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?
Who writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder?
How 20 YC companies answered the "Who writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder?" question from the YCombinator Application.
— 20 answers
MagicBell(W21)
Full applicationHana (founder) is writing the code with Josue, core team member.
Metlo(S21)
Full applicationBoth of us do all the work. No one else has worked on Supernote.
Dendron(W21)
Full applicationKevin is the sole full time developer for the project
Virtually(S20)
Full applicationI was a previous Software Engineer at Facebook and write all our code.
Prolific(S19)
Full application100% of our code was written by my co-founder (Phelim) and the four engineers we've hired (all still employees). No work was done by anyone outside the company. Phelim built the entire MVP, and we've hired using revenue to date.
InEvent(S19)
Full applicationOur development team is composed of 5 people: 2 co-founders and 3 employees. All InEvent software belongs to InEvent as per our contracts with current and past employees.
Slite(W18)
Full applicationChristophe kicked off the first version of the project. The technical part of Slite is now lead by our 2 senior developers Pierre & Arnaud, both highly invested, while the product development is lead by Christophe.
Goodly(S18)
Full applicationHemant writes the code and technical work.
The Flex Company(S16)
Full applicationAll code and intellectual property has originated from The Flex Company team members.
Paystack(W16)
Full applicationAndroid library written by a contractor, but we have contracts already
Cruise(W14)
Full applicationNo (it was not done by a non-founder)
Kash(S14)
Full applicationYes. We have two employees that work full time on the company. They are both University of Waterloo alumni and DannySu has known them both for over 10 years. All of our code is covered by proper legal agreements. (CanadaKaz is a lawyer.)
One Month(S13)
Full applicationAll code not written by me is open source.
Standard Treasury(S13)
Full applicationNo. (Our code was not written by a non-founder)
Lollipuff(W13)
Full applicationNo. Aside from open-source libraries (GPL, BSD, or MIT), all of the code was written by Travis or Fei.
FamilyLeaf(W12)
Full applicationNo
The Muse(W12)
Full applicationWe brought Alec Turnbull, a close friend of mine and a great web dev, onto the team in June to build our minimum viable product. He's a great guy but in September we mutually decided that his heart wasn't in staying with us long term, so we've been helping him find his next move and he's been helping us interview developers. We have narrowed the field down to two highly awesome, amazing female developers, one of whom we would like to bring on as soon as we close a round. (We like male devs too! We just happen to be finding females at the moment).
OwnLocal(W10)
Full applicationWe subcontracted two developer friends to do some work for us, but we paid them for their time and we have contracts and releases saying the code is ours.
Mixpanel(S09)
Full applicationAll code written thus far is safe to use based on the licensing.
Dropbox(S07)
Full applicationNo
