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I got into YC after applying six times.

Individually, the YC founders might be like any number of people you might meet at a cocktail party, through friends, or at work: smart, friendly, and interesting to talk to. But after talking to a lot of them every week in a short span of time, you start to get this really weird sensation that there’s something collectively different about these people when compared to a random sampling of everyone you know.

"What makes a good founder? If there were a word that meant the opposite of hapless, that would be the one. Bad founders seem hapless. They may be smart, or not, but somehow events overwhelm them and they get discouraged and give up. Good founders make things happen the way they want. Which is not to say they force things to happen in a predefined way. Good founders have a healthy respect for reality. But they are relentlessly resourceful. That’s the closest I can get to the opposite of hapless. You want to fund people who are relentlessly resourceful." - PG in How to be an angel investor, Mar 2009

You and your cofounders can build.

At least 1 technical person on the team, or you've learned how to code. When your founding team can't build or can't move fast, you have to spend time and money hiring to validate your hypothesis on what people want. Someone has to learn coding.

You have to ship. Build, and finish. As an engineer, there is a mental hurdle to get over to ship a minimum product.

When you start out exploring a problem space, you have some general sense of the topic, but it's vague, blobby, and simplistic. You have to feel it out to give the problem shape into the nooks and crannies of its reality.

More than anything, YC wants to know that you're relentlessly resourceful. Most YC founders have a common belief that they're not a victim of their circumstance.

Whatevery you do, accelerate your learning first by doing, and second by getting advice.

Why We Received an Email Instead of a Phone Call from YCombinator

  • Have paying cx.
  • Solve a real world problem with sw.
  • Have a clear plan on acquiring cx.
  • Understand organic vs paid growth.
  • Have a backup biz plan.
  • Don't apply with an idea. Apply with an existing project/service/app.
  • Sales. Designers: Have to convince real users to buy into the design. Engineer: Have to convince the designer which features can and can't be built.
  • Have to establish yourself as a business people. Build not just apps/services, but businesses too.
  • Social media.
  • Practice sales.
  • Business model/growth strategy.