
FamilyLeaf's (YC W12) Y Combinator Application  - wesleyzhao
http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/29/familyleaf-y-combinator-ap/
======
ntmartin
Congrats on getting accepted and thanks for being so candid about your
application.

I have a couple of questions however:

Did you face any problems having disclosed you scrapped a competitors site for
potential clients/leads? Did all the founders think that was an acceptable
method for building a base?

How did you derive the potential turnover figures and was the model and
revenue discussed in depth at the interview?

Finally, how did you guys decide that FamilyLeaf was the right direction?

Best of luck to you all with the company.

~~~
wesleyzhao
No problem, it was our pleasure! Let me address your questions one-on-one.

1\. We didn't have any problems disclosing that. In fact, (as you can tell by
this little stunt) we are very open about it. We thought it was acceptable.
But we also are fallible.

2\. Turnover figures? We talked about it at the interview, definitely.

3\. We were extremely passionate about it. And less so about AthleteNet. That
was the number 1 thing. The other smaller but still very valuable factors
included the market size, social impact, and potential for faster scaling.

Feel free to email me if you have any more questions! wesley@familyleaf.com

------
Smirnoff
Thanks for putting up the application. I could clearly see how you guys aren't
afraid to "break some laws" i.e. data scrapping, getting free food, and even
weed selling!

~~~
wesleyzhao
Thanks! Some of the risks we've taken have definitely paid off, and the ones
that we haven't we don't regret taking.

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joe_bloggs
Thanks for the red robin tip!

~~~
wesleyzhao
It's great! Just got off a vegetarian-spree. Gonna go back to claiming those
free burgers :)

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rdl
Too bad YC got rid of the "if you were an animal, what would you be, and why"
question, which was on the Dropbox-era application.

~~~
pg
We never asked that. The question you're probably thinking of is:

    
    
      Tell us in one or two sentences something about 
      each founder that shows he or she is an "animal," 
      in the sense described in How to Start a Startup.

~~~
kn0thing
I loved that question.

~~~
littlegiantcap
Out of curiosity what did you say?

~~~
dwynings

      "Animals? We're a freaking zoo.
    
      Andy: When Paul described the type of person whom he 
      believes is an animal at his "How to Start a Startup"  
      talk, Andy was the first person of whom I (Steve) thought.
    
      Steve: Steve regularly works extra hours at his current 
      programming job, even when over-time isn't an option (i.e.   
      working for free) to fix nagging bugs. At school, Steve 
      often works late nights with Computer Science friends   
      helping them get assignments working.
    
      Alexis: See current schedule. When it comes to design, 
      Alexis literally won't rest until every pixel is aligned--
      sleep deprivation is the status quo and when it comes to 
      working in general, coffee makes sure he's the last one to 
      go to sleep at night and the first one up in the morning."
    

[http://alexisohanian.com/our-y-combinator-
summer-05-applicat...](http://alexisohanian.com/our-y-combinator-
summer-05-application-what-w)

------
stevenj
Direct link to the app (PDF):
[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19699329/FamilyLeaf_YC_application.p...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19699329/FamilyLeaf_YC_application.pdf)

P.S. Wow, small world. I went to the same high school as you guys. Good luck
with FamilyLeaf, I'm now a big fan!

~~~
wesleyzhao
Dude! Interlake?? We should catch up! founders@familyleaf.com

We're also now a big fan of you!

~~~
stevenj
Ya, the good ol' Saints! Though, I graduated in '04.

(I read in your YC app that you were from Bellevue so I Googled you and saw
that you went to IHS. :)

~~~
wesleyzhao
Can't find your contact info anywhere!

------
ckas
The weed thing didn't seem to add much to the app at all (and could have been
quite negative), but good to keep the theme going in the pitch video:

"It's spreading like a weed"..."It's already been extremely sticky"

~~~
wesleyzhao
Funny haha. Thanks for the comment :)

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wisp
Not that I care, but now the whole world know you got suspended for selling
weed. This information cannot be good for you or your company, considering
your family-oriented userbase

~~~
wesleyzhao
Hi Wisp. This is Wesley - you might be right. It's something I did a long time
ago and in the past. I have changed and people that know me know that. It may
be something that will turn some heads, but I like to live very honestly and
transparently. I hope people won't read too much in to it and only see how
much I've grown.

~~~
cwe
I'm glad to see people being more frank about this. As more people like you
come forward, hopefully the stigma around it will fade. I've admitted it when
appropriate, but been very hesitant to do so, even though I think the
experience was incredibly valuable and shaped who I am.

~~~
voodoomagicman
As someone w/ drug use in my past, I believe very strongly that the stigma
around it is deserved.

I would think very hard about hiring or investing in someone who used
marijuana, or who decided to sell marijuana (a bet with a big risk for very
little reward), or who thought that using drugs was cool enough to include it
on an application. Speaking from experience, marijuana is addictive, saps
ambition, and makes it difficult to think hard and think logically. Anyone who
has tried to code or do math while high knows exactly what I am talking about.

Wesley, obviously you have grown and been very successful since. I wish you
only more success, and you are already far ahead of where I was at 19 (still
smoking too much pot).

~~~
rdl
If you refused to hire even occasional pot smokers (or take investment from
them, or invest in them) in the Bay Area, you'd have a really hard time. (This
comes up with federal government related contracts and staffing.)

~~~
voodoomagicman
I am not saying that there should be hard rules. Just that there is a stigma
there, and that it is there for a reason. Would you invest in a company with
technical founders who got high every day?

~~~
rdl
Pot wouldn't be a factor in my investment decision; it would depend on the
quality of work they did.

I don't think drugs are incompatible with being a responsible and productive
person. There would be downsides to high profile drug use, like what happened
to Sean Parker at Facebook, where presumably there was fear that the LPs in
various investors would raise issues.

People can be useless fucktards with or without drugs; people can be
productive with or without drugs.

~~~
voodoomagicman
I don't think drugs are incompatible with being a responsible and productive
person either. I think that they are negatively correlated with being a
responsible and productive person. I think a search will turn up a lot of
evidence to support that.

Pot isn't the worst thing ever, but it isn't going to help you start a
business or become a great programmer. While you are high, you will be worse
at reasoning and your working memory won't be great. This makes it harder to
write code. There is also a legal risk, justified or not.

Drugs are a frustrating topic to debate. On one side there is a huge amount of
misinformation intended to scare people away from drug use. Then, in reaction
to that and coming out of the cognitive dissonance of millions of people doing
something that they know isn't good for them, there is a ton of 'pot is good
for you because it comes from the earth' bs on the other side. I think people
on the internet (and apparently on HN) tend to be in the latter group, and I
feel like it is worth pointing out the downsides.

~~~
pork
I wrote my mathematics PhD thesis while smoking pot to relieve some terrible
back pain. Cognitively, it helped me on occassion to break through barriers in
abstract reasoning and creativity. You might have had a bad experience with
drug use, and I do sympathize, but please spare us the sweeping
generalizations.

------
SoftwarePatent
Congratulations! Your age might give you trouble--people will feel embarrassed
to work for such young people, and people in general might not take you
seriously. Good luck!

~~~
gyardley
Zuckerberg seems to have done okay.

People who are concerned with the age of their boss are a little too concerned
with status / authority / hierarchy to be at an early-stage startup.

------
guynamedloren
I hate to be _that_ guy... but I'm not impressed by this application. At all.
I am aware that YC is looking for adventurous founders who aren't afraid to
bend the rules in their favor - or break them outright. I can appreciate that.
These guys were clearly aware of that and it seems like they developed their
responses accordingly. They deliberately showed their mischievous side to game
the system. And then they released their yc application to further game the
(pr) system. I guess this is a big part of what startups are about, so well
played. I'm interested to see where this company goes.

Edit : should have said thanks in advance for the downvotes. Criticism is not
accepted on hn these days.

~~~
fatihdonmez
don't hate the player, try to love it.

~~~
guynamedloren
I don't hate the players. These particular players just do not come off as
candid, is all.

~~~
fatihdonmez
it's true but that's what they should do.. After these guys, I guess our
responses on application are too naive and honest :)

