Tell HN: Today is the last day to apply to Y Combinator - rer
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tyre
As a recent alumnus (S16), I encourage everyone to apply.

Not as good as past companies? Apply.

Don't see any companies like you? Apply.

Don't see other founders that look like you? Apply.

You're not quite ready and just need a few more months to polish things up?
Apply.

Too big for YC? Apply.

Your company is starting to maybe figure things out, but also secretly kind of
fucked up, but you think maybe you can pull it together and apply when you're
a well-oiled machine like No Startup Ever? Apply.

Even the application process itself is helpful to learn the metrics you should
be tracking and to get used to talking about your company.

~~~
3pt14159
I'm sure YC is great, but I don't think everyone should apply. It's a waste of
time if you're seasoned and it leaks your business plans to a lot of well
connected, moneyed people. The other side of the "never ask for an NDA" coin
is "don't needlessly share your plans with people you don't know or trust".

If you think you'll get in - apply - it's obviously the best out there; but
don't drink the punch.

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leroy_masochist
Would be interesting to see a histogram of % acceptance rate for YC applicants
by number of weeks before deadline -- 0-1 week, 1-2 weeks, etc, up to when
applications are opened.

~~~
d--b
Yes! Also, it would be interesting to see a histogram of who gets in by the
time in the day that the application was reviewed. Or by "time since last meal
of reviewer" :)

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rsmsky1
I thought of this idea recently. Something to connect voters with people
living in swing states. So that they could use the address of those people to
go vote. For instance PA is very close to NY and Nevada is very close to CA,
and so on. So people could vote in near by states where their vote would make
a difference once they got the address of someone in a swing state. Because
you can't register to vote using a po box or private mail box.

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buro9
I came up with an idea yesterday, perhaps someone can do something with it as
my life isn't at a place where I would do YC right now and applying today
would be a bit short notice... but if you wanted to apply, and were looking
for a strong idea, maybe this is it.

What is it?

\- A tithe manager.

Tithes are a historical donation of a % of earnings to charity, many religions
have this but many non-religious people donate to charity too on an equally
regular basis. The monthly amount is fairly consistent but sometimes one may
wish to vary the amount that goes to which causes.

What this company will do:

\- Act as an intermediary between donors and charities

\- Encourage people to give more to charity (help with accounting of donations
and claiming of tax relief as applicable)

\- Help charities to be discovered by donors

What the company's product would do:

\- Receive the whole amount to be donated each period

\- Pay each charity according to the donor preferences (this much here, that
much there)

\- Provide end-of-year reporting for government tax claims, and instructions
on how to claim, or auto-filing if it makes sense (where govts allow this
claim to be filed separately)

\- Allow the donor to change these figures easily, i.e. during the Ebola
crisis I put a higher % of my tithe towards Medicins Sans Frontiers.

\- Provide alerts on crises

\- Provide marketing services to charities (to help be discovered, but also to
keep existing donors informed of what their donation is doing)

Size of market: In the UK alone, some GBP 14BN is donated by individuals
annually.

Benefit to donor: In the UK, for every £100 donated via a Gift Aid registered
charity, the charity will receive an extra £25 and if you are a higher rate
taxpayer you are eligible for £25 in tax relief. The vast majority of these
donors never claim their tax relief and do not realise how far their donations
go nor that this would only really have been a £75 donation for a £125 gain
for the charity.

Benefit to charity: Reduced marketing costs, know who your donors are, able to
react at times of crises, increased revenue.

That's the idea, to handle payments and manage donor accounting such that
donors can be encouraged to give more, and charities can do more.

~~~
Lordarminius
Its a cool idea. Do people actually provision a fixed amount yearly for all
their charities? I suppose the intermediary makes money by taking a percentage
(5 percent?) of the donated amount? Is there something I am missing? One would
not really need YC to implement this

~~~
buro9
One would not need YC for many of the things YC supports, but the mentoring,
dinners, intensity, those things help deliver and make a success.

And I have operated a 10% on net earnings since forever. Well, since I learned
about them at school... from a Sikh friend. It's called Dasvandh in Sikhism,
and is literally 10% and must go to community. Islam has the Zakat,
Christianity the Tithe, and atheists just give (though there isn't as
widespread awareness in predominantly non-religious countries of the habit).

I choose to give to a variety of charities, but things like Open Rights, MSF,
Computers for Africa, etc win out. And of course I consider open source
donations and contributions to be within this.

Mostly... it's static, and one just needs accounting tools. But sometimes it
varies by demand, i.e. Open Street Map request recently, or perhaps a
humanitarian crisis.

Giving individually, direct, makes it hard to make adjustments as a reaction
to urgent things like that. One cannot just cancel and renew standing orders
easily, most charities wish to own the whole thing (naturally, as they want to
have a base revenue guaranteed), but this actually makes it harder for donors
to give more at times and makes it harder for donors to give more regularly
(if they may need to make adjustments).

5% is too much, I'd probably suggest barely 1% on the payment processing.
Instead it's services to charities that would produce the revenue, and fees to
donors when you help get their tax return sorted, after all you would know
that you helped them claim back a certain figure. There's obviously a lot of
money there, but the business model would have to be worked on to make sure it
didn't discourage giving.

~~~
Lordarminius
I see the potential quite clearly. Sounds like something I'd like to do.

Mind if I send you an email?

~~~
buro9
Feel free, it's on my profile.

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koolba
Any stats on applicant apply date relative to the deadline and the acceptance
rate?

I've heard that earlier applications give more time for alums (who review
submissions) to check out the demos. On the flip side, spending more time on
polishing the application could help as well.

~~~
tyre
Don't think too much about that. Just build an amazing product that users love
and the rest takes care of itself.

~~~
koolba
I'm not asking from an applicant's perspective. I've got no interest in
applying.

I'm asking out of pure curiosity.

