
New: Apply to Y Combinator without an Idea - pg
http://ycombinator.com/noidea.html
======
paul
I'm surprised by how many negative reactions there are here. Some people seem
almost offended, presumably because we're turning down people with ideas and
funding some without.

This really just reinforces the fact that fund people, not ideas. The way it
works in practice is that we work with the founders to find a good idea that
will work for them (the idea needs to match the founder). The truth is that
most people have good ideas in them, but just don't realize it. We aren't
necessarily providing the idea so much as helping them to discover the idea
that they already have :)

~~~
citricsquid
I think the negativity is a result of hn being a community where _what_ you
are is meaningless, it's about what you _do_. Walking into YC with a nice
haircut, suit and the ability to sell yourself doesn't fit the idea most
people here have about entrepreneurship.

It makes perfect business sense for you, the reasons you outline are sound and
I'm sure it will bring YC a lot of success, but it doesn't fit with what the
(average) community member here thinks about entrepreneurship.

That's my understanding of the negativity, could be off the mark but it seems
the most logical conclusion.

~~~
paul
You underestimate us. The people we accept without an idea most likely _have_
accomplished a lot. They simply don't have an idea that they are excited
about, perhaps because they've been focused on accomplishing something else.

Also, I don't think we've ever accepted anyone who wore a suit to interviews.

~~~
wooster
One of the very best people I ever hired wore a suit to the _phone interview_.

~~~
ratsbane
How did you know?

~~~
wooster
He told us after we hired him.

------
johnthedebs
The response to this seems mixed so I think it's worth saying: it's very
important for them to at least _try_ this.

The current YC model may have been met with the same response when first
proposed (I expect it wasn't even this good, I don't know the history) but all
indication is that the model works very well. And if they don't look for ways
to improve further on that model, someone else may come in and eat their
lunch. YC is a business too, you know.

Besides, if "execution is everything" then doesn't it make sense to not worry
about the idea and focus entirely on the team? Even if it doesn't work out, I
think there's no question that they should give it a shot.

------
michael_nielsen
Seems similar to Alan Kay's often repeated observation that what made ARPA and
PARC so innovative in the 1960s and 1970s was that they "funded people, not
projects": <http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004001_power.pdf>

This is very, very rare.

~~~
b_emery
Thanks for the link. Here's the full quote (see page 4):

 _"Thus the "people not projects" principle was the other cornerstone of
ARPA/PARC’s success. Because of the normal distribution of talents and drive
in the world, a depressingly large percentage of organizational processes have
been designed to deal with people of moderate ability, motivation, and trust.
We can easily see this in most walks of life today, but also astoundingly in
corporate, university, and government research. ARPA/PARC had two main
thresholds: self-motivation and ability. They cultivated people who "had to
do, paid or not" and "whose doings were likely to be highly interesting and
important". Thus conventional oversight was not only not needed, but was not
really possible. "Peer review" wasn't easily done even with actual peers. The
situation was "out of control", yet extremely productive and not at all
anarchic."_

Sounds remarkably like YC.

------
mbyrne
How is this not brilliant?

Like Hollywood that created the studio system and theater chains, and Music
Labels that created radio promotion and recorded music sales, Y Combinator has
created the cookie cutter vertical for this century's hot new tech
opportunity- the Internets. And God Bless them. They invented it, this model,
it works and they are going to be billionaires cause they are creating the
Value.

If I could buy 7% of a the future (earnings and primary asset) of an elite
college super achiever (with a proven skillset and a track record of cool
hacks,) in exchange for 7 Grand, man oh man, that is a no-brainer. Like
signing Marilyn Monroe to a studio contract or getting half the Beatles
catalog for a ham sandwich, or whatever they were advanced by Northern Songs.

And no, I'm not being snarky, because Marilyn Monroe without the movie studios
would have been a waitress or whatever, and the Beatles without the music
copyright machine would have been guys who worked day jobs who had a cool
weekend band that was their real passion.

Sign all the boys who can sing and dance--its Menudo Monkees Backstreet
madness!! If your Johnny Bravos can fit the suit, I say sign them up!
Everybody wins, except the wannabes who find a reason to complain instead of
doing anything awesome because they are, in their hearts...and in their lives,
afraid.

Hooray for (New) Hollywood.

------
earbitscom
This is why YC is amazing and why anybody who says they ask for too much
equity is an idiot. Most investors won't invest until you have traction and
prove out a bunch of risk. YC used to invest when all you had was an idea, and
now you don't even need that. Bad ass.

~~~
feralmoan
I dunno, it feels like there's enough noise and low-value startups in the
ecosystem already I can't help think this is a little predatory and simply
further dilutes the perception of value to investors outside the YC fold.

~~~
earbitscom
That's actually why this is great. There are low-value startups out there
because naive people start companies that aren't good ideas. Meanwhile, great
founders realize their ideas aren't that good and don't build companies. YC is
going to find those people, help them curate their ideas, and get them on
their way to building meaningful companies. It's as far from predatory as you
can get. It's giving great people the tools, resources and support they need
to do big things.

------
kalvin
This is a great experiment given how many YC teams change their idea midway.
For teams who have many ideas (but have not implemented any), would you advise
them to

a) pick one and apply through the normal process (thus demonstrating they're
capable of coming up with good ideas, and perhaps prototyping one), or

b) go through this new no-idea process instead (thus making it clear they are
flexible in terms of what idea they pursue)?

------
grandalf
Show me someone who is qualified to be a founder but happily shrugs about
his/her utter lack of ideas... and I'll show you someone who should be in a
corporate sales job making $600K per year, not someone who has seen a glimpse
of the future and is driven to make his/her vision a reality.

Hmm, maybe selling companies to investors is a form of corporate sales after
all.

Most successful entrepreneurs have ideas that seem bad for various reasons.
YC's focus on critiquing founders' ideas (PG's sneers about
mobile/social/local) suggest that YC is very confident that it knows which
ideas will work and which won't.

In terms of predicting which companies will be successful in 10 years, nobody
would ever have sufficient hubris to claim such foresight. But if the goal is
to sell a company to VCs in 6 months, it's not hard to have a pretty good idea
of the market dynamics.

Personally I'd rather see YC post "drafts" of business plans and let would-be
teams start their own incarnations of those businesses and apply to YC with
them. At least then it feels more like an authentic entrepreneurial spark than
a search for pedigrees the VCs will buy into a few months down the line.

~~~
minimax
> corporate sales job making $600K per year

This job does not exist.

~~~
nl
Most sales roles are commission based, and it's hard to get solid numbers.
[http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Oracle-Sales-Manager-
Salarie...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Oracle-Sales-Manager-
Salaries-E1737_D_KO7,20.htm) lists 5 Oracle salaries averaging $211K
(including commission), but that almost certainly under measures those making
really good commissions.

600K is high, but maybe possible.

------
trustfundbaby
I think this is awful .... I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me, I'm a bit of a
romantic when it comes to startups and innovation.

Sure, people who come up with an idea to do a start up usually change it
midstream, but they _actually_ come up with one and set out to achieve it. If
you can't even think of something to work on, then I don't think people should
be falling over themselves to give you money to just come up with something
just because you're 'smart' ... it just seems to commoditize and cheapen the
process in my opinion. Plus if it doesn't work out, now they have the easy out
... "It wasn't even my idea".

Yes, I know the founder of Yelp got handed $1 million to come up with
something and they got Yelp ...

Yes, I know I haven't done this day-in day-out for years like you guys have
...

but it still upsets me. maybe I just need to give it 5 minutes.

I'll sit down now.

~~~
dgallagher
Think of how many people YC has seen flow through. Successes, failures, one's
they can't predict yet. There are probably certain patterns and traits in the
good ones. They've also seen what types of idea's work best with certain types
of people.

YC is directly integrated into the heartbeat of Silicon Valley, gaining more
insight into where the puck is going to be, far better than any outsider. If
they can match traits of a group/person to an idea only they have the
privilege to imagine, you might have a winning combination.

The fact that people are complaining about this likely means it's a good idea,
or should at least be tested. Occasionally throwing a monkey wrench into the
machine is always good practice.

Colleges do this already by accepting smart students who don't know what to
major in yet. Who cares if it takes them some time to figure it out? They're
smart! They'll get it!

~~~
jarek
> Colleges do this already by accepting smart students who don't know what to
> major in yet.

Colleges do this to get their tuition money, not out of the goodness of their
hearts. Who cares if they don't know? Society standards dictate most of them
will stick it out and pay for four years of something.

~~~
tg3
That assumes that the most important thing to a college is present earnings
and not potential future earnings. Colleges regularly compete for top students
(at a loss via scholarships) in order to pump up their stats and increase
their prestige (which comes largely from what graduates do long after leaving
school) both of which are intended to increase future earnings. And that is
only considering universities from the cynical, profit-driven perspective.

~~~
jarek
Let's just say I am a lot less idealistic about colleges than you appear to
be.

The top students who will become prestigious alumni are by and large not the
same students who don't know what they want to major in yet. For every Steve
Jobs-like outlier you have a ton of executives, accountants, doctors, and
engineers who know that's what they want to do. The major-less students will
generally either pay for four years of psychology or be successful for
unrelated reasons (legacy status and family connections, the occasional dumb
luck).

If YC thinks trying to pick out the outliers, the lucky, and the connected
from their application pool is worth the trial, power to them.

------
jasonwilk
As someone who has gone through YC, this makes perfect sense. My company,
along with 15 others in our group, radically changed their idea to the point
where it didn't matter what idea we came through the door with. We started out
with a Facebook app for sports stuff and ended up as a successful video
advertising business. Absolutely zero correlation. PG bet on us in the
beginning, not because he loved our idea (it actually was a pretty bad idea),
but he saw that my co-founder and I gelled and that we were determined to make
whatever damn thing we touched into some form of success.

The other thing to think about is that everyone, i mean everyone has some idea
they have thought about which could be a business. If you're the 1% that have
never thought of something that could use a change in this world, then the no-
idea application probably doesn't apply to you. For the other 99, you can come
in with a handful of things that bother you in the world which could be solved
by software and YC will more than likely help you pick something they know has
a pretty good shot if you are willing to put in the hours.

------
Aloisius
I, for one, think this is misguided. While I agree that team is one of the
most important important aspects to consider when funding a startup, I fail to
see how a team without a vision or an idea will have the passion necessary to
stick with it.

Even though many companies pivot to ideas nothing like their original, the
original shared vision by the team is what keeps it together and unified.

I have no doubt that there are groups you could hand an idea to that would go
at it with gusto, I just don't think most will.

~~~
pg
Like I said in the announcement, one of the reasons we're pretty sure this
will work is that we're already doing it. I.e. a lot of the people who applied
to YC in previous cycles were applying without a viable idea; they just didn't
realize it at the time.

Also (I'm starting to wonder if you read the announcement) we don't hand
people ideas. We encourage them to solve problems they already knew about but
had been overlooking.

~~~
Aloisius
I didn't mean to imply that you would force an idea upon them, but helping
someone come up with an idea can easily turn into that if you're literally
accepting people with _no_ ideas (which you state you are and yes I read the
announcement).

In the end, the person is going to have to become passionate about the idea.
That's hard. When you're talking about a group that comes in together and
wants to start a company together, it is much harder.

Honestly, if someone comes in just wanting to start a company without an idea,
it sounds to me like they are more in love with the idea of being a founder
than solving a problem close to their heart. I don't think that I would be
interested in people like that.

------
nbroyal
This is definitely a good idea. I think a lot of talented groups struggle with
finding an idea because the two easiest means of doing so -- solving a
personal pain point or uncovering an opportunity in your current domain/job --
are bearing no fruit. After those avenues are exhausted they may not be sure
of what path to take to find an idea. As a result, these otherwise talented
folks are meandering around until they stumble upon something, which can take
quite a bit of time.

My co-founder and I were in a similar boat until we found a process that
worked for us to uproot unmet needs, but, if we hadn't, we'd definitely be
exploring this track.

------
michaelf
Is this the first step in YC pivoting away being a "seed investor", where the
goal is to pick winners? Does PG see the future of YC as being an alternative
to post-graduate education where the goal is instead to develop winners and
have a stake in their success?

If this model works out, I wonder if we'll eventually see traditional
universities funding startups for top students out of their endowments.

Very exciting experiment, if you ask me.

~~~
DilipJ
perhaps YC should think of becoming like a business school. Most business
schools charge upwards of 100k for two years, and most students borrow that
from the federal government. YC could instead "charge" half that amount, teach
all the major business principles that one needs to know in a few months
(which could basically be teaching pg's essays to a class audience) with the
caveat that all or most of the tuition charged will be returned as seed
investments to the students at the end

~~~
tatsuke95
> _"YC could instead "charge" half that amount, teach all the major business
> principles that one needs to know in a few months"_

You really think you can teach all the business principles you "need to know"
in a few months, huh? But I bet if I said lets take some business guys and
teach them everything you need to know about coding in a few months, you'd
probably think I was crazy.

Seriously, the "what it takes to successfully run a business" is so
underestimated around here it makes me shudder. But, I guess that's probably
why most people here aren't actually running successful businesses.

------
nhashem
My understanding of YC is that applying with more than an idea was pretty much
necessary to actually validate the idea. Having an actual live product, with
some semblance of customers and/or revenue, made for a much stronger
application and a much stronger pitch in general. I imagined that a lot of
startups that were accepted into YC effectively got feedback along the lines
of, "this is a cute app with some impressive technology and it seems like some
people like it, so why don't you pivot to this concept that has a much
stronger change of scaling," or something along those lines.

So if these applicants don't have an idea, then are they expected to not have
any sort of work on a product? And if so, doesn't that make it a lot harder to
evaluate their body of work and quality of their team?

------
sidww2
This could work.

To make an analogy, PhD students usually don't have a project to work on when
they start and if they do, that usually changes. Yet many of them become
excellent researchers and leaders of their field in the future.

~~~
dmazin
Yeah, for example I was looking at NSF funding for grad school research and
while your application is based on a research proposal, your research doesn't
actually have to be what you proposed.

~~~
amirmc
Both true but there are limits. Grad students are still defined by what
they've done previously so while there is a lot of choice, it's still within a
particular field (i.e. limited to a subset of the whole 'PhD-space').

That's probably stating the obvious (but sometimes it's worth doing that).

Edit: The analogy does works but you might want to consider subjects as
'startup areas' e.g. consumer, enterprise, infrastructure, etc

------
corin_
Seeing "(e) None of the founders are programmers." on the form, I was
wondering - and I fear this has probably been answered before but it's not an
easy thing to look for - pg, would you mind saying how often, if ever, you
have taken in founders who literally couldn't code their way out of a paper
bag, and if so do you have anything you can share on success rates / examples?

~~~
pg
I think we have twice funded groups that didn't include a hacker. One was a
math major as an undergrad though.

One of these groups was Auctomatic, which did pretty well. Another is in the
current batch and isn't launched yet.

~~~
rokhayakebe
I may add Swagapalooza, I think.

~~~
Alex3917
This is correct, although there wasn't any code to be written, at least not in
that phase of the business.

------
ericfrenkiel
This is a great idea because great teams can find great markets and then build
great products. Investors care about 3 things in order of importance.

First, is market size. If you have a great team and a great product in a small
market, you won't make much money. Conversely, you can have a bad team with an
okay product in a large market, and still make a decent return. The market is
assessed first because you can't change it. It is what it is.

Second is team; the quality of the team is more important than the product in
the earliest stages of a company. It's the second hardest thing to change.
It's really hard to replace a cofounder.

Third, and last, is product. It's really easy to change a product. The
classical/somewhat cliched pivot.

With this in mind, YC can attract stellar talent, point them at a big market
and say "innovate and iterate!"

As PG mentioned, this has already happened to some extent. I think this is a
clear pathway for exceptional engineers to come together.

------
amirmc
Fascinating, at least from an outsider's perspective (you mention you've kinda
been doing this already).

This effectively opens the floodgates but it might also reduce the number of
poorly thought-out ideas since teams now have a different access point.

Fits well with the 'replace university' comments in the PyCon talk.

edit: Makes me wonder how about the proportion of people who apply with demos
(and how advantageous that is -- or is not).

~~~
jedc
I think it could be really positive. Just the fact that this option exists
will re-orient everyone's YC applications toward thinking about making sure
they've got the best team. I would presume that there would be a very high bar
to be accepted as a group of founders without an idea. (I would also expect
that with a high-potential team the problem would be choosing from a large
number of potential ideas.)

------
losvedir
Interesting. For how many people is "working at a start up" the goal in and of
itself?

I've always thought "I want to be an entrepreneur, now what should I do?" was
backwards. Rather, it seemed to me that history of real innovation is full of
"I have this great idea, I guess I have to be an entrepreneur now". For
example, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Ford.

But maybe my perspective is skewed by a type of survivorship bias -- were
Wozniak/Jobs initially working on other projects that failed and pivoted
towards Apple? Or maybe they happened to hit on a good idea first, but what
about others? I guess YC has the data, so maybe it's time for me to re-
evaluate how successful companies are born.

------
Alex3917
Did anything ever come of this when YC tried it back in 2007?

------
samstave
What if I am a single founder with an idea, would I be paired up with those
without ideas to make a team?

~~~
dsr_
Why don't you post here and see if anyone is in that boat already?

edit: not here, here. Submit to HN. Write a blog post.

------
zafka
I think this could be a very good thing. I would like to come in as an "old
guy" single founder, and hook up with a Bus-Dev guy(or gal). I have quite a
few ideas, but most would need a few people to get off the ground. A few
things that I am interested in are: Solar, bio-fuel, an Arduino competitor,
small PMSM motors for the medical industry. I was thinking that if several
"single" founders were selected, there could be a few arranged marriages. I am
guessing that after seeing quite a few groups the Y Combinator crew would have
a good feel for what might make a good group

~~~
jacquesm
> Solar, bio-fuel, an Arduino competitor, small PMSM motors for the medical
> industry.

Getting funded for anything including hardware and/or medical stuff is quite
hard.

------
waterlesscloud
So what happens here, exactly? Say John Doe is picked without an idea. What
does John do during his YC time? What does YC get a piece of in return,
exactly?

On another aspect of it, the negative reaction of some, I think there may be a
subconscious message that this makes it more about what someone _has_ done
than _is_ doing or _will_ do. That probably threatens some folks a bit, even
if it doesn't practically make any actual difference to their chances.

~~~
dcosson
Idk, I imagine someone in YC without an idea would work just as hard if not
harder than, say, someone who already has a product with some traction. I
imagine John Doe would wake up every morning thinking "crap, I'm already
behind everyone else! I better get moving" (and he'll have to get something
together for demo day, which presumably is what YC will get a piece of).

I'm sure this is impossible to generalize, but I wonder if in some
circumstances it might even save people a few weeks of time. If a lot of teams
change their idea during YC, presumably in some cases it takes them a while to
decide (or to be convinced by the partners) to do so. Whereas if they go in
not attached to any particular idea, it might be easier for pg & crew to talk
them out of their bad ideas so that they reach a good idea more quickly.

------
int3rnaut
I want to prelude my question with my own personal belief: I think Paul Graham
and company are not only ethical, but good human beings.

Is there ever a risk of unintentionally assigning one of the ideas of a lesser
group to one of these "All-star" groups without an idea? Like in a brain-
storming session, who gets the embers going? I know there's a statement about
this on the application (if you're worried about copying not to apply) but it
would be interesting to know.

~~~
pg
We're very careful about that. We'd never do it intentionally. There's some
possibility we'd do it unintentionally, but I don't think we have so far.

------
itsprofitbaron
I think this is a _great_ idea that YC are allowing people to apply without an
idea.

Personally, if I applied to YC I would apply with an idea but remember most
investors won't invest without seeing traction and if the company removes some
of the risk etc.

YC used to let you just apply with just an idea. The
HackerSchool/HackerRecruiter guys were accepted with just an idea (although
they built a prototype before their interview)[1] and now you don't even need
that.

Awesome.

The reason that I think its awesome is because, there are a lot of startups
that I have seen recently that are not actually viable or a good idea and this
has created a lot of low-value startups (you know the ones I'm talking about)

I personally believe that great people/founders will only start a company if
they believe their idea is good and viable. The reason they haven't is
because, they know their idea sucks - this is where YC comes in as they will
help those great people/founders by providing the tools and resources to help
them curate their ideas so they can build meaningful and valuable companies.

Sure, YC focuses on people but great people often have great ideas, even if
they don't know it yet and this is why this is awesome.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3667055>

------
itmag
I have shit loads of ideas, but I'm not really passionate about any of them:
<http://ideashower.posterous.com>

I also have a few currently that I'm slightly more passionate which are not on
the list. But still haven't found The One True Idea. I do know my general area
of interest, though, which is e-learning, personal development, and skill
acquisition.

In hindsight, several of "my" ideas have been turned into workable startups
(example off the top of my head: Verbling).

I think I have two main challenges:

1) I'm too critical of my ideas.

2) I have a hard time getting started and evaluating my ideas. I would like to
be able to create quick mock-ups of lots of ideas and test them quickly
against the market.

My strengths:

1) Lots of ideas, very creative

2) Technical skills (programmer)

3) Already have a team in place around the world and locally + lots of
potential team mates who I trust

4) Already have execution/management experience on a project (Interesting
Times Magazine) - sure, it's not software but I'm still VERY familiar with the
entrepreneurial emotion roller-coaster

All in all, this new stance from Y Combinator is giving me some hope for the
future. Now I just need to sit down and write a good pitch. How would you guys
rate my chances? Any tips?

~~~
sumit_psp
I think you should research a bit after coming up with an idea. For a lot of
ideas I see in your website, there are existing solutions(which is not
surprising, since I assume you haven't really delved a lot into it).

I have experienced it a lot while doing projects; starting with something i
thought was cool, did a bit of research couldn't find anything similar, worked
on it for a couple of weeks, then finding out the product does exist in the
market already.

Overall, I think you have a really creative mind and should start working on
some of your ideas, to make best use of it :).

~~~
itmag
_Overall, I think you have a really creative mind and should start working on
some of your ideas, to make best use of it :)._

Me too :) I just need to partner up with someone who is more grounded and has
the mindset of testing everything. I live too much in my intuition and
ideaspace.

------
dbul
It would be great if YC did more of these kinds of experiments that could be
to their benefit.

For example, there are people who would pay to be part of YC and also fall in
the gray area where it seems they aren't bad investments but it isn't clear
that they are likely good investments. A handful of those people may be
invited to participate in YC with the exception that their investment is
conditional: a don rag would be held half-way through, and if they weren't
doing considerably well, they would be cut (otherwise, they would earn the
investment).

An argument against that example may be that the applicant ought to prove
worthiness beforehand, but that's just the point: maybe all the applicant
needs is the right environment (YC) to dominate.

"One might be tempted simply to take the best individuals and ignore the
other. However, that would lead to a quick loss of diversity. Those
individuals currently not doing as well as the others may have properties that
will prove superior in the long run." _Understanding Intelligence (ch. 8.2 /
pg. 239; Pfeifer & Scheier)_

------
sblackett
Hackers are not the sole proprietors of provocative and disruptive thought. Is
it unreasonable to consider that a non-tech visionary could be the catalyst
for the next tech breakthrough? Vision, the ability to translate it into code
and create a scalable product may be rare indeed. The failure rate of startups
bears this out - do startups fail because an inability to implement, or an
inability to see a novel idea that will truly change the world? The "no idea"
application may illustrate the need for tech to become open to the possibility
that brilliant code does not define innovation and that hackers may have
become "too close" to the problems to see them on a larger scale outside the
tech community. PG has said, "How can you see the wave, when you're the
water?" Has the proliferation of tech startups resulted in hackers becoming
the water? I applaud the "no idea" application and the possibility that what
those gifted coders may need is a non-tech visionary that can still see the
waves.

------
marcamillion
The form doesn't work for me. When you go to the 'no-idea' landing page -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/apply-noidea> \- you are then sent to the regular
application form - <http://news.ycombinator.com/s2012form>

Is it broken or am I missing something?

~~~
yaliceme
If you have previously edited the regular form using this username, the link
will direct you to the regular form. To see the "no idea" form, logout of your
regular username, follow the link, and create a temporary username/password.

FYI, the "no idea" form is exactly the same as the regular form, except it is
missing 18 questions that are idea-specific.

------
cinquemb
YC is seen as a leader because they do things like this, however i think other
people are catching on to what it means to be get more success from start ups.

I did apply to YC but i changed my mind and erased everything. Not because i
wasn't confident in my idea, or anything on YC's part (i think at least) but
just pure numbers: too many people know about it so even for the brilliant
ideas (or people) that get through, even more would be left out.

Sure i may be taking myself out of the race before its started, but i've
applied to some other places around the country that seem to offer the same
type of quality (more money,more impressive informatics resources), even one
not to far from where i live (midwest) which is awesome (especially since its
the first year for it) Always been a risk taker and i like my chances else
where.

Besides we should be spreading this throughout the world and not just hoarding
it in SV =)

------
ghshephard
Interestingly enough, there is already a tradition in the valley of doing this
with VCs. It's called the "EIR" program, standing for "Entrepreneur in
Residence." Basically, the VC pays for people with a proven track record
(Former COOs, CEOs, CTOs, Principal Engineers, etc..), a salary to evaluate
startups and business ideas that come their way, and, on occasion, get
involved with them - sometimes as managers, or contributors, but also quite
often to reboot them under the auspices of the VC. In general, these EIRs of
the "reboots" consider themselves closely akin to being "Founders" - though
their equity stakes are usually somewhat less, but, at the same time, they
usually have a guaranteed round of funding from the supporting VC.

What YC is doing, (particularly with the guaranteed convertible) is extending
this concept to people (presumably) somewhat earlier in their career.

------
Toddward
We've heard/read countless stories of YC companies pivoting, but I can't find
any hard data on it. I'd be curious to know what the pivot rate is for YC
portfolio companies during their funding cycles; given this change, it would
seem that the rate is high-ish, but I'd hate to presume anything.

Just curious.

------
seagreen
Some of this has already been said by michaelf below, but you do realize that
you're getting into the education market, right? I realize there have been
elements of this even from the beginning of Y Combinator, but just because a
change is gradual doesn't mean it's not important.

That's not to say it's a bad move. Education is one big, slow target screaming
"make money off me!" There's also a really big chance to help people at the
same time, which is of course a nice overlap. But some of the dangers that
make elementary schools suck, and high schools suck, and both American and
foreign colleges suck will be waiting for you as well. Education has an
impressive record as an institution-killer.

So be careful. We like you guys, and it would hurt to see you go down when you
started out so well.

------
toddnessa
Personally, I think this is great because it has at least the potential to be
used for allowing for the pairing of applicants together. This could be great
for those out there who are looking for a team of other like-minded
individuals to work with but are having a difficult time locating individuals
who not only possess the qualifications needed (technical skills, etc.)but are
entrepreneurially minded & adventurous enough to invest their time and
energies into a project that (like any other startup) has no guarantees. This
could really help some of those of us out there with purpose, vision & great
ideas looking for someone trustworthy individuals of various needed skills to
team up with us and together bring those ideas to life.

------
axiom
I would think that the type of person who would succeed in the startup world
is one who would come up with an ad-hoc idea in order to do a startup, rather
than the type of person who wouldn't do a startup because they couldn't think
of an idea.

Anyway, it's an interesting experiment.

~~~
brk
I'll give you an alternate viewpoint...

I've been involved in a lot of companies, I can code, do (simple) multi-layer
PCB layout, server-admin, tons of real-world business experience, can go in
cold to a group of hundreds of people and present almost any topic and manage
positive or negative audience feedback under pressure.

I have an idea (submitted in the past, denied, still working on it though)...
But, YC might frankly have a BETTER idea for me. Or together we might be able
to identify an exploitable market.

I see this as kind of YC's version of an EIR, and frankly I think it's cool
and will likely produce several successful projects.

------
xiaomei
Today there are many more startup accelerators than five years ago.
MassChallenge and Start-Up Chile offer mentoring and seed cash without taking
equity stakes in founders' companies. Instead these accelerators are
attracting talent to their area: Boston and Chile in these cases.

Is it fair to say that YC has decided to step up their offering by guiding
founders through the idea brainstorming session? Instead of playing the
bidding game of taking smaller equity stakes or coughing up more cash, YC has
decided to give founders something much more valuable: an idea. It is always
refreshing to see companies focus on innovating the product and not the
pricing. Kudos to YC! I expect other accelerators to follow through.

------
gwillis13
I'm conflicted by this slightly. On one hand I see it as a great idea for
great minds to come together, and on the other hand like it was mentioned,
this seems to create a lot of additional "noise". Meaning more applications
that require reviewing over others with solid ideas.

What are exactly the merits to determine "good" untested founders?

My other question is, which has been eating at me slightly is the trend of the
startups I have seen come from Y Combinator being "extremely" similar to each
other. Of course there is going to be overlap, but even the backgrounds of
founders are largely similar creating this trend of "hive" mind ideologies for
startups. Is this intentional?

Overall, I'm curious to see how it will turn out either way.

------
distanlo
The converse of this is interesting to me as well. Now someone with an idea
and not necessarily all the hacker chops could apply. The idea being that you
pair up the product person with an idea with a technical team that applied
(but had no idea).

------
JVIDEL
I'm not offended nor mad about this, but I don't know if this is going to work
out well. There are good ideas, bad ideas and terrible ideas. Terrible ideas
can't be successful no matter what (startup)dream team is behind it, and bad
ideas are the kind that only a black swan event can change into a successful
business.

Also consider that while some "ideas" are the classic "twitter for dogs" or
some other improvised nonsense others are actually very elaborated and go far
beyond the idea and into the "concept" stage. That a concept gets thrown into
the garbage bin together with all the dull "twitter for X" ideas is very
demeaning to all the teams that spent a long time working on that.

And speaking of teams, is very VERY difficult to build one let alone keep it
together without an actual goal (idea->concept->objective). Is next to
impossible to keep things going when every session can be summed up as "any
ideas?", the sound of crickets and no actual work. I don't know where you guys
are but here if you walk into engineering and say "who wants to be in a
startup?" followed by "there's no idea yet" you are not going to get the 10X
engineers there, not even the 1Xs. The only ones paying attention will be the
CS101 guys, and not the ones that learned Ruby by themselves but the ones that
don't even know what PHP is yet.

Ideas keep the group together, give the team an actual goal rather than a
_vague outcome_ (eg: "we're going to be rich!"). Many like to talk about
failed startups, but they rarely mention that the startups that fail the most
are those founded by wantrepreneurs with no idea, no concept, very little
knowledge and only one clear objective: make lots of money. What's the
problem? you're not making any money by just _wishing_ , you need an actual
product that gains traction, and then a coherent business plan that actually
works (or will work but in that case you better have lots of investors
friends).

I don't mind YC is doing it but I think they should change their strategy: 3
months is a very short time to come up with a decent non-half-baked idea
considering you also have to <execute it> which is a nice way of summing up
all the actual work you'll have to do to get your product out there.

------
6ren
It's a talent acquisition.

    
    
      Your idea is important too, but mainly as evidence that you can have good ideas.
    

That's an important talent. <http://ycombinator.com/apply.html>

------
joeyespo
Since its been discovered, then consistently reinforced that people are the
indicators of success, I wonder if you can go one step further and train
someone to be a good founder. I do believe these characteristics can be
taught.

It would be interesting to see some kind of startup bootcamp emerge. For those
who want more in life, but don't quite know how to get there, or don't yet
have the confidence to do it themselves. Even better, you'd come out of it
pretty well connected with others in such a program. Even more so if YC was
involved.

Though perhaps the best way to get involved is still to work for an early-
stage startup, if you can take the risk.

------
helen842000
I think this is a great idea.

I personally don't have one all consuming idea that I'd choose to apply with
and that has stopped me applying in the past.

I have many ideas, all of equal interest & potential, each compliments a
different side to my personality/experience.

The idea of running these ideas past the YC team for their input would be
amazing!

I could imagine that a team with a single-minded focus on one idea would have
more difficulty changing aim if it were suggested they pivot.

I think the 'no-idea-yet' teams that get chosen will be steered well by the YC
team. They'll have a much more objective view on their business and will
follow head not heart.

I'm also glad they'll consider single founders :)

------
chollida1
So what will be the plan for these people?

If they've known each other for, say 10 years, and still don't have a startup
idea they want, it seems like it will take more than 3 months, I think that's
the Y combinator length, to get an idea that they are truly passionate about.

Note, I'm sure that smart people can come up with many ideas in 3 months, it's
the becoming passionate about it part that I have a hard time seeing.

I'm guessing that people become truly passionate about say 5 -10 things in
their lives, it seems odd to suspect that they'll come across the idea in such
a short time and then be able to act on it in time to take advantage of Y
combinator.

What am I missing?

------
Mc_Big_G
I'm also surprised at the negativity. If you have an idea in isolation, that
you haven't tried to validate yet, what evidence so you have that it's
worthwhile? At the very least, YC has heard a lot of ideas and, presumably,
are better at spotting the ones without potential. So, if you have a good
enough team, they can coax ideas out of you and then steer you toward the best
one. You probably have a good idea and just don't know it, possibly because of
the "schlep" blinder that pg has talked about. I get the impression people are
angry that they can't be mediocre and get in on the merit of their idea.

------
motoford
I think a far more common problem is deciding _which_ idea to pursue. It takes
a lot of work, research, and magic to decide which one.

Being able to work out the viability of 5 or 10 ideas with the resources of YC
would be very compelling.

------
zhyder
"We'll consider single founders too, but we prefer groups"

I'm surprised you're willing to consider single founders at all. No team, no
idea/product... what's left?

(Disclaimer: I've applied many times as a single founder and have gotten
justifiably rejected.)

~~~
emmett
Imagine, for a thought experiment, that you were running YC and Mark
Zuckerberg came and said "I am done with Facebook. I want to do YC but I don't
have an idea right now."

You would feel pretty stupid turning him down right? It's a reasonable bet
that whatever he did next would also be successful. At the very least you'd be
scared to bet strongly against him.

There are many people who, while not being so famous, have accomplishments and
abilities of some kind which could inspire a similar feeling.

That's who.

------
rjurney
How long until you get where you're going: making seed funding a credit card
application? A web form with supporting documents, a video, scan social
networks, cut a check. Or better yet, a check card.

Announcing the Y Combinator Amex...

------
akurilin
I'm wondering if the founders' share of equity is different compared to if the
YCombinator partners were not only very impressed by the team, but by their
idea as well. In other words, will having someone else give you ideas "cost
you"?

I think one of the biggest challenges will be founder motivation. I have no
supporting data, but my guess is that you'd be willing to work a lot harder
for an idea that you created based on some issue you were facing in your life.
I think a challenge for YC will be to prevent the founders from feeling like
they're some new sort of contractors, and feel less involved.

------
dwynings
Is it just me that can't view the normal YC app after viewing the "no idea"
app?

------
andrewhillman
This is what I call cranking up the rates. Here comes the bottleneck. Great to
see YC iterate and scale like a software startup should. The haters will say
this is irresponsible but I think it's simply brilliant.

------
jacoblyles
\----- Free startup idea ------

Title: A new kind of advertising company

Synopsis: Startup pays Stanford students to wear t-shirts and sells the ad
space to companies that pays the startup to hand out its t-shirts. Students
must submit evidence of themselves wearing t-shirt to stay on distribution
list.

There are obvious ways to grow (expand to other schools, target advertising by
age or gender, etc.)

The basic value prop is to create new ad space and sell it. Students get free
t-shirts. Advertisers get brand awareness. You get money.

All I ask is that you take me out to lunch once you get off the ground!

Most of my startup ideas tend to be cheeky like this.

~~~
vyrotek
I've seen a few companies try to pull this off and personally knew someone who
also attempted it and failed. Besides the chicken and egg problem they had a
hard time proving to businesses that people were actually wearing the shirts.

~~~
davemel37
I heard of a company that had QR codes on the t-shirts and paid per scan.
(also, if its direct response advertising you can use unique phone numbers,
unique web addresses, and other typical tracking methods.) There is an angle
here if you understand the local printer business. The company I heard about
was going to local jersey printing companies and sponsoring/subsidizing
uniform and jersey printing for local high school sports teams and was working
with brands like RightGuard. By tapping into networks of printers, they could
bring major advertisers on board with real scale.

------
nemik
Given how many companies are being acquired now just for the team to be added
to large-company engineering teams, is this really surprising? How many co's
have Google, Twitter and Facebook acquired just to toss the idea aside and
integrate the dev team? This way Y Combinator can get a few really good people
(who work well together!) for fairly cheap and flip them to a larger company.
It's quite a decent short-term strategy and the cost of acquisition may even
be less for Big Co™ than the recruiters they might normally try going through.

------
castlerobot
I think this is a great idea! This will only increase the amount of
applications YC will get, which is great for the investors but more
competition for the people applying. I expect that the quality of startups
next round will be even higher than usual.

I hope YC is fair in their judging. I'd hate for them to accept a non-idea
applicant over a more capable team who applied with a mediocre idea, just for
the sake of seeing if the non-idea experiment works out.

They're pros though, so I'm sure that whatever format they come up with will
be fair for everyone who applies.

------
pnathan
Hi pg et al.,

I'm not at a point where YC is feasible for me (so I won't be applying), but I
think this is a great idea which could lead to some very unforeseen ignition
of sweet stuff.

If it was feasible for me, I would apply.

------
Mc_Big_G
I have the prefect co-founder with a visa issue, so I'll just ask it straight.
Can someone with an h1b, who has already started the green card process, be a
co-founder in a YC company?

~~~
pbiggar
YC doesnt care about visa issues. You have a lot more than most people, visa-
wise.

Good founders are resourceful. You'll make the visa stuff work, because you'll
have to.

That said, it is a risk. If your cofounder quits, he may have to leave the
country, and may not get back in on visa waiver since he has shown intent to
emigrate.

So go ahead and apply to YC. They wont even ask about visas. But talk to a
lawyer now, so you can get started on making this work.

------
codex
This works out well for all parties. There are a lot of people out there who
are in love with the idea of working on a startup more than they have passion
to make their particular vision a reality. And YC realizes that they're
basically playing a numbers game, and so they need to get more meat for the
grist--both to boost profits and for the network effects of the YC
brand/experience. At the dirt cheap prices they pay for equity, it's a no
brainier.

~~~
pron
Ooh, that's harsh. But I don't think that's the case at all, as that would be
playing the short con. Too much of that and YC's brand will erode. The
network-effect can carry companies pretty far but not far enough - they need
to find companies with true intrinsic potential, so I don't think they're
trying to take more risk at this point.

------
sn0wBuM
This is very exciting. If experience points to the hypothesis that this could
work, it has to be worth at least trying. At the very least, YC will learn a
lot. At best, YC will be thought leaders in creating a new way to approach and
angel/seed investing. I don't see how anyone could think this is a bad idea to
try for at least one YC season.

------
nchuhoai
I think the bottom line is that pg et. al have proven that they can fish out
the best from the best and trying out new things is certainly part of their
success.

From a personal side note, I wonder how that affects applications with ideas?
I mean pg said, that its already what they are doing, but the two track
application makes me wondering

------
jvandenbroeck
YC is really moving into the direction of some kind of university where they
pay you to learn, interesting evolution

------
cynusx
Not being able to come up with an idea seems to be contradictory to the prior
observation that founders needed to be 'endlessly resourceful'?

Recognizing pain points and opportunities seem a vital entrepreneurial skill
to me, but then again there's no harm in applying the scientific process to
verify assumptions.

~~~
why-el
That if you equate resourceful with having ideas.

~~~
jarek
He said being able to come up with an idea, not having ideas.

------
chittis
The teams accepted would be under tremendous pressure to find an idea after
being accepted. If they can resist the temptation to start working on an idea
they are only moderately passionate about, just because the clock is ticking,
this experiment should succeed. Folks at YC can help with this.

------
juiceandjuice
What if we'd like to be part of a group?

Hmmm, maybe I should just hack a yc group matcher website together real
quick...

------
PostOnce
For some of us, I'm sure, it's not that we have no ideas, it's that we are
perhaps too dismissive of the good ideas we have. The pursuit of perfection
can leave you not only without perfection, but without a product at all,
sometimes.

------
aidenn0
My intuition would be that this is a bad idea. It seems that requiring teams
to bring an idea to the table isn't valuable because of the idea, but rather
because it filters out those too lazy to come up with an idea.

------
dm8
Out of curiosity, how many groups (without an idea) are you going to fund?

------
coryl
I think this is a neat experiment and should help to answer the question as to
whether or not entrepreneurs are "made" or "born".

Personally I think most things in life can be learned, entrepreneurship
included.

------
chacham15
My question is how does this affect acceptance? I.e. you say that you accept
about 3% of applicants. Are you now going to, in addition, accept another
percent for the no-idea?

------
alabut
PG - the post only mentions groups, so are you open to solo founder types
applying as well? They're probably more likely to be non-hackers that need a
team, like designers.

~~~
ryanwhitney
Yep, second paragraph says:

"We'll consider single founders too, but we prefer groups."

------
robomartin
How about funding larger ideas and helping build teams?

There are lots of ideas that just can't be approached sensibly with $15K over
the summer. And, frankly, you might be missing out on founders that are not 22
years-olds and who cannot live on noodles for the summer.

There are probably tons of really smart people out there in their 30's, 40's
and beyond that have a solid foundation of experience to offer. They may not
have a bunch of 20-something college buddies available to them to live on
noodles and soft drinks over the summer either.

Your approach pretty much excludes this entire ecosystem of candidates and
ideas. Maybe this simply isn't your model, and that's OK.

------
alexro
This is definitely a change in the startup scene. If successful, other
incubator will start copying it, making the whole experience better for
founders. Good stuff.

------
moe
Brilliant move, imho.

It's almost the hollywood model; cast people and ideas (scripts)
independently, then bring them together, seed with money, and hope to strike a
blockbuster.

------
dgunn
Have any groups ever tried this before now and succeeded? As in, they filled
out the application, indicated that they had no idea yet, and got accepted?

------
mikeleeorg
The implications of this experiment will be very fascinating. If successful, I
wonder how this will change the investment patterns of other investors.

------
brosephius
For all the times I've seen people on HN say "ideas are worthless", you would
think HN would love this. I myself think it's a great experiment.

------
doug1001
i've never applied to YC because of course the bar was always too high; but
now i'm comfortable i satisfy their admission criterion.

------
cfontes
I have an Idea, and Alpha going to Beta real state site that might work very
well and a Co-founder...

BUT... I live in Brazil, so no YC for me :(

------
jpwagner
*Bug:

Currently if a user visits the apply-noidea link, that user can only see the
noidea application (eg, they cannot apply with an idea).

------
ChristianMarks
Well, this should shift the burden from evaluating the applicant's ideas and
the applicants to evaluating the applicants.

------
switz
What if one has plenty of ideas, but they're not sure which one to pursue?
Would this be the proper channel to apply to?

~~~
gwillis13
Actually no. The original application has a place for you to talk about any
other ideas you may have.

So pick one you feel slightly stronger about than the others, and then mention
the others in the application.

The idea pg is implementing is for people with "zero" idea of what they want
to do.

------
YuriNiyazov
Would you allow a team to defer until the winter cycle if they applied without
an idea and were accepted?

------
geoffc
Wow! Powerful validation of the value of the team vs. the idea. Game changing
move by YC.

------
gfodor
interesting. reminds me of the old adage things should be as simple as
possible, but not simpler. is this _too_ simple? looking forward to seeing the
results.

------
psawaya
What would the in-person interview focus on, if not an idea?

------
ArcticCelt
If I remember correctly reddit founders originally applied with some mobile
app idea and even if their idea was rejected they got in anyway. I wonder if
there is many more cases like this.

~~~
arjunnarayan
Did you even read the article? The Reddit anecdote is _in_ the third
paragraph.

~~~
mdg
i wonder if YC would ever consider funding startups without a clear idea

------
rjurney
Announcing the Y Combinator Amex:
<http://datasyndrome.com/post/19274060089/y-combinator-amex>

------
Tycho
Heck, why not just have a graudate scheme.

------
bhousel
How will the interviews work?

------
signalsignal
This would have been clever on April 1, but I guess this is serious. ;)

~~~
brk
Of course it's serious, and it's not (IMO) massively different from VC's that
have EIR's, essentially founders just looking for the right "idea" to come
along.

------
yaliceme
I think this is an interesting experiment, and definitely in line with the
idea that YC funds people, not ideas. I do think it will create a lot more
work for the partners during review and interviews, but presumably they have
taken this into consideration.

If I had to make a prediction, I'd guess that this will greatly increase the
number of people who apply, given that the abbreviated option is "easier,"
having omitted many of the questions that require the most consideration/
research/ field experience. To a lesser extent, it will probably also increase
the number of interviews granted, as there will be some impressive-sounding
teams who might otherwise have embarrassed themselves somehow on the "harder"
application questions.

However, I anticipate that a much higher percentage of people will be cut at
the interview stage than in previous years, assuming YC is selecting for the
same quality. I imagine it’s hard to judge a team’s merit by the application
alone, and the “no idea” application will make it harder still by presenting
less “data” about these applicants. I’ve heard a YC alum describe the idea-
related questions as an “intelligence test,” so even if the idea is not itself
important, it does serve a role in filtering applicants. So the interview will
become even more important than it already is.

Overall, though, I think this approach will yield a bigger class than if teams
were _required_ to apply with an idea, and I believe that’s good for everyone.
If this new approach yields even a few hits that might not otherwise have been
considered, it will be a big win for YC. The applicants benefit from a bigger
network, and although the “acceptance rate” will probably be much lower, I
doubt it will be much harder for a given qualified team to be selected under
this new approach. It may even become slightly easier, on average.

TL;DR version - wider net --> bigger class despite a lower “acceptance rate”

For reference, below are the specific questions that appear in the "regular"
form, but are omitted from the "no idea" form. Everything else is _exactly_
the same:

\- Company name

\- Company URL, if any

\- YC usernames of all founders, including you, who will live in the Bay Area
June through August if we fund you. (Again, that's usernames, not given
names.)

\- What is your company going to make?

\- If this application is a response to a YC RFS, which one?

\- Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this
area? How do you know people need what you're making?

\- What's new about what you're making? What substitutes do people resort to
because it doesn't exist yet (or they don't know about it)?

\- Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear
most?

\- What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just
don't get?

\- How do or will you make money? How much could you make? (We realize you
can't know precisely, but give your best estimate.)

\- If you've already started working on it, how long have you been working and
how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written?

\- How far along are you? Do you have a beta yet? If not, when will you? Are
you launched? If so, how many users do you have? Do you have revenue? If so,
how much? If you're launched, what is your monthly growth rate (in users or
revenue or both)?

\- If you have an online demo, what's the url? (Please don't password protect
it; just use an obscure url.)

\- How will you get users? If your idea is the type that faces a chicken-and-
egg problem in the sense that it won't be attractive to users till it has a
lot of users (e.g. a marketplace, a dating site, an ad network), how will you
overcome that?

\- If you're already incorporated, when were you? Who are the shareholders and
what percent does each own? If you've had funding, how much, at what
valuation(s)?

\- If you're not incorporated yet, please list the percent of the company you
plan to give each founder, and anyone else you plan to give stock to. (This
question is as much for you as us.)

\- Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your founders? If
so, how can you safely use it? (Open source is ok of course.)

\- If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them.
One may be something we've been waiting for. Often when we fund people it's to
do something they list here and not in the main application.

------
wavephorm
The world is full of so many possibilities, and so many broken half-baked
solutionss, that if you can't think up anything at all I question if you have
the creativity and desire to really create a successful technology business.

------
shingen
Great call. The people you're funding are worth a lot more than the money
they're being given. Ideas being a dime a dozen, you're obviously funding the
people more than anything else.

------
mikeklaas
Hrmph. Startups are a means, not an end.

