
Question to YC: trends in summer founders applications, demographics - nefele

======
nefele
This is a question to PG and other people involved in looking at startup
applications.

Can you reveal anything about the number of applications you've received this
time, as compared to other funding sessions? I suspect that it's much higher
than the number of proposals for WFP, but have you seen a large increase in
the number of apps compared to last summer, because of all the publicity
you're getting?

Also, if this is something you're inclined to share -- on average, how many
ideas would you consider `serious', in the sense that you suspect that even
without your funding the idea will be developed, as opposed to just being
forgotten. I suspect some people will just take a shot at getting the funding,
and go on to do other things if it doesn't work out.

And one more thing -- due to Reddit's success, are you planning to take more
risks than in the past, and maybe fund younger people or more extravagant
ideas?

Or are you satisfied with your current methodology?

If you could let us know, maybe after parsing the current batch of apps, I
think many people would consider the results quite interesting.

~~~
pg
We got 421 applications. That's more than past cycles, maybe because we're
getting better known. This will be the last time we disclose application
numbers though. Now that we have competitors (or at least imitators), we don't
want to get into a number-of-applicants contest. It's easy to inflate that
number, by encouraging undergrads and single founders to apply, but we don't
want to go there.

The big difference this time is the increase in the number of applicants from
overseas. Otherwise the people and the ideas are like previous years.

We're always trying to push the limits. Probably not the youth limit, because
we started out pushing that, and know pretty well where the edge is. But we
may, for example, accept a large number of groups this time. We'll see how
many are good.

~~~
nefele
Paul,

I hope that despite the competition you will still be able to discuss some
trends in the applications you get -- as much as YC is a serious business now,
I suspect it's been an interesting sociological experiment for some people.

Regarding the larger number of groups you might accept, I can't help but
wonder how YC will scale in the near future. You recently said that the number
of unsuccessful startups in the first batch was very low, and it seems that
you are getting an extremely self-selected pool of applicants to start with.
If you can manage funding more people at once (I suspect time is the
bottleneck), I'd venture a guess that you'll keep a 'success' rate way above
the standard VC level.

And if you get to work with a few groups from overseas, I'd be keen to learn
if you noticed any (cultural?) differences in their approach, or whether
hackers are just hackers, regardless of their location...

~~~
pg
We already have some practice scaling. The first batch was 8 startups, and the
most recent 13. I think we could get to 20 or even 30 without changing the
model substantially. Beyond that we might have to hire people, or get alumni
to help.

So far, foreign founders seem a bit more serious. Makes sense, because merely
coming to the US is a big step for them.

------
sumantra2
Yeah !!! Such statistics would really be cool and interesting. Also, how the
apps are picked up (e.g., rankings by experts, debate on the table for close-
ties) would be interesting reads.

------
mukund
Getting a sort of ranking or statistics helps in appreciating things

