
Y Combinator Gives A Crash Course On What It’s Like To ‘Work At A Startup’ - jl
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/17/work-at-a-startup/
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azanar
For those who thought about applying and didn't, I sincerely say you should
try as much as you can to overcome your doubt next time and send an
application in.

For those of you who applied, but were turned down, you should apply to future
events until you get an invite. And as soon as you do, try as hard as you can
to attend.

The event is seriously worth it -- even if you have to travel from some
distance away, like I did. The chance to interact with the YC founders, and
realize that they are really far more down to earth than our imaginations
might make them seem -- ok, maybe just my imagination--, is really
enlightening.

I'll admit that my doubts made me seriously contemplate not applying; against
all the giants I would be competing against for an invite, what chance did I
have. I imagine it is reasonably similar to the sort of doubt potential
founders feel when they think about submitting an application to a YC funding
round; the competition is bound to be insurmountable anyway, so why bother.
That I have a reputation amongst my friends for being pretty self-confident
makes me wonder just how severe of a roadblock this can be for most people
against themselves, before anyone else even has a chance to weigh in. Either
friends are wrong about me, or this is a legitimately huge impediment.

My thoughts eventually boiled down to this: what do I have to lose? Pride and
dignity, maybe, but only if I let that happen. So I applied, against what
doubts I still had.

Of course, all of the above advice is predicated on YC holding more of these
events, which I _sincerely_ hope they do. I'm sure there are many more people
who would greatly benefit from being able to attend, and I'm at least
reasonably sure the YC founder crowd would benefit considerably in meeting
more potential employees at another event like this.

~~~
Synthetase
Apply? Puh-lease.

I'm a student and I crashed it on a whim. I literally got on the BART after
work. Of course, it took me two hours to get there and I had to ride in the
cars of two strangers.

It put a human face behind a lot of the entrepreneurs and I got to meet some
really interesting people. The most important take-away I got from it was to
screw architecting the perfect, solution and just launch. The second is to
never let petty things like applications get in the way of interesting events.

------
davi
<http://www.justin.tv/ycombinator/b/265435483>

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dublinclontarf
You could find out yourself without going to this crash coarse, actually,
trying to start a startup is the best crash coarse there is (note I havn't
read the article, popping out for milk).

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ajaimk
Hmm. I'm planning on doing something similar in Atlanta (I run the Georgia
Tech Entrepreneurs Club).

Any advice?

~~~
mmt
Think of it as a startup product and give it a go. The short presentation
format works very well.

You probably won't get the turnout YC did, but a much smaller event would end
up being much more intimate, a huge plus for introverts.

If the space you use space that's going to be anywhere near capacity, pre-
chill it as much as you can before the event. People and projectors are
remarkably exothermic.

