Applying to YC Early Decision – Wren (YC S19)
blog.ycombinator.comVery useful! I ran into the issue Early Decision might solve when I was interviewing for the YC Fellowship program. Our interviews were 2-3 days before my fall semester was to start. I had, at best, a 24 hour turn-around time between getting accepted and going on school-leave. Very little time to weigh the decision to join or not, and logistically stressful getting all the documents in order to make sure I didn't incur tuition costs for a partial semester.
Glad it worked out!
Hi! I'm part of the Admissions Team at YC. AMA about Early Decision or about admissions! :)
Hi three years ago I dropped out of college in order to build my own destiny, after unsuccessfully applying multiple times to YC I feel I'm missing a strong team.
My current users absolutely love my product (just came back from a week of user interviews at their office), my company is default alive for the foreseeable future but I'm running solo.
I feel overwhelmed. I have a couple of customers waiting to start using our product because I don't know if I will be able to provide the great customer support my current customers have.
I want to find people to join me but it is pretty hard when my country startup ecosystem is still immature.
I changed my product until user loved it and now I feel stuck.
Congrats on making something people love - that is a great start and a huge deal.
I agree that finding someone to join you is important. This decision should not be taken lightly. Michael Seibel has great advice here on how to find a cofounder here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7tDaFr5EYA
Do you really need the YC? Do you want them just as an investment partner or because of connections?
I've looked at Oko and seems great, I'd just change the icon (reminds too much of MS Outlook/Office suite), change the grey to another color and why do you have a schedule demo instead of a real demo?
Thank you for the feedback and kind words.
I think YC can be invaluable to any company in many different aspects. For me it would be an amazing opportunity to create a great team.
Checkout indie hackers.
Hey Laura, I was busy coding an MVP for a company we just founded, and just before launch, we discovered that YC had recently funded a competitor with a nearly identical business model and very similar branding.
This was a surprise to us, as we didn't initially see our product as "YC material" (crowded market, not super innovative), but was also somewhat motivating.
The competitor I'm talking about is actually Wren. You can compare Wren to our bootstrapped MVP here:
Now to my question: Is YC no longer an option for Offsetra, given how similar we are to a company you've already funded?
Either way, wishing all the best and much success to Wren! Hoping we can connect and maybe find ways to collaborate soon. <3
Hi Brendan, I encourage you to apply - we regularly fund companies that are doing similar things! In fact, due to the number of teams we fund, it's inevitable that some will overlap. Our solution is that we don't tell teams what other teams are doing if they're in the same space.
Thought experiment Laura, lets imagine that in the future there is a quadrillion dollar company that started in 2020. Do you honestly believe the founder of that company would take your yc deal?