Maximizing your chances of getting into Y Combinator (Summer 2014)

Part 1: The Application

Y Combinator Summer 2014 applications are due 28 March 2014 at http://ycombinator.com/apply.html

The written application with video is the first step in a multi-stage process. The ‘zeroth’ stage is deciding to apply at all. Presumably if you’re reading this you’re already interested in Y Combinator; if you haven’t made up your mind, there are various articles on the Internet about this topic. As a founder from YC S11, I strongly believe Y Combinator adds a lot of value to most Internet startups, but is clearly not essential to founding a successful startup. Even if you don’t ultimately do YC, the application process tends to be very beneficial for clarifying how you think about your startup.

Make sure you apply at the right time for your company. In a lot of cases, the greatest benefit from Y Combinator comes when you can launch your product at least a month before Demo Day (at the end of August, for Summer 2014), so you can show traction to investors. Even if I’d decided to go through Y Combinator, if I didn’t think I would be ready in time, I might consider waiting until the following batch to apply (late October 2014 for Jan-March 2015 Winter 2015).

Once you’ve decided to apply, the next step is to submit the written application with video. It helps to understand how this application gets used. First, it’s used for quick-pass screening of applicants by the YC partnership. Next, it’s used for more in-depth scrutiny of which groups will be given interviews. Finally, it’s used for preparation by the YC partners before interviewing selected groups (both to determine which partners interview which teams, and to figure out which questions they might want to ask). The same application needs to be a work for all three steps.

If you submit a substantially blank or incomplete application (“wow, this is horrible”), it’s probably not going to receive serious consideration at this stage — there are just too many applications to go through. Obviously, don’t click submit (vs. update) until your application is complete and ready for review! If an application is written so badly as to be difficult to understand when quickly scanned by a reader, it also has serious chances of being rejected. If you’re not a fluent writer in English (which is possible even if English is your native language, sadly), you’ll benefit from a review by someone who isn’t intimately familiar with your product, just to make sure it’s clear. Obviously, you want to avoid falling into this category.

After the “horrible” applications are discarded, exceptional applications which immediately stand out get fast-tracked to the next stage. If you have a team of people who have accomplished huge things in the past, with a product already launched, an excellent demo, and a clear video, there isn’t much to worry about. If you’ve worked for a Y Combinator company, know the YC partners, and are doing something amazing, you probably don’t need too much help with your application. Good luck, and get ready for the in-person interview stage which follows. You probably know if you fall into this category already. The best advice for this category is to make sure factors which make you exceptional show up quickly during a cursory scan, just to make things easier for the people reviewing a huge stack of applications.

If an application on its face seems incredibly bad (blank, misleading, offensive, etc) but has an amazing live site with lots of users hidden behind a link, it’s hard to fault people for not clicking through. Your responsibility as an applicant is to put your best application in front of the reviewers; your ability to do that is part of the test. It’s useful to note how much time might be spent reviewing an application in this early stage. In general, it’s a very bad idea to make your application depend on someone installing an app on a specific mobile phone OS (or really any installation at this stage), or signing up for an account, or even depending on someone watching your video or viewing images. (Even for purposes other than the YC application, I’d strongly suggest a good textual summary of content, followed by static images, followed by video or a login-less web link, followed by a live website, followed by an installable free app, followed by a paid mobile app, if applicable.)

Now we are left with the middle category. This category is the majority of applications. These consume the majority of time when reviewing, as the reviewing process is biased to avoid false negatives (rejecting a team early on who might be good), but is also very high volume. Ideally, you won’t be in this category, but realistically, a lot of applications will be, so this is where editing and tips provide the greatest benefit.

The video (with some YC recommendations and good sample videos at http://ycombinator.com/video.html) is probably most important in the early screening stage for these “middle” applications — it’s entirely possible it never gets watched for the really bad ones, and possibly for the best applications (because the decision can be made so quickly). There are some key elements to make the video as good as it can be:

1. Technical quality of the audio is much more important than technical quality of video. Avoid wind noise, avoid fans and low-quality built-in computer microphones, and listen to your recording a few times to make sure it’s clear. Cellular phone wired headsets often have particularly good microphones relative to computers or other devices, or dedicated audio recording setups like the $50 Blue Snowball USB mic. On the other hand, a low quality computer webcam is probably fine for the video, although positioning it so you aren’t looking down at a laptop on your lap, with reasonable room lighting, etc. can be helpful. Absolutely do not pay for professional video services, though — too slick a presentation usually turns people off as well, and it’s a waste of money.
2. If you’re not a native US English speaker, be careful of your accent. Paul Graham got pilloried over faulting heavy and incomprehensible accents, but especially in a rapid screening environment, it makes a big difference in how intelligible you are. Speak more slowly than you would otherwise if your accent is likely to be unclear.
3. Submitting a video you made for another purpose (Techstars application, some local news story, a trade show, a canned sales pitch) is pretty likely to get your application rejected out of hand. Spending 15 minutes on a quality video specific to the needs of the application is a reasonable requirement for a successful application.
4. Don’t read from a script. Do take a few takes if necessary to get the video to be smooth and cover what you want to cover, and make sure you review it.
5. Smile. Most of the value of the video is showing who you are, and that you are comfortable talking about what you’re doing in front of a (virtual) audience. Ideally, also show your team dynamic, but having one person doing the majority of the talking can be fine (although it shouldn’t be entirely one person).
6. Ideally, the entire team should be in one place. The “Skype” or “Google Hangouts” videos are always weaker than videos where the team is in one place. If it’s unavoidable, perhaps you should have applied sooner (but go ahead anyway, just know it might hurt your chances, and try to make sure the rest of your application is as strong as it can be.)
7. Don’t go on for too long, and put your most important message up front (and repeat it at the end). If your biggest strength is that you have a 100 site business deployment underway, lead with that in the first 15-30 seconds, rather than a long discussion of your technology or the problem — you can circle back through the problem and your technical solution and team, and then emphasize your deployment strength again at the end. You should have your message communicated within 15-30 seconds, and then spend up to another minute elaborating on that and the rest of your message; under no circumstances should your video be over 2 minutes, and ideally it would be about 1 minute.
8. Set it on YouTube to be “embeddable”, but not “listed”, and not “private”. The YC application review process embeds the videos within a reviewing page, so it’s inconvenient for reviewers when they’re submitted on vimeo or other sites, or when embedding is disabled.

Once you have the video, there are a lot of little details which might make a difference if your application is on the line.

1. Submitting functional, correctly-formed (and thus clickable) URLs where requested
2. Correctly following directions for listing YC usernames (i.e. make sure you include your own username and that of your co-applicants)
3. Following the (slightly complex) instructions for founder credentials. If someone isn’t smart enough to follow basic formatting instructions, I often question that person’s general intelligence. Use semicolons as instructed. Use standard abbreviations. Include city or country name in parentheses if you’re referring to an institution like “National Technical University”. Separate founders with blank lines.
4. Correctly answer the “yes or no” dropdown about whether you’re a single family, the team can’t move to the Bay Area, etc.
5. If a question isn’t applicable (e.g. “how do you know your cofounders” as a single founder team, don’t get cute — just write “single founder” or “n/a”.

Now you’re on to the real content of an application — your answers to the various short-essay questions. Different reviewers have their own opinions on the most important questions, but the key to the whole thing is that none of it is a “trick” — the goal is to communicate why you’re a great team as clearly as possible every time the application is reviewed at each step in the process.

One way to accomplish this is to “write like a newspaper” — don’t “bury the lede”. i.e. you should put the most important facts in the first sentence, and then explain them. If the question is “How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?”, don’t go into a paragraph long essay/wall-of-text about how everyone is connected through the Internet these days but a couple of people have similar interests in sciences and went to a really good local lab space and then happened to meet up in the meeting about kicking out the bio guys who were stinking up the lab but you also have an interest in biology from back in college. Just say “We’ve met in July 2012 at a local hackerspace while working on personal projects, and collaborated on two small open source projects (URL and URL) before this one.” Think about why the question is being asked, and try to answer the underlying question. In the case of “how did the founders meet” (one of the easiest questions), it’s to see how deep your connection is (i.e. you didn’t meet up a couple days ago just to work on the YC application, and you’re not just roping someone in due to YC’s bias against solo founders…). Make sure your answer addresses the underlying concern.

Personally, I find the “what is your company going to make”, “most impressive accomplishments”, “how did you pick this idea”, and “what are the alternatives” and “competitors” questions most meaningful and predictive. Put a lot of effort into these — saying as clearly as possible, in as few words as possible, with as little reader preknowledge demanded, exactly what you want to say. Do your homework; quantified data about size of markets, specific alternatives and competitors, technologies, etc. make you seem knowledgeable and convincing, and also help you make your case (both are important).

Showing that you understand research is important and are willing/able to spend a few hours researching the topic you’re allegedly willing to devote the next 10 years of your life to disrupting is probably a necessary part of a successful application.

It is very helpful to have multiple people review what you write for these questions. One common mistake is assuming the reader is already an expert in your field and familiar with the trends and technologies within it (i.e. for a radiology PACS-as-a-Service, you probably can’t assume the reader knows what clinical radiology departments are like, or what a PACS is or why they’re useful); another mistake is presenting an argument without sufficient reference to industry-standard terms, so a reader who is familiar with the field might think you are not familiar with the industry.

Being able to clearly and succinctly convey your message is a valuable skill in entrepreneurship in general, not just on the YC application. If it takes a couple days to get the answers to 5-10 questions down to a few exceptionally clear sentences each, it’s time well spent.

A lot of the questions exist primarily to disqualify you; the default is that they’re not harmful. Equity distribution within a certain range isn’t a big deal, but a 90/10 business/hacker split generally means the businessperson is a douchebag and the hacker is uninformed — one of those is a lot easier to address with 5 minutes on the Internet than the other. The general assumption is “you’re doing this project anyway, and would like to get into YC if possible”; a project you will do if and only if you get into YC is probably not going to get into YC — so the “what level of commitment for the next year”, “other commitments”, etc. questions should be fairly clear (there are exceptions if you have a non-primary founder with some side obligation, especially in a three or more person team). If you don’t own or control the IP necessary for your business, you’re also possibly doomed, but this is rarely an issue. Participation in most other incubators or accelerators is generally a black mark; the exception is college-specific incubators like START while a student. (I don’t know of any Techstars alumni who have gotten into YC with the same company.) Generally, the incorporation, “where you will be based after YC”, etc. stuff won’t hurt you.

“Other ideas”, “hacked a system”, and “tell us something surprising” are kind of wildcards — if you have a great answer, they can help. Leaving them blank or entering something moronic will hurt, but a basic answer should not affect your application.

There’s a whole class of questions which are incredibly important but essentially obvious: the quality of any demo, and “how far along are you”. It’s pretty obvious — putting effort into a demo (or working app), and being as far as long as possible, is going to make your application stronger. You don’t need a blog post to tell you that.

I’d probably recommend filling in your application and doing a video, then saving it and sharing it with anyone willing to review your application. You will get a lot more meaningful feedback than if you just say “hi, I want to apply to YC, do you have any advice” — both because people are more likely to blow you off if you’ve not made any serious effort yet, and because it’s difficult to give anything but the most general advice without seeing your answers to the questions themselves. If you’re asking people you don’t know well, the best way is a 1-2 sentence introduction to yourself and your product, a clear ask (ideally just around a specific question in the app and your answer, vs. the whole thing), and the text inline. Anyone worth getting advice from is probably quite busy, so keep that in mind.

Once you do click submit, don’t stop working! One common outcome is that an application gets past initial review, but before being selected for interviews, one of the partners contacts the team and asks some questions (perhaps about the demo or something else) — if you can show that you’ve made progress toward whatever issue they raise, even if it’s not completely solved, you’re in a much stronger position. Plus, if you do get an interview, you’ve got to go through that hurdle, and then ultimately build the company, so this is just one early step on a very long road.

Just to talk about numbers: from public figures, YC gets 2000 to 3000 applications per batch, and accepts a couple hundred groups for interviews, so maybe 10% pass the first stage. Once you’re accepted for an interview, around 50-70 groups are admitted to YC, so maybe 30% of those with accepted applications pass the second stage interview. Not getting an interview doesn’t hurt your chances of getting an interview when you re-apply, and being invited to interview (but not accepted) generally seems to be a positive factor for future admission, particularly if any issues raised during the interview are addressed.