

How's your YC Winter 2008 application coming along? - wonjun

We finished the first draft of the application questionnaire, and we implemented about half of the features we'd like to show in our demo.<p>We are a team of two awesome cofounders, and our idea is not technically heavy. <p>How's your application coming along?
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npk
Sounds like you're moving along quite nicely. I realized that I will not
finish my PhD in time for the deadline, so it's been postponed 1/2 a year.

At one point, I toyed with the idea of submitting, just to receive feedback,
but thought it would be somewhat unethical. Good luck all.

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zach
Okay... hey, what did you get for #6?

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wonjun
Do you mean this #6, "What is your company going to make?" lol

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jsjenkins168
Anyone applying again who was previously turned down? I am also curious of
what YC's opinion is of groups who would like to re-apply?

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nostrademons
I am. Rejected SFP05 and SFP07, hopefully 3rd time will be the charm...

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wonjun
What happened after rejections? Have you ever launched your products after
being rejected?

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nostrademons
After SFP05, I took a realistic look at the product and my ability to complete
it before competitors did and decided not to pursue it. I took a job with
another startup instead, first finishing up a long-time volunteer coding
project I'd been working on. It turns out the product (web-based collaborative
editing) would've had a market, but I probably would have been crushed by
Google. They folded similar features into Google Docs not long afterwards.

After SFP07, we continued working on it. We launched a side project
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16234> and
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18233>) and put about a month of effort
into that before deciding it wasn't worthwhile. We also launched an
intermediate milestone that we'd mentioned in our application, which is linked
in my profile. It's had the same lack of success that we predicted, though I
was of course hoping that there may be an off-chance of it taking off. (We did
it that way because we need the functionality anyway for the main idea, so
might as well package it up and get feedback while we work on that.)

Well, some subset of "we". We had applied with 5 founders, and PG immediately
shot back an e-mail with "too many uncommitted founders!" It became apparent
that he was right, so the 3 that were not really into it left a couple months
later.

Curiously, our schedule in the SFP07 app would've been nearly dead-on had we
not done the 5-week side project. We were initially planning to launch Diffle
in late April; it actually launched on June 1. Then we were going to prototype
the main idea between then and the start of the SFP; we actually got our first
prototypes done during the first week of July. Progress since then has been
slower than we anticipated, mostly because I kept the day job through the
summer (I'm in the process of quitting now, and really would recommend that
anyone in a similar situation quit as soon as they have an idea - it's not
worth the hassle of ensuring you own your own IP).

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wonjun
wow thanks a lot for sharing your stories. I think the 3rd time will be the
charm for you. It sounds like you've learned a lot from the two previous
submissions.

Good luck!!!

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queensnake
(Indeed, it makes me want to apply just for the process! I have an open-source
idea, didn't PG say he could monetize anything? It would grow in use as word
spread (pretty sure) but ultimately wouldn't get that big and would be hard to
make anything off of.. sigh).

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NoMoreSnow
The application process has taken us longer than I thought it would because it
has made us question whether there really is a market for the idea. Yes, it
does help to solve a problem, but we don't have a working product to get user
feedback.

So for the past couple of weeks I've set the application aside and have
focused on administering a market survey, so most of my time has been on the
right wording for the test.

Hopefully with the help of social networks, email, WOM, etc... We'll be able
to get a large enough sample to help us understand if we're heading in the
right direction. If so, we'll submit our application with the survey results.

I am sure, though, that upon reading the questions, the person taking the
survey will know quite easily what our start-up will be doing... which can be
good and bad. Our positive spin on this is the survey will be our public
declaration that we are up to something.

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staunch
IMHO your application would look _much_ better with a prototype than a market
survey attached.

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waleedka
I'm experimenting with a couple of ideas to see if one has potential. If so, I
might consider applying in October. I've received lunch invites from a couple
of investors to chat further, but I don't need the money yet. I believe that I
should take investment only after I feel confident that the idea has a good
chance of success. I can experiment with ideas on my own; it's much faster and
I can change direction quickly if something doesn't look like it's working. If
I do apply to YC, it'll be for the community and the support, not the money.

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wonjun
I think you should defintely apply. YC application process in itself is
another way to experiment and get feedback.

and how did you get lunch invites from investors? That sounds very promising.

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waleedka
I simply attended a lot of hacker/tech networking events to meet other
entrepreneurs hoping to find a co-founder. And in the process, I met a lot of
other people, some of whom turned out to be investors or working for
investors. I also met many good entrepreneurs with good ideas, but none (yet)
with an idea that has good enough potential (in my opinion) to commit myself
to for the next few years. I'm still searching, but until then, I will
continue to experiment.

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Leon
I already submitted my application before I finished my prototype, which I now
have to get done before the deadline. I'm trying to use this as really strong
motivation to just finish the prototype instead of waiting until feature
creep, polish, etc. is completed before submitting. I'll resubmit once the
prototype is minimally functional. My biggest problem is being a single
founder; pg said he usually doesn't accept them so I'm probably dead.

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cperciva
I sent an email asking to withdraw my application (I doubt it would be
accepted anyway; but it turns out that I'm going to be busy on the "fly to
Cambridge" weekend, and I don't want to waste their time) last week. I haven't
seen any response, but I assume that someone reads the info@ address and has
removed my application from their stack of reading materials.

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Tichy
Wouldn't it have been easier to resubmit the application with all fields
blanked out, except for one with the explanation?

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staunch
I'm not submitting an application, but my partner and I have copied it to
Google Docs and filled it out for our own use. It turns out all our discussion
meant when we wrote it down we were already 95% on the same page. It's still
very useful as a way to refresh my memory, like pitching the idea to myself.

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henning
It isn't. I'm a wage slave for now.

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brianmckenzie
I'm drafting my application now, but will probably not submit unless I have a
solid prototype by the deadline.

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Mistone
its going great, hope to have it submitted by the weekend. last term was going
to be too hectic.

This round the timing feels right!

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nreece
:) Enslaved

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daniel-cussen
Will learn to program first.

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gibsonf1
We're working on it now. :)

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adnam
If only I had a co-founder.

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nickb
You have to be more proactive in your search. Have you ever posted to any of
the numerous "I need a cofounder" threads? Have you blogged about it? Have you
discussed anything that interests you with any of the people who comment on
here? Has anyone's comment or story they posted interested you? Why not email
them? Most people have emails in their profiles.

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mattmaroon
I'm always skeptical about approaching the cofounder process that way. I
wouldn't recommend doing this with someone you don't know very well. It will
strain the bonds of friendship, without that, it's a crapshoot.

