All Questions
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- Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube video introducing the founder(s).
- Who writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder?
- How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?
- Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together.
- Please tell us in one or two sentences about something impressive that each founder has built or achieved.
- Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage.
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- How far along are you?
- How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time?
- When will you have a prototype or beta?
- How many active users or customers do you have? How many are paying? Who is paying you the most, and how much do they pay you?
- We're interested in your revenue over the last several months. (Not cumulative and not GMV).
- Anything else you would like us to know regarding your revenue or growth rate?
- 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?
- If you have already participated or committed to participate in an incubator, "accelerator" or "pre-accelerator" program, please tell us about it.
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- 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?
- What's new about what you're making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn't exist yet (or they don't know about it)?
- Who are your competitors? What do you understand about your business that they don't?
- How do or will you make money? How much could you make?
- How do users find your product? How did you get the users you have now? If you run paid ads, what is your cost of acquisition?
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- Have you formed ANY legal entity yet?
- Please list all legal entities you have and in what state or country each was formed (e.g. Delaware C Corp, Mexican SAPI, Singapore Pvt Ltd, etc.).
- Please describe the breakdown of the equity ownership in percentages among the founders, employees and any other stockholders. If there are multiple founders, be sure to give the equity ownership of each founder and founder title (e.g. CEO).
- Have you taken any investment yet?
- How much money do you spend per month?
- How much money does your company have in the bank now?
- How long is your runway?
- Is there anything else we should know about your company?
Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.
How 12 YC companies answered the "Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less." question from the YCombinator Application.
— 12 answers
MagicBell(W21)
Full applicationIn-app notification center for web & mobile apps
Dendron(W21)
Full applicationSuperhuman for note taking
Virtually(S20)
Full applicationA virtual classroom builder
Prolific(S19)
Full applicationQuickly find research participants you can trust.
InEvent(S19)
Full applicationEnterprise all in one event marketing SaaS
OpenPhone(S18)
Full applicationPhone system meets CRM built for small businesses
Slite(W18)
Full applicationThe first note app designed for teams
Goodly(S18)
Full applicationStudent Loan Repayment as an Employee Benefit.
Simple Habit(W17)
Full application5-minute meditation app. Spotify for meditation.
bxblue(S17)
Full applicationPayroll-deductible loans, offline to online
The Flex Company(S16)
Full applicationWe make FLEX, a more comfortable alternative to tampons
Paystack(W16)
Full applicationAPIs and tools to enable merchants accept payments in African Markets
— advice from YC partners
Aditya Agarwalla (Founder at Kisan Network, YC alum)
SourceMost important thing to remember for this question is to stick to the character limit. That is a must. As an international applicant, try and use some US based reference that makes it easier for the partners to understand. For example, Uber for X, Stripe for Y etc. This may not be possible for every company. In that case, just keep it as simple as possible and don’t over think it.
