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Why Every Startup Should Complete the Y Combinator Funding Application
Startup incubator Y Combinator began operations in 2005 and they have funded over 200 startups since the launch. Y Combinator provides a small amount of funding (they note the average is $18k) and over three months the new startups get space to work plus mentoring from some of the top entrepreneurs in the tech world. You can view a list of all of the Y Combinator startups (plus a number of the other startup incubators) on Google Docs.
Earlier this week Dave Winer shared a link to the application Dropbox founder Drew Houston submitted to Y Combinator for the Summer 2007 session. I found the application very interesting to read because it provided insight into where the vision for Dropbox was headed. Artic Startup’s Antti Vilpponen also found the application interesting and has additional insights worth checking out.
I saved the link to the application and started to think about how I would complete the application for CloudContacts.
I soon realized that every startup should spend the time to complete the application. No, I am not actually applying to Y Combinator and am not suggesting you should actually submit the application. Naturally you should already have these questions answered but it’s a good way to get the answers into a usable format — portions of the document could easily be shared with prospective employees, partners and investors.
Some of the questions in the application include:
- What is your company going to make? — I would add a second part to this question, “Explain what your company does in one sentence” – I find this is a very difficult question for many startups to answer
- What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don’t get?
- Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most?
- Why would your project be hard for someone else to duplicate?
Even if you never share the answers with anyone except the founders, it’s still a very worthwhile exercise. With the long weekend here in the U.S. – take a few hours and start working on your Y Combinator application.
[...] Stern had an article I just found today (though it was published 3 months ago) referencing not only Y Combinator, but [...]
It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new idea..just like it’s also very sad and frustrating to get bombarded with question to which you don’t really have an answer to. That’s why I believe it’s important to have at least a basic outline as to how you could defend your ideas from those typical questions investors like to ask. Thanks for article, especially the dropbox application!
[...] Application to Y Combinator by Allen Stern – November 29th, 2010 Comment Tweet On Saturday I wrote a post titled, “Why Every Startup Should Complete the Y Combinator Application.” In just a few [...]
Sometimes just the exercise of going through this type of process can really help a business grow. When you look at sometime from the perspective of “how will others view this” you can often find problems and sometimes solutions.
Great questions and will definitely refer to them when teaching Small Business Management this Spring semester.
These are not so different from the classical marketing questions:
Who, What , When Where, Why.
Entrepreneurs should consider being in business to “go to market” and if they do will have a greater chance of success.
All the best!
# How long will it take before you have a prototype? A beta? A version you can charge for?
Prototype – done in Feb. Version I can charge for: 8 weeks maybe? (ed: hahaha)
lol – i got a chiuckle out of this one myself. Although my project has been part time’ish’ it stuns me that we are still only version 0.8 almost 18 months later.
I keep seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and our live chat sites are way better than originally scoped but i get exactly what he was saying here.
There is a better list of YC-Funded start-ups on YCombinator Universe:
http://ycuniverse.com/startups.php
Thanks for the link! It’s a great practice of going through your business and I think this should be the new way to look at your business instead of the more traditional business plan.
Awesome idea! Just saved the application and will be completing it with me partner. Thanks!
Agreed. We will actually figure out how to incorporate it for use by our applicants.