Y Combinator Application Tips

📋 General Guidelines

⚠️ Important Notes:

👤 Founder Profile

Role & Responsibilities

What is your title, or if you haven't set it yet, main responsibility?*

(CEO, CTO, Sales, Engineering, etc.)

💡 Tip: Avoid Co-CEOs

What percent equity do you have?*

If you haven't incorporated yet, give the equity percent you expect to have.

💡 Tips:

Are you a technical founder?*

You are a programmer, engineer, or scientist who can build the product without outside assistance.

🚨 Critical:

Are you currently in school?

💡 Tips:

If accepted to YC, will you commit to working exclusively on this project for the next year?*

i.e. you won't be in school or have another job

🚨 Warning: If you're shaky about this, red flag

Accomplishments

Please tell us about a time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage.

📝 Example from Dawson's application:
"I ran a campus tours startup in college called campusguide.us. My friends and I would give high schoolers and parents tours for $45/hour. To get users, I camped outside the admissions office every weekend. Every hour, a few parents would miss their official Yale campus tour, or forget to book one, and I'd be there waiting."

Please tell us in one or two sentences about the most impressive thing other than this startup that you have built or achieved.

💡 Tips:

List any entrepreneurship programs, clubs, or hacker houses you have participated in or are currently participating in.

💡 Note: This question wasn't here when we applied. I think they're just checking if you're in the SF / startup world already. I doubt this adds a lot of value though, because most hacker houses and entrepreneurship clubs are pretty low signal from what I've seen.

👥 Founders

Who writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder? Please explain.

🚨 Red Flag: Being done by a non-founder is a red flag. If someone wrote code for your product, and you're a pre-revenue / super early stage, they should be a co-founder!

Are you looking for a cofounder?

💡 Tip: I've had multiple friends apply as solo founders, get in, and match with a co-founder during the batch. It is valid to answer yes.

Founder Video - Please record a one minute video introducing the founder(s).*

🎯 Things YC looks for in the video:

📺 Watch these examples:

🏢 Company

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.*

💡 Tip: Your mom should be able to read this and understand what you do!

If you have a demo, attach it below.

💡 Tips:

💡 Tips:

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

💡 Tips:

📝 Example response from Dawson's S23 application:
"Usher is an AI chatbot that helps retailers and supermarkets automate their in-store customer service. When customers are lost, can't find an item, or have general questions, they can scan a QR code (or go to an iPad) posted around the store and ask our AI, which has access to the store's inventory, policies, and other info."

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

💡 Tip: This should be San Francisco, unless you have a compelling reason for another location (i.e. my customers are all in Latin America)

📈 Progress

How far along are you?

🎯 YC's #1 Criteria: "How impressive is their traction given how long they've been working?"

📊 Traction Benchmarks:

📝 Example from Dawson's S23 application:
"We started a little over a week ago but have been working nonstop. We've talked to 20 stores with varying sizes, across supermarkets (i.e. Nob Hill, local stores), department stores (i.e. Target), and specialized retailers (i.e. Best Buy, Home Depot). We pinpointed that a big problem for them all was losing customers due to insufficient service at unanticipated peak times, as shoppers couldn't find what they were looking for or couldn't get assistance. We have an MVP, which we have demoed to 3 stores. Rose International Market has agreed to try us out, so we are currently integrating our MVP with their inventory database and testing with their employees. Planning to launch at the start of next week."

How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time? Please explain.

💡 Tip: See "How far along are you?"

Are people using your product?

💡 Tip: See "How far along are you?"

Do you have revenue?

💡 Tip: See "How far along are you?"

If you are applying with the same idea as a previous batch, did anything change? If you applied with a different idea, why did you pivot and what did you learn from the last idea?

💡 Tip: Pivots aren't bad! Everyone pivots! The important thing is you had a good reason for it, and you clearly gave it a decent shot.

💡 Idea

Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you're making?

🎯 YC's #2 Criteria: The idea and your founder-market-fit, after progress per unit of time

📺 Watch this: I highly recommend that you watch this video to understand how YC thinks about startup ideas: How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas | Startup School

Who are your competitors? What do you understand about your business that they don't?

💡 Tips:

How do or will you make money? How much could you make?

(We realize you can't know precisely, but give your best estimate)

✅ Do: Bottom up market size calculation

❌ Don't: Top down calculation

🎯 Target: They're looking for $10 Billion a year or more

📝 Example from Dawson's S23 application:
"We will charge stores a monthly rate, determined by either a fixed amount, a percentage of their sales, or an amount calculated with the number of uses of our service. Varying largely on the size of the store, we estimate that we can charge $500-$5000 per month per store. With the hundreds of thousands of stores around the world that need improved in-store customer service solutions, this is easily a multi-billion dollar market."

If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them. One may be something we've been waiting for. Often when we fund people it's to do something they list here and not in the main application.

💡 Tip: List all of them!

📋 Equity

💡 Tip: Should probably be a Delaware C Corp unless you have a really good reason why it isn't