric.

I think I'm touching on a small sliver of the "most exclusive things" list.
The fact that most of the world hasn't heard of YC would also suggest that
there are also exclusive programs in other fields that we aren't familiar
with.

~~~
lloydarmbrust
There are literally no requirements to apply to YC, except wanting to be in YC
(which implies you want to build something).

Rhodes and Marshall have specific requirements, even your job hire probably
had requirements (high-school education, must be able to lift 30 lbs).

That's what makes YC so amazing... anyone, anywhere, can apply.

~~~
dbecker
I agree that YC's requirements are more flexible than most jobs.

If you don't have the skills to do statistical modeling, we wouldn't hire you.
We gave guidance in the job posting about who was a good candidate. But we
didn't prevent anyone from applying.

YC is the same in all those dimensions. If you don't have the skills necessary
to build a successful startup, they won't accept you. YC gives guidance on
their web page about who was a good candidate. But they don't prevent anyone
from applying.

I'm not sure how you define "open" so that one of those qualifies and the
other does not. If "open" just means that they have more flexible
requirements, that is a difference of degree, not kind.

YC is an unusual combination of selective and eclectic. But claims about "the
most selective open application in the world" suggests a lack of perspective.

------
Torrents
Is 27 really considered that old in the YC circle? Does it actually put you at
a significant disadvantage in the application process?

~~~
dorkrawk
I'm 29. Since I finished my undergrad I've gone to grad school, done work for
huge companies, small companies, universities, and worked at a startup. I
think all of these first hand experiences will prove to be very valuable in my
future entrepreneurial endeavors. As always, YMMV.

------
jsiarto
"Besides, getting in Y Combinator is easy: just be wicked smart, create a
beautiful product, get millions of users, and build a revenue stream that
grows 20% each month."

If your company's revenue stream is growing 20% each month on the backs of
millions of users, why are you applying to Y-Combinator?

~~~
IsaacL
I think they were being flippant.

------
hafabnew
This is not 'hacking' the application process in the slightest. You prepared
yourselves well; there's a difference.

But then again, the title got you on the frontpage of HN, which was almost
certainly the goal.

------
rolux
Insightful article that would have benefited from a less sensationalist
headline. "Hacking the Y Combinator Application Process" makes a promise that
you fail to deliver on.

~~~
lloydarmbrust
To be fair, I said "How We..." Did it. Also, I made sure to clarify the point
of the post with the beginning disclaimer.

Apologies if you felt mislead. LMK a better title and ill change it. Also, I
hope there's plenty of stuff in there that demonstrates how to write a good
application.

~~~
brianmcdonough
Re: Article Title Suggestion: "Why YC Made Sense for Our Business and How We
Got In" or "How I Was Almost Eaten by a Shark (or something equally absurd),
but Got into YC Combinator Anyway"

Humor may really help the article to gain acceptance and readership.

------
mddw
I know this is Hacker news, but hacking, bootstrapping or kickstarting are
slowly becoming meaningless buzzwords.

Please please stop using them for anything.

------
timpeterson
YCombinator is just like college now. Its all about getting in and not about
what you're supposed to do when you're there.

lame.

------
tomasien
I can't imagine spending over a month writing your YC application is something
PG would recommend, but I do love the idea of having a few random people
explain your application back to you. That's great advice about being sure
you're writing is clear in general.

I can't imagine "we're already making money" and the fact that you were doing
it monetization journalism (an RFS and a tough one) didn't help you get in
more than the clarity of your application though. That seems to be a proof
point beyond anything you could have written, to me.

------
beebs93
Congrats on the win, but:

"...we basically don’t have an accent..."

You do. It's called "American". :P

------
icewater
The word hacked gets thrown around way too much.

------
MojoJolo
This is a good read. You really know what you want, and what to do. Concrete
plan. Midwest is still in the US right. It's funny, I just read earlier here
in YC an accepted application but failed in the interview.

This is a good example of a YC application but I'm more intrigue with
applications outside America, or in Asia. And dealing with what you said as
language barriers, culture differences, and also the visa problem.

------
evmar
Regarding spellcheck: I noticed the application contains the typo
"bolierplate".

~~~
lloydarmbrust
Ha.. nice!

------
johncoogan
403 lol jk but seriously.

~~~
lloydarmbrust
caching error. apologies. up now.

------
omnisci
I found this useful. Even if the terms are being abused, it always helps to
have others perspectives on how they succeeded. Regardless if it doesn't apply
to your system/experience, it is still a valid (and successful) method of
getting in. Do you need to work for 1 month to submit the YC application?
Nope. Did it work for them: Yep. So, as with anything, YMMV but getting as
many different perspectives as possible can only help. Hack a bootstrap to get
kickstarted.

------
psycho
It looks like you, guys, are embarassed by your age. "We're too old - we are
already 27". Damn, I thought that you were at least 50 when I read it. As far
as I remember, PG told about 26 to be average age for applicants. I'm 27 right
now but I'm not going to retire tomorrow - hell, I'm still to young and will
be even when I be 40. :)

------
missechokit
The most interesting part of this, I think, is the tweet buttons with the
quotes everywhere. Does that make an appreciable change in terms of people
sharing? Or does it just take up a bunch of space?

------
brackin
Useful piece. I started breaking down our YC application and rewriting answers
and I realised that I could write much of what I've put in a much shorter
manor that is to the point.

------
cpocpo
> _even if we don’t get in, this trip has convinced us that we’re moving out
> to the valley to do this full time._

Simply curious, why did you decide to build the company in Austin, TX?

~~~
ericabiz
Hi, I can't speak for Lloyd. But, as someone else who's building a funded
startup here in Austin--and who sits about 10 feet away from Lloyd and
OwnLocal every day!--I can answer it for me/my startup.

I ran my last company in the Valley and did really well--I exited for 7
figures. I am building my current company in Austin because I see here what
the Valley was in 2002-2004. Growing fast, retooling itself as a startup hub,
and building real businesses with real revenue.

Developers are (somewhat) easier to hire here. Salaries and cost of living are
lower. No state income tax saves you some good money, too (matters more once
you get acquired and/or start pulling down a larger salary.)

Weather is less great, but you do have seasons here, which I can appreciate,
having lived in California most of my adult life.

Funding is available, though not quite as easy to get as in the Bay Area.
However, I will say, once you figure out who the investors are in Austin, they
_love_ to invest in local companies with traction and revenue. And there are
venture funds here, as well. In addition to local funds, 500 Startups makes
several trips through Austin a year and funds the most promising startups
here.

Plus, Austin is a fun city that has a lot of fresh, young energy. Thriving
culture, bike- and scooter-friendly, and did I mention you can actually afford
to buy a house here? I suppose that's more important for us "old fogies" who
are already in our 30's. ;) Oh, yeah, and you can drink beer at the movies
thanks to Alamo Drafthouse. Also, if you're a foodie, Austin is epic. I still
can't believe the Bay Area doesn't have an equivalent to Central Market.

I wrote a more in-depth blog post before I left for Austin:
<http://www.erica.biz/2011/california-im-leaving-you/> And I can safely say
that moving here to run a high-growth, B2B tech startup was one of the best
decisions I've ever made.

------
joeblau
> just be wicked smart, create a beautiful product, get millions of users, and
> build a revenue stream that grows 20% each month.

If you did this, why would you need YC?

------
ezl
_Children are useless until around the age of three. I never thought it would
take them thatlong to become real people._

Love this answer.

------
Quarrelsome
Why does the YC app form ask you to not password protect the demo site?

