YC is the ideal next step for us use the exposure and knowledge that we could get from the program to scale our product and make our startup a success.

We have been following YC podcasts and have a pretty good understanding of the program and how it will help us to succeed.

While I have a great team, as a transgender female founder, I lack the industry network to make this business become the industry leader it can be. I can benefit tremendously from the advice, connections, and support that YC offers.

This time: because we received an email saying we were in the top 10% of last winter’s applications. In general, YC and San Francisco are the two best places in the world to learn how to scale a project into a business.

I’m applying to YC because I miss the talent, ambition and accountability I had with my teams in the valley. It's very hard to reach great without those things or on your own. Plus, I need resources to make that happen. Bootstrapping could eventually clear the financial hurdles, but the mentorship, network and reputation that come along with Y Combinator all take too long to build on your own. It would probably take me 10 years to do on my own what I could do in 2 years working with YC.

Also the more users I talk to and research I do the more urgently I feel the need to show people what’s possible. In the beginning I just wanted to bootstrap and work on something that helped at least a few people. I was trying to be realistic and temper expectations, after all everyone thinks they want to change the world. I realized I don’t care about creating a successful business, I care about showing everyone there’s a better way.

When the triple request for startups based around news, jobs and democracy dropped, Tanushree and Christian immediately decided that it was time to apply. After years mulling around with the idea that this model could potentially be a business, we decided to jump all in.

We think the environment of YC will give us the best chance of building a strong foundation that will catapult us. Speed is extremely important to Pic ur Photo, as we see a huge potential in the business model, and we know now is the time to strike.

We have nothing to lose but everything to gain in really building something people will have fun with and love. Plus also having the chance to have a real impact in the world and bringing underrepresented ideas and voices to the table of storytelling is invaluable.

After three years in research mode, we want to scale massively. We’ve spent some time in the Bay and feel there’s a lot we could learn from other startups and the tech startup scene. We think our approach to making a difference is aligned with Y Combinator: go with the numbers and maximise scale.

The first thing Parker said when Greg told him what we're building was "Apply to YC!"

We want to rapidly accelerate our growth and saw first-hand the value YC provides to early stage companies during our time working at YC companies, including at Rippling W17 and Optimizely W10.

Many of our friends and colleagues are YC founders and pushed us to apply for the S18 batch, including: Parker Conrad Rippling W17 and Zenefits W13, Ryan Jackson MicroEval S12 and Paid S14, Jeff LaBarge Tule S14, Marta Jamrozik VanGo W17, and Zack Brown Haiku W18.

We loved attending the YC Startup School. A rigorous program with a great peer group to live with locally at one place sounds a lot more exciting.

- YC will provide guidance in areas we are weak and will connect us with people whose wisdom can help us grow faster
- The core thesis of “the best builders are not necessarily the best networkers re-iterated by Michael Seibel resonates with us
- Other YC graduates have described it as a valuable experience
- Completing this application was an exercise in critical thinking about what we’re doing

The apply for w18 email reminder.

We want to grow like a YC company and want to learn and contribute to the extended Y Combinator family.

applied 3 times, we want it! :)

We hope to learn from the best of the best. We've learned so much from YC podcasts, YC Startup Class, essays, and other YC founders, so we would love to have the opportunity to get advice from YC partners first-hand. We admire many YC alumni building world-changing marketplace and infrastructure companies (e.g. Airbnb & Stripe) and we can see the impact of being part of a community of ambitious, optimistic people motivated to solve fundamental problems at global scale. We have strong traction, and now is the first time we could go to YC for the full-time program.

Feedback from startups that went through it. It feels like a must for companies like Slite that need to be mainstream super fast.

Plus, after having exchanged with Alumni, I have the sensation YC makes a lot of sense in 2 different cases: companies with the right energy but that need to pivot, and companies with a beginning of product market fit, ready to deploy really fast. Slite is definitely in this phase, and YC could be gamechanger for us.

A Steve Jobs video in which he commented that as a child, he called Bill Hewlett to ask for spare parts and he ended up giving him a job. With that I learned that if I want something, having the initiative to ask is, many times, enough.

I’ve been following YC since 2015. Last year in October, YC held office hours in New Delhi, India. We got selected for it and spoke to Anu Hariharan about the stuff we are building. Those 10 minutes were enough to question ourselves about the startup. She convinced us as to why technology companies proliferate in the Valley. We decided at that time to apply for the next batch (S18).

Recently one of our mentors has advised us to look for acceleration opportunities outside of India as it will be hard for us to find the ecosystem that supports technology startups in India.

Plus, our target market is mostly outside of India and being in the valley will make sense.

We want to access the mentorship and network that comes with Y Combinator brand as we think it would greatly accelerate our trajectory to become a massive technology company.

I won the YCombinator hackathon in 2018 (Astral Trade); also have attended Startup School the past three years and have experienced, first-hand, the value in the YCombinator community.

Fundamentally I believe in the ethos of Y Combinator. I believe that despite the competitive nature of startups, the wider YC community is genuinely interested in helping fellow YC founders and seeing them succeed. We all know that starting (and growing) a startup is tough, so having this network to tap into over time is invaluable.

In addition to that I have followed YC for many years. I believe your consistent track record is evidence of the approach you take with companies that go through YC and believe that being exposed to that same environment will allow me to accelerate Task Pigeon and increase the potential beyond what even I believe it has today.

I also being my hardworking, committed and dedicated nature fits what YC is looking for in a founder despite the fact that I am non-technical myself.

Stripe Atlas

Several of our friends have founded YC companies (e.g., StyleLend, iCracked, Airhelp, Her). We’ve seen the positive impact that their experience has had on their businesses. Our desire to accelerate growth of the business and the strong recommendation of these founders motivated us to apply.

Y Combinator has an incredible network of entrepreneurs and mentors — many of whom have used Simple Habit and directly fall into our target audience. Being part of YC would be an impetus of growth in terms of learning from the community and attracting the best talent. I'm at Stanford GSB right now and I'd happily consider dropping out for YC.

We want to be a part of a fast-paced program with big hairy audacious goals, surrounded by people who are building the future. We want to learn how to scale the product and user base from those who have done it before.

Looking at YC Alum Front that offers a similar product for a different audience, we believe OpenPhone can go through the same growth trajectory by joining YC.

Beyond being an accelerator, YC is a mindset and a set of values we believe in.

Daryna witnessed this at Vidyard where YC made a long-term impact. Many years later, the company has maintained YC values and principles. Being relentlessly resourceful and making something people want are some of them.

oothenigerian