Well, wish me luck

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M

Martin

Lifer
Jan 15, 2000
29,178
1
81
Some of you may know Paul Graham and his YCombinator venture. Well, I just sent in my application for the summer round, so with a lot of luck, I might get an interview and/or funding. It's pretty unlikely, since their acceptance rate is something like 4%, but when I applied for the last time, he told me we almost made it to the interviews, so maybe my chances aren't that horrible.

Here's a link for those that don't know about Ycombinator.

Update

I heard back from Y Combinator last week and me and my team were invited to go do an interview. Out of the 400-500 that apply, they invited about 60 teams for an interview and they'll fund about 20, so our chances aren't bad.

We're all heading to San Francisco this weekend where we have just 10 minutes to demo our application and convince them that our idea, execution and team all kick ass. One of my friends' UI work was featured on TechCrunch today, so we're hoping that'll add some cred to our team.

I'll know by the end of the week, but if this works out, it would be a dream come true! :D


Update

Well, it didn't work out. We had our interview earlier today and I thought it went well but I guess there were much better teams around.

Oh well. Nothing much left to do now... gonna go to the pub now, do a bit of sightseeing in SF tomorrow and monday, then go home to Toronto on Tuesday, load up the bong and chill ;)

 
P

ppdes

Senior member
May 16, 2004
739
0
0
The 5k + 5k/person they give you seems microscopic. I could borrow more than that from relatives and they wouldn't take a percentage of my business like YC does.
 
YetioDoom

YetioDoom

Platinum Member
Dec 12, 2001
2,162
0
0
Originally posted by: ppdes
The 5k + 5k/person they give you seems microscopic. I could borrow more than that from relatives and they wouldn't take a percentage of my business like YC does.
Click to expand...

 
M

Martin

Lifer
Jan 15, 2000
29,178
1
81
Its true that the money is basically nothing (hell, I can get that much from my bank account...), so the entire value of this comes from the mentorship, connections and cred. Graham/YC are pretty famous in tech/startup circles, so in addition to getting valuable advice from them, they also introduce you to other investors etc. Not only that, but getting funded by YC is a sure way to get a ton of free press, ie you're almost guaranteed great buzz from sites like TechCrunch, Mashable, Ajaxian etc.

As for what I'm working on, it's a neat little web app, but still not ready to be shown. Regardless of whether I get funded or not, I'll still release it when its far enough to be used by others, so I'll post about it when I'm finished (hopefully in a month or two).
 
D

Descartes

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
13,968
2
0
Congrats to you! I know of at least one other ATOTer that pitched to YC as well, but I won't call him out unless he wants me to. I know it's not easy, and it's hard to get your message across in such a short time.

Good luck to you. I hope it works out. Having been part of a start-up (admittedly not one that made headlines nor one that made billions), it's an experience that's extremely valuable no matter what the monetary result. Let us know!
 
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