
Ask HN: Pick startups for YC to fund - dang
Here at HN HQ we&#x27;ve been wondering: if Hacker News could fund startups, what startups would it fund?<p>Hacker News users have many diverse perspectives on technology and business. Perhaps if HN picked startups, it would pick differently than YC. Maybe different startups would be motivated to apply, if they knew that the interviewing and deciding would be done by the HN community. Interesting things might happen, or they might not. We&#x27;d have to try it and see.<p>I ran this by Sam and he ran it by Kevin and we all got excited, so we&#x27;re going to try this as an experiment. Starting today, there&#x27;s a new track for YC applications: applying directly to the Hacker News community. We&#x27;ll call it &quot;Apply HN&quot;. Note that word experiment! We&#x27;ll start small and figure it out as we go. But here are the initial conditions.<p>YC’s Fellowship program will fund a minimum of 2 startups selected by the HN community for this summer&#x27;s F3 batch. (They name their batches sequentially.) The Fellowship is the YC program that fits best here since it’s designed to be experimental and inclusive and doesn’t require people to move to the Bay Area.<p>All the interviewing and evaluating will be done in regular HN threads, and everyone is welcome to participate. For this summer&#x27;s batch, Apply HN will accept applications starting now and ending April 27.<p>If you&#x27;d like to apply to the HN community for YCF funding, simply post a submission whose title begins with &quot;Apply HN&quot; and explain what your startup does. Hopefully community members will ask you questions and good discussion will ensue.<p>If you&#x27;d like to help pick which startups to fund, simply jump into any Apply HN thread that interests you. Ask questions and post comments that you think will help the community make the best decisions. These will be regular threads, with all the same voting and so on, but with one additional rule: Be Nice.<p>Be Nice is a stronger version of our usual rule, Be Civil. Anybody who applies to HN in public this way is putting both themselves and their baby in a super vulnerable position. We&#x27;re going to rise to the occasion by being not only civil, but nice. When interviewing startups, by all means be curious and probing—but only if you can also be nice. The word &quot;nice&quot; originally meant &quot;not knowing&quot;. Then later it meant &quot;precise and careful&quot;. And now it means &quot;kind and thoughtful&quot;. Let&#x27;s put all those qualities together.<p>At the end of the month, we&#x27;ll rank the startups and YC will fund two. The ranking will depend both on upvotes and on the quality of discussion, similar to how the ranking of stories works. We can talk about this in the comments, but to answer one question I know will come up: Upvotes are an important factor but they&#x27;re too brittle to rely on exclusively; doing so would encourage the wrong kind of trying to game the system. So we&#x27;re going to gauge community interest both by upvotes and comments, and in case of doubt I&#x27;ll make the final call—or better, figure out a way to put the final call to the community.<p>That&#x27;s what we&#x27;re thinking so far. If it seems unstructured, that&#x27;s on purpose: we don&#x27;t want to bias it along the lines of how YC already operates. We want to see what the community comes up with.<p>Questions or suggestions? Let&#x27;s discuss and refine this together.<p>Edit: As discussed below, we&#x27;ll add a top link for these a la &#x2F;ask and &#x2F;show. I won&#x27;t get to that till later, though, so in the meantime, use the following link to find Apply HN discussions: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?query=%22apply%20hn%22&amp;sort=byDate&amp;dateRange=all&amp;type=story&amp;storyText=false&amp;prefix=false&amp;page=0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?query=%22apply%20hn%22&amp;sort=byDate&amp;d...</a><p>Edit 2: Here&#x27;s the link describing how YCF works: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fellowship.ycombinator.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fellowship.ycombinator.com&#x2F;faq&#x2F;</a>. Read it to make sure you&#x27;re eligible. It&#x27;s a lot more flexible than YC Core, but there are still some restrictions.<p>Edit 3: There&#x27;s now a ranked page of applications at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;applyhn" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;applyhn</a>, a complete list at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;applynew" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;applynew</a>, and a random sample at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;applyrand" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;applyrand</a>.
======
kevin
Hey everyone! I manage and run the Fellowship program at YC. I just want to
build on top of what Dan wrote about being nice. We’re not asking you to do
this because we think it’s good manners. We actually believe it’s the right
way to think and act like the best investors.

It’s easy to form some really bad habits when you sit in a position of power
to judge the potential of a person, a team, an idea and their
execution—believing that you know better and focusing your time on finding
weakness.

The best investors don’t spend a lot of time on what can go wrong. They
already know the odds are against every startup that ever comes into
existence. They already know every startup is a shit show. Those will be the
reasons why all the other investors will miss out on an unpredictable
opportunity. The best investors try to figure out what can go right. They
dream a little with the startup and they then sell that vision back to the
founders.

Remember that the big wins in startups come from the margins. For you to find
what no one else could have predicted, know that it will take the shape of
something that isn’t obvious.

Being nice gives you a good foundation for being open and optimistic, which is
what we strive for when we read applications here at YC.

Thanks again for trying this out with us. I'm really excited about what we
discover together.

~~~
minimaxir
For the sake of discussion, I'll offer a counterargument.

Be Nice is a good goal for Apply HN since it promotes civil discussion and
stops the threads from devolving into semantic "lol no https u suck" that some
Show HN threads tend to devolve into.

 _Users are not nice_. They don't comment on HN or Twitter, they just stop
using it without fanfare. And what determine a startup's success in the real
world is if _people want to use it_.

Hindsight is 20/20, yes. But I do have concerns that "Be Nice" may dissuade
commenters/potential customers from pointing out legitimate, immediate flaws.

~~~
dang
> "Be Nice" may dissuade commenters/potential customers from pointing out
> legitimate, immediate flaws.

I don't think HN users are going to have trouble doing that, but there are
different ways to do it, and the nicer ways have the critical property of
opening the discussion further instead of shutting it down.

We HN users are used to thinking of ourselves as the scrappy underdog, calling
out incorrectness and badness with pristine honesty and with no particular
effect on the situation, except occasionally a righteous one like forcing
Google to do customer service. We don't think of ourselves as being in a
position of power, but that's actually an illusion, as many who've walked into
a wasps' nest of critical comments and come out stung can attest.

To me one interesting social aspect of this experiment, quite separate from
who gets funded, is that it unambiguously puts the HN community in a position
of power—a perspective that we're not accustomed to, and which requires
developing different habits (edit: I mean a higher standard of conduct). Maybe
those habits will end up translating to the community as a whole (yay!) Or
maybe they won't show up at all (boo!)—but at least we can all keep reminding
each other to be nicer in these threads.

~~~
raldi
"Hey, this looks really cool, but I notice you guys don't support TLS (i.e.,
if I change the 'http' to 'https', I can't connect). I know you have a million
things on your todo list, but this one is extraordinarily important; your
target users will simply close their browser windows once they see 'http'.
Also, fixing this is easy! Just check out this tutorial [link] .. or let me
know if you have any questions and I'll see if I can help you right here!"

~~~
dang
That's fine, and for those who don't feel so gushy, there's a different thing
you can do: simply re-read your comments and edit out anything that isn't
nice. You can always set 'delay' in your profile to between 1 and 10 minutes
to give yourself some editing time. Mine is 3.

~~~
rl3
> _You can always set 'delay' in your profile to between 1 and 10 minutes to
> give yourself some editing time._

I had always seen this, but never actually looked into what it did. For
someone like me who typically makes a litany of edits immediately after
posting, this is revelatory. Thanks!

For whatever reason, the textbox just isn't as good of a preview when compared
to viewing the actual post.

~~~
dang
> _For whatever reason, the textbox just isn 't as good of a preview when
> compared to viewing the actual post._

I know. Good lord do I know.

~~~
vmorgulis
Is it possible to suggest existing projects (in which I do not participate) ?

I have few in mind like Unicorn engine ([http://www.unicorn-
engine.org/](http://www.unicorn-engine.org/)).

~~~
dang
You mean post them as Apply HNs? No, but you could convince them to apply for
themselves.

~~~
vmorgulis
I mean a "Suggest HN" people can vote for with no obligation to Apply (nor for
YC to do something, like a Show HN).

------
cperciva
_we 're already seeing quite a few Apply HNs, so we'll add a link for those a
la /ask and /show_

Quick poll for the community here: I run Hacker News Daily
([http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/](http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/))
which many people know about; but also Ask HN Weekly
([http://www.daemonology.net/hn-weekly-ask/](http://www.daemonology.net/hn-
weekly-ask/)) and Show HN Weekly ([http://www.daemonology.net/hn-weekly-
show/](http://www.daemonology.net/hn-weekly-show/)). In each case the
methodology is the same: The 10 highest-scoring items which (a) appeared on
relevant "front page" in the day/week in question, (b) and haven't appeared on
a previous Daily/Weekly.

Would people be interested in having an "Apply HN Weekly" set up along similar
lines? It's straightforward for me to copy the scripts and edit a few paths
(once the HN link appears) but there's no point if nobody would want to read
it.

EDIT: I'm seeing lots of upvotes to this comment, which I'm going to assume is
an indication that people would like to see me implement this. If you were
upvoting simply because you wanted to make more people aware that I had a
really lousy idea, please add a comment to disambiguate.

~~~
elliotec
Speaking for myself, I would never ever look at that. I did upvote you though.

------
arihant
I am not very sure about this for a few reasons:

1\. There is _possibly_ several ways to game the upvote system. HN community
is not anonymous, and there are people who have more friends here than others.
A lot of very good founders would probably not have enough friends here. That
_might_ create bias once an Apply HN post reaches first page vs. another.

2\. Participating startups risk facing public bashing while hoping to get
priceless feedback. This happens often here, even unintentionally sometimes.
This also poses a risk that a lot of startups would not be 100% honest in one
way or another to minimize bashing. This is commonplace on Reddit. But this is
not Reddit and any founder cannot forever escape people here. This is an
ecosystem forum which is extremely civil in Show HN (with a few exceptions)
but might not be so when competing for a resource -- the 2 YCF spots. Maybe
Reddit is the way it is because everyone is competing for points.

3\. Publicly applying for funding might step on private financing laws of
several states and nations? It might also be against some by-laws. Would this
constitute a public offer?

Maybe this could be helped better by doing one or more of these:

1\. Apply HN posts should not make it to homepage and should be a separate
section.

2\. The heuristic should not be known publicly of what YC partners are looking
for.

3\. Companies should still be required to fill a YC app before posting. Then
it's a public contest rather than a public offer to sell shares.

This would be interesting for sure!

~~~
dang
We've put a ton of work into HN's anti-gaming software. There's no piece of
code we've worked harder on. We also have a ton of experience looking at
voting data. That's one advantage of keeping this process close to how HN
normally works: that software and experience will apply here.

That's definitely not to say that there won't be new forms of gaming that we
haven't seen before and don't know how to combat. It's a risk. We can mitigate
that risk by emphasizing the quality of discussion in the threads. Experience
has taught that genuine community interest is pretty recognizable. If a post
gets lots of upvotes, but little community interest, or the interest doesn't
seem genuine, HN users will notice, as will we. That should provide a measure
of self-correction, and beyond that, we'll see what happens. If you think you
notice fakery, hn@ycombinator.com is the place to let us know.

~~~
ksou32
He's not talking about someone automating voting, rather imagine if founder A
is a very popular guy in Twitter and YouTube.

He makes a post saying 'Hey support my awesome startup '. Founder B might have
a better idea, but not the followers.

However, Founders A existing popularity may provide a nice userbase for
startup, which would be a key element of success.

Theirs no real way to make this 'fair'

~~~
dang
Ah, perhaps I misread the GP. But I agree that there's no way to control for
all these factors. It would drive one mad to try and probably make consensus
harder to arrive at.

~~~
nickpsecurity
It's worth trying to figure out something as it's a problem here enough people
occasionally leave. It's basically mob or follow-the-leader mentality that
results in reflexive downvotes on hot-topics when dissenting comments appear.
I encountered this when I got into battles with tptacek not knowing he was No
1 or whatever here. I barely care about the popularity or politics as I focus
on getting right info to right people. So, I didn't stop when every comment I
had was being downvoted at once multiple times. (shrugs)

Nonetheless, I still watched it with fascination in a group dynamics sense as
any comment to him had this pattern: a single, nearly-instant downvote (him or
biggest fan); a few more in a short period that grayed my post out; his own
often going gray after a bit longer; mine ungraying; his ungraying hit and
miss; stabilization at anywhere from like -2 to +4. Only happens with fan-
favorite people (eg him), tech (eg Rust/C), or topics (eg anti-VC claims
naturally) here as my other posts consistently get ignored, a few votes (good
or bad), or major upvote for outliers. My net impression was that it
represented mob voting by groups for and against those popular individuals as
I was unestablished here at the time.

I guess what I'm getting at is there's gotta be an overlap between the spikes,
where they're showing up, and who makes them show up. If a negative surge
registers as fan-driven pattern, rather than diverse, then points in the other
direction might counter it. Some fraction of the total fan-driven votes while
ignoring the other votes which were independent. This might stop tyranny of
the majority from making dissenting, but otherwise informative, opinions from
disappearing. Or it could be as simple as noticing the effect, capping number
of negative votes that can come in on that comment/thread, and preventing gray
out. Keeps the numbers honest while achieving same objective. So, those are
just a few ideas to throw around based on what I've seen.

The data also led me to counter the disinformation spread elsewhere that
critiquing these hot people or topics will totally destroy your karma on HN.
I've hit them all and consistently to the point that my account would've
disappeared within 3-5 business days of beginning. ;) So, the mobs are there &
have significant effect that can deter new or less aggressive commenters. Yet,
the moderation & community culture keeps it minimal to point that a mix of
supportive and neutral, informative comments brings in enough upvotes to
easily counter it. Blocking their ability to disappear dissenting comments
upon detecting fan-driven, vote surges might be all it takes.

~~~
striking
It's really not about establishment, except for a particular few people.
Informative opinions that are "out of the norm" will get upvotes, almost
always, as long as they're written in a kind manner. They'll be downvoted
first, and get a massive corrective upvote stream.

I feel like you're looking at commenting wrong here. You're not doing battle
with people. Yes, sometimes you get downvoted "incorrectly", there are always
stray votes in either direction. But I've found that politeness and care have
always received upvotes, no matter what position stood behind them.

Maybe it's... a personal issue? I don't want to insult you, but being overly
combative definitely garners downvotes.

PS: take note that you can't downvote a comment that is in reply to you. :)

~~~
nickpsecurity
"They'll be downvoted first, and get a massive corrective upvote stream."

That's actually exactly what I saw. I wasn't sure if it was a trend or tied to
specific people/topics. So, a trend then.

" But I've found that politeness and care have always received upvotes, no
matter what position stood behind them."

Oh I agree. That's been a good chunk of my karma. There are battle's of the
minds on occasion, though, when people have strong opinions or attachment to
topics. I actually get many upvotes on those but only when I stick to solid
arguments with no personal attacks. I usually include references. Outside
that, what you said about courtesy and facts is the majority of it.

"PS: take note that you can't downvote a comment that is in reply to you. :)"

Never even noticed that! Helps clarify some prior events. Thanks for the tip.

------
minimaxir
Ranking by upvotes/comments seems highly problematic, even with HN's
antibrigade features.

A) There are _many_ external factors that can implicitly cap the number of
upvotes/comments. (time submitted, amount of competition, etc.) HN has repost
rules to alleviate this problem: would Apply HN posts be able to repost too?

B) Not to mention that it encourages sockpuppet voting/commenting, especially
since there is a _high reward_ for doing so.

Product Hunt, for example, thrives on "how can I get exposure for my startup
submission outside of the intrinsic quality of the startup itself?" and it
would be an improper fit for HN.

~~~
dang
I think we're on the same page to some extent. What I meant by 'ranking by
comments' is that we want the ranking to depend on the _quality_ of the
discussion. That's the one thing that can't be faked.

That's how the ranking of HN stories works now. It's a combination of upvotes
and human curation by users (e.g. flagging) and moderators.

So there's going to be some combination of technical and non-technical
factors. How exactly will that work? We don't know yet. Let's see what happens
and figure it out together. That's part of the experiment: we'll figure it out
in the open and adapt to feedback. But let's wait until we have some data to
look at.

FWIW, my experience with HN is that genuine community interest is relatively
easy to recognize.

~~~
mlapeter
Would it be appropriate to ask our users of our startup to and vote for us on
here? If they are invested enough in our service and community to do so, it
seems like that would be a very positive and useful signal in it's own right.
Or would that be considered gaming the votes?

~~~
dang
No, that would be gaming the votes, just as asking them to upvote for a blog
post would be.

------
zaguios
I actually already wrote this as a reply to another comment, but I think it
merits a comment of its own.

The best way to do the scoring for the applications is to actually make it
into somewhat of a game. Each application should be given a starting elo of
1200. Every time a user wants to go and review applications they will be
presented with two separate applications with a similar elo and then will be
asked to vote on which one they think is better. Elo will then be
added/subtracted with normal conditions based on the vote. This system would
very quickly and accurately identify the best applications. I've seen this
done before for other things and it's been proven to be very effective and
prevent almost any sort of bias.

~~~
Kapow
Would this be implemented as only showing pairs within a certain threshold of
difference, or would it choose an application purely at random and then the
application with the closest score (or even 50/50 the next highest or next
lowest)? The former seems like it could lead to cases where applications end
up in a void between clusters and stop appearing in votes, preventing late
voters from giving an opinion on them.

Is there a name for this kind of voting process?

~~~
zaguios
To ensure each application gets the same amount of views (with the exception
of the top ranked and bottom ranked applications) you can pick the next
highest/lowest and it will work out fine. My concern with this implementation
was that it might be possible for the same applications to be compared
multiple times at the high and low ends of the bell curve where elo becomes
more spaced out. A better solution might be internally listing all the
applications by their elo, selecting an application and random, and then
selecting from an application within 5 ranks of itself. I.E. App #342 is
randomly chosen and then an application between #337 and #347 will be randomly
chosen to compare it with. I am not aware of any name for this voting process.

Each potential implementation has slightly better/worse corner cases, but the
general quality of the ranking should still be extremely accurate regardless
of the particular implementation. It takes surprisingly few comparisons for
items to find their appropriate ranks.

------
tclmeelmo
To be frank, my first reaction on reading this idea was negative.

I think part of my reaction is because I'm not seeing a _useful_ goal:
"interesting things" is certainly a goal, but strikes me as being too vague
from which to extract useful information. What are interesting things? If you
don't know what they are, how will you know if they happened? Are you set up
to measure interesting things? If so, can you quantify them, and what sort of
sensitivity/specificity, dynamic range, etc. do you expect your
instrumentation to provide? What is the duration/endpoints of the experiment?
Does the experimental design support the objective, and with what power does
the experiment have to inform?

I think that the other part of my reaction is that, as an experimental
scientist, I am specifically trained against doing something so unstructured.
Practical considerations like safety and budgetary waste aside, _I am the
person I trust least_ : it's very easy to fool oneself about the significance
of a result with an ongoing experiment that one is conducting. Experimental
discipline, like planning ahead (and preregistration) and blinding and good
controls, serve to promote objectivity and help reduce bias.

I have no doubt that this experiment would produce "interesting things". I am
very skeptical that, as presented, you would know _why_ it produced
interesting things.

Of course, I'm just a dog on the internet. Best of luck!

~~~
dang
Oh agreed, it's definitely not an experiment by any research standard. In that
sense we're using the word metaphorically. But there's a place for ad hoc
trial-and-error, and it's common to call that 'experimental' in colloquial
English. YC has done such things in the past, e.g. for a batch or two it was
possible to apply with just an idea. Nothing interesting came of that—other
than that nothing interesting came of it—so it got phased out. This is an
'experiment' in the way that was.

It's popular on HN to suggest making YC (or startup investment generally) more
science-like via controlled experiments, but that's hard to do at all and
extremely hard to do well, and we're not set up for it. Maybe one day. But
this is not that—it's just trying something new to see what happens.

As for whether interestingness is a goal in itself, on HN it is for sure. That
value is hard-coded in the DNA of this place. And there's a well-established
if not easily reproducible path from "huh, interesting" to "undeniably
useful". That's the nature of the creative process and it's a space HN (and
YC, in a different way) particularly like to inhabit.

------
pbnjay
Will there be a new toplink for "Apply HN" submissions? I think random sorting
on that page would be a good idea to encourage all submissions get an
opportunity for discussion.

~~~
dang
Probably a top link, yes, but in good minimalist form we'll wait until it's
clear we need it. (Edit: we need it. In the meantime, please use the Algolia
link I included at the top. It's not like we wrote code for this in advance or
anything—that would be cheating :))

Random sorting is a good idea. We'll think about that.

~~~
rdl
at least make a magic url like news.ycombinator.com/applyhn even if there's no
toplink yet.

------
6thSigma
I think a mini application with a few questions from the normal YC app as a
comment would be helpful. I see a ton of Show HNs in which I have no idea what
the product does (either because the website copy is vague/confusing or
because I don't know the market). Having a comment template or something
reviewers can look at without have to ask the same questions in every thread
would be great.

~~~
jay_kyburz
Yes, I came back to this thread to say I'm surprised how difficult it is to
understand what it is they want to make. Also, I have read at least half a
dozen and not a single one has mentioned how it's a business and how they will
make money.

~~~
dang
> _I 'm surprised how difficult it is to understand what it is they want to
> make_

YC partners complain about this all the time too.

> _not a single one has mentioned how it 's a business and how they will make
> money_

I hope you asked them!

------
lettergram
About a year ago I ran a series of tests where I continuously posted the same
15-20 articles tracking the number of up votes within the first 10-15 minutes.

It turns out it was essentially random, and although every one of the posts
were decent enough to make it to the front page 2 or 3 times sometimes it
received zero votes, sometimes 10.

It seems somewhat unfair to use the standard ranking system with this being
the case, since it's essentially random. I think there would need to be a way
to randomly show them to users and have users vote. Similar to /r/starups[1]

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/](https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/)

BTW I eventually received an email from the YC staff, thank you for not
banning me :) No one should do this.

~~~
danieltillett
Did you write up this testing? I would love to see some hard number on this
effect?

~~~
lettergram
I have all the data, never published it because I didn't have time... I'll get
around to it soon though

The data isn't super solid because I was stopped before I got to 50 (which was
my goal).

~~~
danieltillett
You should ask Dan to let you continue :)

------
hoodoof
Truth is, I'd start writing code to copy any idea that I was totally blown
away by, and I don't need any funding to start doing that.

Putting your idea right there in front of some pretty fast moving programmers
has to be something people would think twice about.

Having said that, it's hard to imagine an idea being sufficiently compelling
to start writing code to implement it immediately. The only ideas that really
blow me away are my own and they usually turn out to be silly anyway, after
I've spent six months building them to crickets.

I don't think ideas are worth nothing by the way. Just ask the Facebook twins.

~~~
gizmo
There just aren't that many people out there who are willing and capable of
doing the hard work it takes to bring something --anything-- to the point
where it usable. Those who are have their own projects already, which they
won't abandon based on a forum post. And if they do, they're going to abandon
this new project the moment they read about an even cooler idea.

Besides, ideas grow and take on a life of their own as you work on them. By
the time your interpretation of the idea takes shape it's going to be
distinctly different from the original idea that inspired you.

The only way to keep people from stealing your ideas is by never talking to
anybody about them. That's surely the worst of all options.

You can literally try to clone any YC company after demo day. All the startups
get covered on techcrunch making their ideas public. Just pick the one you
like best and open your favorite editor. They only got a 6 months head start,
so what's stopping you?

~~~
zeemonkee3
> You can literally try to clone any YC company after demo day.

Not quite true. A growing number are hardware/robotics or biotech or some
other field that require significant capital investment and highly specialist
Phd-level expertise to even get a proof-of-concept off the ground, so you
can't just "open your favorite editor" and get started.

Then you have those which cover a niche that again requires some kind of
insider knowledge or connections (it helped for example that Facebook was
created in Harvard). That's not to say these are impossible barriers, but
again they're not broken by hacking away at node or PHP.

The pool of ideas that a) you, personally, can execute on today and b) have a
hope of generating profit or funding within a reasonable timeframe is not as
big as people like to think. Much of the low-hanging fruit of profitable ideas
that can be executed by the single coder in the proverbial basement has been
picked long ago.

~~~
gizmo
Every time a new platform or a new device gets launched there are low-hanging
opportunities aplenty. It is easy to overestimate how big the opportunity has
to be in order to be worthwhile for a single programmer. Those opportunities
don't get pursued by established businesses because they are too small,
leaving the field ripe for the picking.

~~~
zeemonkee3
That's very true, I think there's a window of opportunity when a new
device/technology becomes mainstream before it becomes commoditized/cornered
by a few big players : thinking of the web, then mobile, now the app stores
are saturated and very few people can make money from them. VR might be the
next wave (although plenty of false starts in that space).

------
dsugarman
I see a lot of 'entrepreneurs' who spend their time getting their fb friends
to vote for them in local startup pitch competitions, they don't actually
spend any time making a company, but are very effective at getting votes.

The HN community might just be a better barometer, hope to see this experiment
work out and bring attention to worthy and unnoticed startups.

~~~
godzillabrennus
I agree. Some kind of app that requires users to log in then randomizes what
they can vote on.

~~~
zaguios
Yea, expanding on this the best way to get the best results is to actually
give each post an elo score. Then when a user goes to look at two applications
they can vote on which application they think is better and award / subtract
elo like you would in any other case. This very quickly will let the quality
applications rise to the top and cause the bad ones to fall by the wayside.
Note that it's also important to constantly compare applications with similar
elo scores.

I've seen this done before and it's incredibly efficient.

------
davidw
Thought: in the original Wisdom of Crowds book, an important point was that
people's selections need to be independent of one another, otherwise you get
bandwagon/cascade effects. I don't know how that could be made to factor in to
things.

~~~
dang
I'd say this is not that model. The way HN works now is clearly by bandwagon
effect, and we want this to be pretty close to the way HN works now.

If you think of HN users as 'investing' their time and energy into which
stories they read and discuss here, then arguably this is kind of already
happening. One way of looking at this experiment is to ask what happens if we
take the existing system and permute its feedback loop, i.e. take one of the
outputs (startups gets funded -> HN discusses them) and make it an input (HN
discussion -> startups get funded). It's impossible to predict how a complex
system will react and it's a fun kind of problem to think about. Of course,
such permutations often just produce an unstable mess. That could happen here,
i.e. the whole thing could turn into a trainwreck that produces no clear
signal.

~~~
davidw
I'm a bit skeptical, since "commenting on HN" is so asymmetrical compared to
sinking money into a startup in terms of how much you're invested, but I think
it's an interesting experiment. I think if it goes right, with some iteration,
it could help to pick out some interesting things.

~~~
dang
Sure, but HN users aren't actually sinking any money here. They're just
telling other people to. Which is maybe not _so_ different from regular HN
comments? Who knows. We shall see!

~~~
davidw
> Sure, but HN users aren't actually sinking any money here. They're just
> telling other people to.

That's what I meant by 'asymmetry' \- it's kind of the opposite of putting
one's money where one's mouth is.

------
dmritard96
One concern I could see is around disclosing the idea. I know, I know,
idea.pre_exectution_worth = 0, idea.post_execution_worth = $, but I have to
think that some of the most interesting applications to YC or any other
accelerator are at least partially executed hence giving out their intent, or
some of the sexy secret sauce which might help them gain a favorable ranking
is pitted against a desire to remain secretive. Obviously you have other
submission processes but seems like perhaps something to consider, my 2 cents.

~~~
nappy
With the caveat that there are exceptions to any rule (and that this is also
just my opinion), when it comes to a startup:

Team > execution >> idea

I'd also expect that the applications through hn that do well will have some
sort of prototype or proof of concept. I guess we'll see!

------
jdp23
Interesting idea, and kudos to you for kicking off the discussions to refine
the approach - and for the "be nice" rule, which I think is very important
here.

A question: What are the situations where you think it will benefit people
more to go the open route than applying directly?

One way of thinking about it is

advantages of "Apply HN": getting significant calibration and feedback on an
idea that improves it whether or not it is selected, a chance for a partial
team to begin discussions with other potential co-founders, and the (small)
chance of having an idea selected because of overwhelming support when it
wouldn't have been chosen through the normal process

disadvantage: exposing the idea in a very early state to thousands of smart
motivated people who are then have the time to come up with better variations
on it

Obviously the tradeoffs are different for different teams and ideas ... and
there certainly might be some advantages and disadvantages I missed. In any
case, I'm curious about who you think might benefit most from this.

~~~
kevin
Honestly, we don't really know. We have very few hypotheses around this idea.
We're just insanely curious to see what will happen. As far as the
disadvantage you mention, that happens when you launch. That happens when you
start getting press. That happens when you announce a large funding round.
That happens when you're doing well.

In our experience, startups are far more likely to die by suicide than by
homicide. Iteration is the only practice to greatness that we've ever seen and
you can't do that well without talking about your idea to others. In a vacuum,
you can only go so far.

My advice is similar to how we're approaching this experiment: don't over
think it.

~~~
SherlockeHolmes
I agree. Even if someone was to take my idea and start working on it
concurrently, I as the originator of the idea have an inherent advantage.

If the founders are resilient and resourceful, then the strength of their idea
is more decisive than competition in determining success.

------
aarkay
Just read through a bunch of Apply HN's (~90) and realized how important it is
for startups to clearly tell what their company does in the first sentence.

Even though many of the YC partners have mentioned the importance of this, I
could feel the pain of reading through the first paragraph and not being able
to picture anything about the company in my head. Might be a good strategy to
stick in a summary of your startup in the apply hn corpus and ask close
friends to see if they understand and get excited by the idea before applying
to YC.

Another thing I noticed was how biased I was towards ideas which addressed
problems I have had. So hopefully Apply HN will help YC look into companies
which are catering to completely different industries and sets of problems
which they haven't experienced.

This is a great experiment !

------
pcmaffey
The best part of this is YC's commitment to subverting their bias.

Whether successful or not, you guys (and your machines?) will learn something
valuable about your process vs. the wisdom of crowds. Really commend your
approach to experimentation.

------
benjamincburns
@dang: Apologies if this has been said elsewhere, and hopefully it doesn't get
lost in the noise.

If upvotes are the most important metric, then vote counts should be hidden to
viewers at least prior to their voting. This prevents the situation we have
here with news articles where an initial small/fast scurry of upvotes is the
only way to capture the attention of the larger audience. In this situation
the first few votes likely have far more influence than they should.

------
rmason
If I was to guess I'd say HN readers would be more impressed with innovative
technology than how the company actually would make money.

I would be wary however of learning very much with a one time experiment with
only two funded companies. That would be similar to giving a prospective angel
investor the advice to invest in two companies in the next thirty days and
then no more.

~~~
davemel37
The post said a minimum of two. In other words, in a worst case scenario they
are committing to two ideas. For all we know, they might decide to fund 20 in
this first experiment.

------
vonklaus
Dang, this is awesome!

I think it would be really cool if you did the experiment blind. E.g the
startup applys to YC, if they want to participate they also do HN. you have
your interview make what would be your decision, then do the HN piece. that
way you can gauge the delta between how the community thinks & how you
would've decided without our input.

Either way, this is pretty great idea. As you flesh it out a more, an in depth
write up would be great!

------
nlh
Well I for one think this is also a super cool idea. Agree with what many have
said re: gaming -- just be particularly aware that people will try to figure
out how to game this.

But I'd emphasize the qualitative side of the evaluation process -- it should
be based on a somewhat opaque mix of upvotes, thoroughness of discussion, and
thoughtfulness of answers.

I'd almost treat the various 'Apply HN' threads as open source interviews.
Upvoted and the like should be a ROUGH filter, but I'd hope that the YC
partners will look at the answers in the threads as a crowdsourced interview
and select on the merits more than anything else.

Anyway, excited to see how this experiment plays out.

~~~
dang
> _mix of upvotes, thoroughness of discussion, and thoughtfulness of answers_

Yes! I'm glad to see someone arriving at the same basic vector that we did.

------
harperlee
I think here is where the "you cannot unvote" design decision for HN breaks.
It's one thing to vote several comments that deserved an upvote and whose
subthreads I want people to see and comment with priority; and another thing
altogether to manage votes that I know, in the end, will end on one company
being selected at the detriment of the rest. Here I want to have the ability
to vote only to the one that mattered the most, and I want to be able to
unvote if further responses of the startup make me uneasy of my already casted
vote. It's not sufficient to take my attention elsewhere.

------
newguyonhere
Forgive me if this comment doesn't belong here: I wanted to say that I enjoy
reading YC. While I'm not exactly sure what all HN or YC are about, and some
of the topics are over my, I have learned some interesting things. It's
awesome intelectual the exchanges can be. And at this moment I find the
concept of being nice refreshing in an online forum. Anyhow good look with
this startup idea. I'm sure some good stuff will surface and everyone will
benefit.

------
skoocda
I think there's a definite disparity between the key formative aspects of a
soon-to-be successful startup, and the popular image that people will vote
for. Nobody on HN as enough time or motivation to perform the gritty research
on the market or the founders, which means the votes will tend towards flashy
sounding concepts. As long as you guys only take this as a cheap and plentiful
way of judging the 'wow' factor of these ideas, I think the Apply HN idea is
great.

~~~
dang
The counter-hypothesis to this is that HN's audience is broad enough that even
on specialized topics, there's often someone (or surprisingly several) who
actually knows something. It would be disappointing if all we got were 'wow'
responses—but we'll be able to tell that by looking at the discussion quality
of the Apply HN threads.

------
danieltillett
Dan I think this is great idea (I am all for trying new things). One
suggestion I do have is to score a startup not by up votes, but by the quality
of the discussion that results.

The commentship of HN is not exactly a representative cross-section of the
unwashed masses, but it is filled with amazingly knowledgeable and intelligent
people. A startup that generates thoughtful and helpful discussion may well be
a stronger signal of success than crude up votes.

Edit. arg! I see Dan already had this idea.

------
andreis_
Some sort of support for people working on building "lifestyle businesses" as
side projects would be fantastic. Not all of us have megalomaniac dreams of
running the next AirBnb. Question: would YC Fellowship be a good fit for that?

~~~
josephpmay
YC is in the business of making money (along with promoting substantial
positive change in the world). Unfortunately lifestyle businesses don't really
work towards either of these ends, and it doesn't make sense for YC to fund
them.

~~~
dzink
The basic income experiment may end up encouraging more lifestyle business
pursuits if successful.

------
exabrial
You guys need to diversify and try to solve hard problems that have slow
paybacks. Sure making the next twitter is cool, but how about funding a
startup that makes does cheap inpatient monitoring,ordering,labs,diagnosis,
drug interaction, of patients at hospitals? There are huge players in that
space:Epic,Cerner, etc but if you look the sheer amount of $ a hospital is
willing to spend on EMR systems...

~~~
dang
YC funds a lot of startups that do things like that, and I'm sure HN agrees
with you too. You're preaching to the choir here!

------
fweespee_ch
> Questions or suggestions? Let's discuss and refine this together.

The upvote/commentary is likely going to be highly problematic:

A) I'm pretty sure Dang can't list all 9 accounts I've used on HN over the
past few years. I'm also pretty sure 9 accounts in good standing [1500+ karma]
would be enough to seed an initial vote if handled carefully. The ones he'd be
able to name are the 3 most recent. This being the case...yeah. The danger of
sock puppetry is way too high, particularly when combined with strategic
downvotes and VPNs.

B) Anyone with control of an existing community/following can use it as a
targeted campaign.

C) The reward from bypassing these functions is substantially higher ($20,000
+ professional advice from YC) than previously existed for YC.

D) If you want to stick with a vote-based system, I'd offer a larger bounty
[say, $50k for manipulating a post to the top of the pile for Apply HN] for
finding a way to bypass the vote brigading and other countermeasures. This it
is really the only countermeasure I can think of to counter manipulation
problems.

E) All the other external factors (time of submission, competition around that
time period, repost rules, etc.) are likely to bias the process in unexpected
ways but that is probably less problematic than direct manipulation.

> I think we're on the same page to some extent. What I meant by 'ranking by
> comments' is that we want the ranking to depend on the quality of the
> discussion. That's the one thing that can't be gamed.

Put a bounty on that to test that theory.

I'm pretty sure someone could create a network of socket puppets that had
"quality" discussions between them if the reward was $20k.

~~~
drusepth
brb submitting a startup that specializes in handling your sockpuppets
properly for situations like this

~~~
fweespee_ch
I don't use them for sockpuppetry. I just like changing accounts every so
often.

I was just pointing out a direction someone could go.

------
biot
Curious coincidence?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11315774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11315774)

~~~
dang
I'm afraid so. But an impressive one.

------
Fede_V
I am really curious to see how this plays out.

Kudos for the 'be nice' rule - rejections really really hurt, and if they are
in public, even more so. Anyone who is willing to put themselves out there
like that deserves to be treated with kindness - even if the actual feedback
is critical. Snark is very easy.

------
timwaagh
wow. this is really unprecendented. i know some guy who works at a different
startup accelerator. one which is funded with EU money. he made some comment
about his acc being a lot better on a value-for-equity basis (like obviously).
i tried to explain yc would continue to be the #1 not just because of its size
or the amount of funding per share to its startups but because of the way it
is run. this is an excellent example.

------
phillc73
I have a question about the YC Fellowship model.

If I had an idea, which I knew would never likely grow beyond $1M in revenue,
just because the market is so niche. B2C, but the entire consumer group is
probably only in the region of 10,000.

I'd imagine the company would probably max out at 4 or 5 employees.

I have little to no interest in building a product out to $100M or aiming at
an IPO.

The YC Fellowship rules indicate that the $20k funding, for convertible
security, at least assumes the goal is $100M or IPO.[0]

I'd very happily offer 1.5% right up front for $20k, no need to worry about
convertible security, as long as it was clear my aim was never to hit $100M or
IPO.

Would such a view exclude me from a YC Fellowship grant and thus Apply HN?

[0]
[https://blog.ycombinator.com/fellowship-v2](https://blog.ycombinator.com/fellowship-v2)

------
adrusi
I'm a little concerned that this experiment could attract the wrong kind of
behavior on HN, and bring in new users for the wrong reasons. I'm excited to
see how this goes, but it will be quite a shame if the quality of regular
content on HN suffers as a result.

~~~
dang
If that happens we'll take corrective action. Quality of regular content is
the most important thing here.

The problem of course is that there's broad disagreement about what counts as
quality, but we have that problem no matter what.

------
vonklaus
Also, while I don't loce what I'm about to suggest it makes sense:

1 upvote = 1 + (Account Age In Years / 2)

Or some metric discounting (but not eliminating) new accounts while
proportionately weighing soneones contribution/participation in the community.

while to some extent everyone should be represented, but some members of the
community have been here much longer, are much more knowledgeable, and
participate a lot more. they helped shape the community, etc and may have gone
to YC in early days.

ive been here for ~2 years, i know a little bit about tech and startups,
however(and this doesnt map 1:1) some people helped build this community and
are core contributors, there votes (as their advice) is worth some percentage
more.

~~~
dang
We can do things like that if we really need to, but my guess is we won't.
Experience has taught that such measures make others feel less welcome, which
is a bad outcome and not in the open spirit of this experiment. Good comments
and insights speak for themselves; if those older users are as good as you
say, they can sing for their supper.

------
diegorbaquero
Can one apply to Apply HN if one applied to S16?

~~~
ph0rque
Or any other time in the past?

~~~
mattkrisiloff
Yep.

------
vit05
I'm curious to know how many companies from first Fellowship managed to end
the program with a product. Will have more interview after you choose some
from the HN ?I read all applications, and it seems to me that some of the
startups are more suitable for Indiego or looking for a direct fund from VC
than to apply for YC Fellowship. Fellowship is buying 1.5% of the company to
20k + counseling + other YC services. And you'll need to be fully dedicated to
the company for at least 8 weeks in office hours. Some of the projects seem to
need more money or perhaps the founder will not be able to be dedicated
exclusively to the startup. As you said: "startups are far more likely to die
by suicide than by homicide"

------
elliotec
This seems like a silly idea to me, frankly. What makes you think any of us
are qualified to decide what the best company to fund would be? See this for
precedence: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-
mcboatf...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface-
what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.html)

~~~
dang
I doubt that "qualified" is a helpful lens to view this through. The only
thing that really qualifies you to pick startups, I suppose, is a track record
of being good at it. By that standard the HN community certainly isn't
qualified, but there still might be a chance of something interesting.

There's a lot of knowledge about technology and startups among HN members, and
when good discussions happen here they can be very good. That seemed like
enough reason to give it a try. If it turns out to have been a silly idea,
we're fine with that; the best way to have more good ideas is to have more bad
ones.

~~~
elliotec
True true. Thanks for the reply and explanation of your thought process.

------
viviennelee
Curious -- Are Apply HN threads only meant for existing HN users to
comment/upvote? I'd be more interested in this if it were condoned and
encouraged to have my startup's existing userbase upvote and post comments
about why they love the product. My typical user is not a HN user. I know it
can be done anyway, but if it's viewed as "gaming" the system I wouldn't want
to do that.

~~~
dang
You definitely shouldn't do that. It's against the rules, and HN users sniff
it out like truffle pigs.

~~~
viviennelee
Yea after reading some of the apply HN threads I realized it's really meant to
gauge which startups existing HN users like, versus a general voting contest.

------
hooande
I'm not sure about considering upvotes. People might send out message to all
their friends saying "There's this thing called hackernews, can you sign up
and vote for me?". Similar to how someone would launch a kickstarter. I don't
think that this will be very common, especially not in the first few batches,
but it will become common sense after a few years.

Remember, you're dealing with _hackers_ here. I worked my YC application from
every angle and tried to get every possible edge and advantage. Not
necessarily because I wanted to game the system, but because I'm a hacker, and
it's my nature [1].

On the whole, this is a really good idea. It's kind of mind blowing that YC
would seriously try this. The concept itself is a brilliant hack on the idea
of startup funding. Maybe they'll find the next AirBnb/Cruise/Dropbox, but
probably not. Either way it's a great example of pushing the envelope to find
new ideas, which sama has been all about lately.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog)

~~~
dang
You may be right, but I'm pretty sure the community would hate it if we didn't
consider upvotes at all. The idea is to fit this process in to how HN already
works, and see what happens. HN's pretty good for discussing stories about
technology and startups, and a lot of those discussions are a kind of vetting
of investment decisions and startup pitches anyhow. Why not move that way
earlier in the process and see what happens?

In the worst case, we'll at least get a lot more data for the voting ring
detector.

~~~
nacs
Maybe limiting votes to people who have been registered X amount of days or
have X amount of karma would help solve this issue with votes?

~~~
dang
Maybe. But let's see how bad the problem turns out to be. One nice thing about
ideas like that is they can be applied retroactively.

------
botterworkshop
This is brilliant and immediately reminded me of "wisdom of the crowd"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOucwX7Z1HU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOucwX7Z1HU)
(start at 2:00 if TLDW).

Basically average crowd > individuals. 160 people guess # of jelly beans in a
jar. Few are close, but averaging all the guesses leads to 4 away from actual.

Would be fascinating if applied to this as well...

------
dzink
If we read the answers to this thread as a meta lesson of what a founder would
expect, I think the answers would benefit from a scorecard. A poll at the top
could summarise scores. Here is my iteration for the idea of "Apply YC":

1\. Would I use this product? - Only for projects I have a lot of traction
with and wouldn't mind competition for, or a project I am not sure/serious
about (toss and see if it sticks). Anything in between would be risky if we're
serious about the "What do you know that competition doesn't" question.

2\. Would I join this team? - hard to learn about team without much research
on HN

3\. Would I fund/work on this problem? - Yes - a low friction way to vet and
support startups is needed. I've worked on other iterations to find a way.
I've thought about it a lot, reply/ping me if you want to discuss.

4\. What would I improve: For start, add a scorecard, so the founders can use
brainpower to iterate instead of trying to interpret why they were not up-
voted by strangers with different motives.

5\. Any concerns: A ton can go wrong here, but what matters is what can go
right - what parts of the HN experience are conducive to solving this problem,
and what tweaks will finish the job of solving it. If this works, you will see
a rich data set of problems that people are attempting to solve, votes that
show the demand for each problem, solutions who get to see traction by
potential users, and VC analysts who are trying to crunch the data to direct
their own funding/sourcing, competitors taking notes, etc.

Then there are also the projects that are just poor fit with the HN subset,
would you reject those in YC if you see them down-voted here?

------
swalsh
This is the wikipedia model. The idea is so obviously bad, it just might be
good.

------
ibnaks
Simple question: If we've already done a Show HN can we do a Apply HN?

~~~
mattkrisiloff
Yep, they are different things.

------
GBond
Great idea. Can you also consider an equity arrangement for HNers who would
like to invest in the selected startups?

~~~
dang
That's the sort of thing that might make sense if this eventually becomes a
thing. Which would be great. But it's way too early to tell. For now, it's
just about curiosity and trying something new.

~~~
lowglow
Why not just invest in someone inside the community trying to do just that?
This entire experiment is exactly what we're trying to do at Baqqer.
Crowdfunding (+equity) / social proof from the community to help build
products people want from the start.

------
Tom-Sullivan
This is a wonderful idea. PicVidShare has been used in 83 countries in first
month. This is important traction because being international is essential to
really big success. Press Release The Future of Mobile Commerce
f[http://buff.ly/1TPfqEk](http://buff.ly/1TPfqEk) Will Apply Y Combinator
using Hacker News.

------
api
My couple cents: that which can be gamed will be gamed, especially in a
community full of "hackers."

------
manav
Interesting idea, but I think the guidelines should be clarified.

Since it's under the umbrella of the Fellowship, is YC looking for anything
well beyond the idea stage?

Also, it would be useful to have some kind of simple submission process after
making a post on HN so its easier to track and view all of the applications.

------
augb
What are the dates for the fellowship? (As in, if accepted, when does the 8
weeks begin and end?)

Edit: Added comma.

------
guillegette
My idea: EcommerceBot
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11494458](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11494458)
\- A platform that will allow ecommerce to have a bot in a few clicks.

------
NicoJuicy
I think HackerNews itselve should mostly fund startups like Sendy. Eg. Have a
Reseller-option ( or brands option) so you can manage stuff for clients,
others and you can self host it. This adds a huge market of technical people
that can create wealth for their own

That is a totally different approach then the "cloud apps" that get funded
through YC or other investors, yet it supports the same "sort/type of apps".

It should require some technical experience ( i believe HN in it's core is
still for technical people)

It would be interesting to see what reselling does for bootstrapping a startup
( faster sales because more brands/people can resell it ?)

Benefits, we can hack our way through the code :)

------
gpsgay
Very nice! Should we publicly apply uf we have already filled a yc application
for this batch?

~~~
dang
You're certainly welcome to. It's up to you.

~~~
gpsgay
Great, thanks for your response!

------
jbarks
This link indicates a March 24 deadline in the FAQ. It should be updated?
[https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/faq/](https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/faq/)

~~~
dang
Good catch. I'll alert the authorities.

------
pavornyoh
This is an excellent idea. Do you need a prototype and a team in place before
participating?

~~~
dang
The only thing you need is willingness to try convincing the community to fund
you.

~~~
pavornyoh
Thank you Dang.

------
jrsnyder
Establishing a public forum for earnest discussion of startup ideas seems
likely even more valuable than the actual funding of community-picked
proposals. But also, the chance of receiving funding adds incentive for
discussion and earnesty!

I'm excited!

------
rebootthesystem
OK, I'll be the one asking this question:

Are you planning on compensating the people who participate in this experiment
in any way.

Here's the point: YC will be receiving a massive amount of help in filtering
and vetting dozens or hundreds of potential companies to fund. Once funded,
they might fail but they can also be huge successes. YC stands to make
millions, tens or hundreds of millions (or better if the starts align).

So, you got a bunch of smart people to use their time and intellect to act as
filters for your investment. What do they get in return?

The fair approach would be to give them some ownership. Even a single share
would have meaning.

~~~
dang
Someone beat you to it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11442018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11442018).

------
kristoforlawson
I really love that you're bringing some of the process to the HN community. I
remember the first YCF batch had huge numbers of applications and I think it's
likely that many great ideas were lost in that volume. Will be interesting to
see what surfaces :)

P.S have submitted my idea here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11461008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11461008)

------
andychase
This is such an interesting concept that I'm excited to see it happen. This
also perfectly answers the call for yc to release applications of rejected
applications.

Can a group or an individual submit more then one application?

~~~
dang
By analogy with how HN treats reposts, I think it's ok as long as you don't do
it a lot. i.e. two is ok, three maybe, four is probably bad. Obviously that
assumes they're for distinct ideas and that each of them is a serious
proposal.

------
dude_abides
My 2c: "Upvotes" is too noisy a metric, and will give too much importance to
HN ranking. I strongly suggest tweaking the HN ranking model for "Apply HN"
posts to be as random as possible.

------
faizshah
Great idea, I have a couple of questions.

Since YC Fellowship is intended for startups at the idea stage/prototype
stage, is ApplyHN a catch all for businesses at the idea stage looking for
feedback from the HN community?

Can you do an ApplyHN twice? Presumably once you get feedback from your
initial ApplyHN idea post, you might flesh it out more and have a stronger
application the second time.

If you're at the prototype stage normally you might do a ShowHN, should you
create a separate post for an ApplyHN if you want to apply?

------
OoTheNigerian
If it will not bring about complications, can that category of submission be
open for say one week.

Then the feedback and comments would be open for say another week.

Putting time restraints would help give applicants approximately the same
amount of attention. And also allow members take out time and ask all
questions they want.

In addition, can the submission be restricted too so we do not see 400 words
submissions? I'll go for a maximum 2 mins video pitch alongside a link to a
website.

Finally, great idea!

~~~
dang
I appreciate the concern for fairness but those things would be more
complicated to do and I'm not sure they would really help that much. Let's
wait and see how this shakes out, and then if we do it again we can iterate.

------
pforpineapple
Promising ! This could be an interesting way to stimulate startups from around
the globe. Last time I felt this way was when I discovered Stripe Atlas.

------
hashvin
Let's just joined with our idea to help people - Meet amazing people, & do fun
stuff. Check us on:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11462402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11462402)

------
sajeevaravind
Vaultedge - private Google for private data. Please post your questions,
comments in the thread.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11460485](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11460485)

------
adesuwa
here's my idea, a new job board that brings together checkr match.com and
careerbuilder
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11493368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11493368)

------
ebbv
That's really awesome idea and I can't wait to see what kinds of cool
applications come through.

------
jorgecastillo
Y Combinator can't get more awesome than this! I hope something great comes
out of this experiment.

------
_pius
OK, this is very cool. Great idea!

------
nojvek
I went through the startups, but its really hard to make a decision from the
description. I would suggest that the startups fill answers to the YC
application form so there is more data and background to ask further
questions.

------
yikyak1
great way to discuss ideas! we are in...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11452153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11452153)

------
pratim
We need your thoughts on Gift Card idea.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447924)

------
pratim
Please provide feedback on our Gift Card Idea.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447924)

------
speeder
If this existed a year or two ago I would apply, but now I can't :(

~~~
dang
Sorry to hear that. There will be other things to participate in in the future
and hopefully you'll be able to join some of those.

------
n72
Given any consideration to giving some percentage of the profit YC makes to
charity or something? After all, YC is benefiting from the wisdom of the crowd
and the crowd gets nothing.

~~~
dang
We're a long way from seeing whether there's any profit in this. The odds are
surely against it, because they usually are. If something dramatic comes of
this I'm sure YC will think seriously about how to structure it, but we can
wait until we have that good problem.

In the meantime the community gets the same thing we do, which is the
satisfaction of giving it a try and seeing what happens. That's much in
keeping with the values of this site, i.e. gratifying curiosity.

------
ball_of_lint
For the purpose of selecting startups, HN should have an option to vote for
each apply outside of up votes, and then the votes ought to be weighted by
reputation and account age.

------
kgc
Suggestion: Vote with money and use that to fund the company. The people who
put their money in to fund the company become collective shareholders
alongside YC.

------
ausjke
How much will the YC fund be normally? Will someone be concerned to disclose
the product he/she is building here when stealth mode is preferred?

~~~
dang
Not sure I understand your question, but it sounds like
[https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/faq/](https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/faq/)
might have the answer.

------
GFischer
I think that for this experiment to be valid, only accounts created before
today should be allowed to vote (or make a karma threshold for new accounts).

~~~
kevin
Nah. A lot of teams don't know about HN before they apply to YC. Many make it
into the batch and are good.

~~~
GFischer
Sorry, maybe I didn't explain myself well. What I wanted to say is that for
the end-of-month ranking ("we'll rank the startups and YC will fund two. The
ranking will depend both on upvotes and on the quality of discussion"), I
think upvotes and discussion by current YC members should hold more weight
(maybe the algorithms already take that into account :) ).

I agree that people that didn't have HN accounts previously should definitely
be allowed to participate both as submissions and in the comments :) , only
that the upvotes part could be gamed.

------
rubynav
Such an awesome opportunity for a broader community! YC is making the an even
playing field for everyone! Congrats YC and hope to see you soon!

------
tommynicholas
If it's both a "Show HN" and an "Apply HN" what do you recommend as a
headline? Apply and Show are related but not the same.

~~~
dang
It has to be "Apply HN" for this.

------
sgarg26
Great idea! Can we get a 'Apply HN' link added to the top menu bar as well?
Would make participating in the community way easier

~~~
dang
Yes, that's coming. Hopefully tomorrow, but I'm traveling tomorrow so I can't
promise.

------
soneca
Suggestion: make links on Apply HN posts clickable. No reason to rely on that
usual first comment "clickable here:"

~~~
dang
Sure, we can do that.

------
tedmiston
> we'll add a top link for these

Could you add an Apply HN endpoint to the Firebase API in the same style of
ask and show too?

------
browseatwork
Could you please unbreak /ask by moving apply posts elsewhere? /ask is much
less useful now.

~~~
dang
We'll do that when we put up the /apply link.

~~~
browseatwork
Thank you!

------
vishalzone2002
sounds like kickstarter on HN

------
wslh
Do you expect "Apply HN" to continue in Winter's batch?

~~~
kevin
Don't know yet. Let's see what happens here. Also, Fellowship actually runs
three times a year, so the next potential cycle is in the fall.

------
alouanchi
Hi there, is it possible to post/apply for more than one idea?

~~~
dang
HN tends to allow a small number of reposts, so I'd say yes but don't do it
much.

------
josh_carterPDX
dang, can you explain the ranking? How was all of this determined?

------
jacques_chester
I feel it would be less drama-inducing, and probably as effective, to run a
lottery.

~~~
Gargoyle
Personally I'm seeing this as an excellent test of precisely what sort of
community HN really is. I'm sure this will be fascinating.

------
jlas
What's the incentive for helping you pick the next big startup? What if you
gave users a trivial amount of equity for their input?

~~~
zacharycohn
That seems way more like a curse (re: taxes) than a reward.

------
known
Do I get paid?

------
sharemywin
sounds like my suggestion was a bad idea. (won't let me delete).

~~~
Gargoyle
As members of the community, we're all able to have whatever requirements we
want for our support of an application. In my opinion, the fewer that are
"officially" imposed, the better.

~~~
sharemywin
I probably should have phrased it a different way.

------
George_MacApp
We are two childhood friends who started company with focus and we built it
without any fancy and bootstrapped it from zero to a million dollar company.

We never had time to even spend with family we just slept four to six hours
and focused on what we wanted to built.

We never had any social accounts and never socialised in Internet not went to
do networking.

We thought let's built a great product and enjoy doing it.

A Story of How Two Childhood Friends from Village has built their startup up
from Zero to a million dollars

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11442047](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11442047)

Only time we spent time is registering and applying for YC.

Coming from a small town with no business background, learning all things
ourselves and with self motivation and dream if we were able to do this much.

Joining hands with YC we can do a lot more faster and quicker to change the
world.

This is the reason we applied for YC. Even our employees are from rural they
can't even communicate good in English but they code like hell.

If you ask a guy how to built an ap. A may tell a good story but not actually
do it. B may do an excellent app but not tell it in an effective way. A May
have more friends but B may not.

So founders we play as a team. George does the coding and he has no social
accounts. I do the design idea and also communicate and be active to know
what's happening in the world.

This is a good initiative let's see how it goes.

------
imd23
Small note: I recommend the search query to include quotes "Apply HN"

~~~
dang
Good catch. Done.

~~~
joak
I've submitted my stuff

digital teleportation = socialAR/VR
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447923)

No comments, no upvotes.

Following the link with all "Apply HN" I can see almost all applications have
the same fate.

Too many ? Too boring ?

Is this experiment a failure ?

Too soon to tell ?

~~~
dang
We'll soon add pages to make these posts more accessible. Then if more is
needed, we'll do more.

------
tke248
It would be nice if there was a link up top to filter the submissions similar
to show/ask links.

Here is my submission: PaySQR - the new secure way to pay!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444053](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444053)

------
TheLogothete
Bee Smart Technologies tries to tackle the Colony Collapse disorder. Cool use
of technology, huge social impact, enormous monetary potential.

[http://www.beesmarttechnologies.com/](http://www.beesmarttechnologies.com/)

I'm not affiliated though.

------
lettergram
We are working to fix mental healthcare by adding analytics and bringing the
healthcare to the patient.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11442000](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11442000)

------
filipmandaric
We have upvotes _and_ utterly no discussion happening. Thank you HN for your
unquestioning support!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441507)

------
tomjacobs
Zippy self driving meal delivery robots, in:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444797)

------
vs2370
Love the idea, we are sold
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441183](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441183)

------
pforpineapple
Jam is in :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441225](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11441225)
\o/

------
Redoubtable
Right because the first thing I think as a founder is oh definitely I'd love
to have my work judged by the insane neckbeard posse that is Hacker News
Commentariat. That's totallllllly something I'd love and will likely to end up
producing better and more diverse result. Sorry guys I should really not even
get involved but this is baffling. HN is second only to Reddit in terms of its
nasty, divisive, anti-anything that doesn't pattern match to the literalism
horror show that is white men in technology.

