

Ask YC: Did you apply to the Summer YC session? - hooande

Did you apply to the Summer YC session? If so, with what business/idea? Feel free to use general terms if your company is still in "stealth mode"<p>Tomorrow is the day, good luck to everyone!
======
dlytle
Got a question for any of the YC participants or partners... in the past, what
percentage of YC applicants have gone on to the interview stage? According to
the comments there were over 500 applicants, and the end result is around 20
groups.. I'm curious as to what the middle ground tends to look like.

~~~
rantfoil
Me and some friends of mine applied for Summer YC too, a few new ideas around
online publishing.

Good luck all!

Regarding the number accepted vs interviewed, excerpted from Matt Maroon's
awesome post: "[From the interview they] just kept all of the ones they liked
last time. I think it was 19 out of 54, but I could wrong there. so you might
think you only have roughly a 1 in 3 shot. But if they keep everyone they
like, and they like you, then you have a 100% shot. So just go make them like
you. Like most investors, they want to."

Full link to the article (great read, recommended)
<http://mattmaroon.com/?p=247>

~~~
izaidi
Thanks for posting Matt's article, it's great. Good luck tomorrow.

------
fallentimes
We did and we'll be pursuing it regardless of whether or not we get accepted
in to YC. Although, like everyone else, we'd prefer to get accepted.

------
dlytle
My partner and I submitted a "life management" app, but also touched on a
learning aid in the "other projects" section. Unfortunately, my partner was
out of town during most of the development of our demo, and I'm not very
satisfied with what I had together come submission time. What I'm happy about
is that I feel the work making the demo was a growth experience. (An
entertaining one, as a bonus!)

Of course, we're still going to work on it, regardless of whether or not we
get accepted. I'm going to start actively using it for its intended purpose
within a week, which should be really informative.

Also, good luck with your businesses, to everyone who applied! Whether we
succeed or fail, we'll all grow from the experience in one way or another.

------
lux
We applied with what we think is a pretty big idea related to learning. We've
been working on it since last Sept and we can probably launch an initial
version around the start of the YC summer session. Our initial launch won't
contain the big ideas yet though (we're hoping YC wants to join forces on
those :).

Just showed it off today to a guy that runs a local new media group and he was
totally floored. That made us feel pretty good, although we're still so
nervous to find out about YC tomorrow! Good luck everyone!

------
ericb
Does anyone know if the emails go out one-by-one, or en masse or what the
usual is? I'd like to minimize the scope of the checking-email distraction
tomorrow.

Good luck to all!

~~~
nextmoveone
I'm pretty sure they all go out at once, at night, like around 9-11pm.

------
hendler
Yup. Applied. Good luck everyone! Hope to see you in Cali!

"NewsCup is search ownership and personalization. The niche is between Social
Bookmarking and Search, but not a combination of each. Rather, NewsCup fills a
human need for automatically organizing, _finding again_, and generating
revenue for you from your "search work". Uses innovative, simple interfaces
and natural language processing to enhance the quality of user experience."

------
izaidi
I did. My thing is Streem: <http://streem.us>

I'm pretty confident in the idea but from what I know about YC I can see a few
reasons why they'd be reluctant to select me -- I'm the sole founder, I'm more
of a designer than a coder, and the amount of work I've done already makes it
unclear what I need another three months to accomplish. I had a lot of fun
filling out the application though.

~~~
hooande
I checked out Streem, I like the design style. I think your home page is
great, but then again I am partial to highlighting =)

Have you thought about a browser button or bookmarklet?

~~~
izaidi
Glad you like the design. Yeah, bookmarklets are a popular request. A few
other missing features are more important right now (post editing, account
deletion), but it's definitely on the list.

Awesome Highlighter is a cool idea.

------
attack
Yes, music.

If not accepted, will pursue ninja assassin career.

~~~
hooande
Hmm...maybe you should have applied with "ninja assassin" as your idea. I bet
pg would sponsor your ninja training if you gave him 2%-10% of the money you
made from assassinations.

~~~
crystalarchives
I actually did.

------
aykall
Yes I did and I'm sure I have a great opportunity in my hands but I also have
some difficulties to face. I had a co-founder which was the coder and
unfortunately he had to drop off the idea because personal reasons. We were
working in a online investment social network which I'm pretty sure is great
but now I can see some reasons to not be selected. I can do really little
coding and I'm a sole founder right now. Let's see what is going to happen.

~~~
symbiotic
Have you checked out socialpicks.com? Sounds kinda like what your doing. I
know about it because I was working on a similar idea that never took off a
few years ago. Gotta be aware of the competition :)

~~~
aykall
Yeah, like socialpicks there are many others but my idea is not about stocks.
It is another type of investment.

------
zapnap
Yes, and best of luck to everyone. Remember, if you have a great idea that
you're passionate about, don't let not being selected deter you from working
on it!

------
peternicholls
How many startups are applying for YC these days?

~~~
gscott
Something over 500

------
pius
Nope, but good luck to those who did!

------
craig-faber
Yes. I've got a really stupid marketing idea for FOSS. My really stupid
marketing idea is to actually do some.

I've got a lot of strikes against me. I'm a single founder of a company that
needs three partners, with different areas of expertise, to be viable, and I'm
not a programmer. Nevertheless, whatever I hear from YC, I'll be appealing for
partners in a few days.

~~~
xenoterracide
you shouldn't apply with stupid ideas. One startup article I read said
paraphrased. that YOU must believe that your idea is a good one. If you don't
believe it then how will you convince others.

That being said most stupid ideas are good ones.

You sound in somewhat of the same position I am. I'm looking for co-founders
but haven't found anyone worth my time. It's a good thing I didn't offer it to
the couple I was thinking of, he turned up dead today :( he was my friend.
_sigh_ alright moving on.

If I don't win this round I'll apply again for the next.

I'd just like to hear (even if I don't make the cut) what they thought of my
ideas. you know basically, you didn't make the cut because 'x'. Because I'd
fix 'x' next time, I was on short notice this time.

~~~
craig-faber
I was being facetious about "stupid." I meant that it's really obvious and
that it's stupid that no-one else is doing it.

I don't think that most stupid ideas are good ones. I do think some good ideas
can seem stupid, that is, incredibly obvious, later, after someone's thought
of it.

Sorry about your friend. That ain't easy.

~~~
xenoterracide
facetiousness like sarcasm can be hard to see on the net.

well perhaps I phrased the 'most stupid ideas are good ones' wrong. On the
other hand it more likely depends on who is calling it stupid. The average
person thinks computers are stupid, the funny thing, is they have no idea how
right they are. I think myspace is stupid... (not the concept just the
implementation). So by that logic stupid is good ;)

thanks.

