31 Y Combinator Application Tips to Successfully Snag a YC Spot

Summary:

Only 3% of Y Combinator applicants get accepted. Read these helpful tips from YC alumni to help you write a successful YC application.

As Y Combinator applications flood in for every new batch, founders with great ideas are looking for ways to make their applications stand out. Paul Graham, also known as PG, even pleaded with his applicants to help encourage them — “Investors are optimists. We want to believe you’re great.”

Back in 2011, Paul also said that the acceptance rate to Y Combinator is around 3%. The percentage of applicants who get interviews is around 7%, according to YC partner, Kathrina Manalac. This means that 3 out of 7 (42%) of the groups that passed the application stage will pass their interviews!

General Tips for Applying to Y Combinator

1. Get to the point

Back in the day, each YC partner read every application over a period of about 10 days — that is no longer true. Alumni reviewers do the first pass, and then each partner still reads 70-100 applications per day. What does that mean for you? Here’s how Jason Shen, co-founder of Ridejoy, puts it:

Assuming an 8 hour day with 5-minute breaks each hour means each app gets about 5 minutes of each partner’s time on average. (440 mins per day / ~85 apps per day = 5.2 mins per app)

Cut to the chase — impress YC partners with quality, not quantity.

2. Impress them (concisely)

Quoting Joseph Perla, former VP of Technology at Turntable, a YC alum, and a two-time YC applicant — write everything that is interesting and unique about yourself. The biggest mistake he made in his first round of YC applications was keeping it too brief.

3. Avoid marketing speak

One of the most important things to accomplish in your YC application is to answer the questions as clearly and succinctly as you possibly can. Michael Seibel, YC partner, co-founder, and CEO of Justin.tv reminds YC applicants that the only way to have a robust pitch for your company is to “eliminate jargon, acronyms, marketing speak, and any ambiguous terms such as ‘platform.’”

4. Stay away from buzzwords

~~Revolutionize, disrupt, synergy, innovate, groundbreaking, world-class, unique, advanced, cutting edge, exclusive, superior, platform, leverage.~~

Scratch all of that. These words can diminish the quality of your application and are not considered as “impressive” as they may seem.

5. Strive for excellence, not perfection

Writing an application for Y Combinator can be a nerve-wracking experience. You might start second-guessing every single word you use and every sentence that you write. However, the red light should go off if you’re chasing after perfection.

6. Apply early

No, applying early does not guarantee that you’ll get a spot, but you will have a small advantage because YC partners will have more time to read your applications.

Tips for Being an Awesome Founder

7. Be formidable

“A formidable person is one who seems like they’ll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way. Formidable is close to confident, except that someone could be confident and mistaken. Formidable is roughly justifiably confident.” — Paul Graham, Co-founder of Y Combinator

8. Be resourceful

What does it mean to be resourceful? In PG’s words, “relentlessly resourceful.” In the startup world, most obstacles are external and come in all shapes and forms.

9. Be naughty

Are you a rule breaker? Are you always looking for creative ways to solve everyday problems? That’s what being “naughty” means.

10. Have more than one founder (or at least be looking for one)

Going solo may sound compelling for many reasons (i.e. owning more of the company), but Y Combinator rarely invests in solo founders.

11. Don’t pretend. Be sincere.

It’s ok if you don’t fit the “outgoing, cheerful, confident model” — not all startup founders are like that.

12. Be nice

In fact, mean people fail as startup founders.

13. Show what you have done!

Don’t hold back any of your accomplishments, especially as a team.

14. Show them the team won’t break up

15. Show your online presence (GitHub, Hacker News, etc.)

16. Move to Silicon Valley (even if it’s temporary)

Tips for Selling Your Idea to YC

17. Make something people want

18. Show traction

19. Pick a metric

20. Show passion for your startup

21. Describe exactly what your product would do

22. Name the flaws of your product

23. Present your domain knowledge

24. Have a distribution plan

25. Give figures

26. Make bottom-up estimates

27. Be smart about execution time

28. Present alternative ideas

Tips for Making Your YC Application Even Better!

29. Include a YC video!

30. Leverage your network (recommendation)

31. Get someone to read over your YC application

Conclusion

As a team made up of Y Combinator and Techstars alum, we know how nerve-racking the application process can be. Hopefully, these tips from YC alumni will help you write a successful application.