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What Happens at YC
INTRODUCTION
People often ask us what happens at Y Combinator. Here is an overview of what happens during the YC program and the benefits you get as a YC founder. You can read more about why you should apply to YC here.
THE YC PROGRAM
YC hosts two 3-month programs — one from January through March, and one from July through September. Here’s what happens during the 3 months of YC:
The Goal
The overall goal of YC is to help startups really take off. They arrive at YC at all different stages. Some haven’t even started working yet, and others have been launched for a year or more. But whatever stage a startup is at when they arrive, our goal is to help them to be in dramatically better shape 3 months later.
For most startups, better shape translates into two things: to have a better product with more users, and to have more options for raising money.
Startups at all stages benefit from the intensity of YC. That’s probably the best word to describe the atmosphere. For 3 months, it’s all startup, all the time. Everyone around you—us, the other founders in your batch, the alumni, the speakers, the investors—wants to help your startup succeed. In that atmosphere it’s hard not to be highly motivated. And that kind of extraordinary motivation is what one needs to do something as difficult as starting a startup.
Many founders describe the 11 weeks leading up to Demo Day as the most productive period in their lives. Though YC continues after the 3 month cycle, and the alumni community is an increasingly valuable resource, those 11 weeks are still the most important thing. You can’t make people something they’re not, but the right conditions can bring out the best in them. And since most people have way more potential than they realize, they’re often surprised by what they’re capable of.
Funding
YC invests $500,000 in every company on standard terms. Our $500K investment is made on 2 separate safes:
- We invest $125,000 on a post-money safe in return for 7% of your company (the “$125k safe”)
- We invest $375,000 on an uncapped safe with a Most Favored Nation (“MFN”) provision (the “MFN safe”)
Groups
During the batch, startups are sorted into 4 groups. Each group is led by group partners who advise the founders in one-on-one and group office hours. Each group is split into 12-14 sections (6-10 companies), so that founders get the benefit of an intimate setting within the larger batch.
Office Hours
Much of what takes place at YC happens during office hours. Group partners host group office hours every two weeks and one-on-one office hours as often as founders want. What startups talk about at office hours depends on the stage of the company and where they are in the YC cycle.
Bookface
Bookface is the platform founders use to connect to one another—imagine a combination of Facebook, Quora, and LinkedIn. Each founder has a profile and can tag themselves as an expert in any topic. If you have a question, need an introduction, or want to poll for knowledge, you can post the request to the forum on Bookface. The knowledge base of the YC community is both broad and deep—the community includes founders who are the world’s foremost experts in everything from security to community building to nuclear energy.
Batch Retreat
In the first few weeks of the batch we host a 3-day, in-person retreat. The retreat gives founders the opportunity to get to know each other, their group partners, and the YC team.
Alumni Talks
Every week, we invite an eminent person from the startup world to speak. Most speakers are successful startup founders — the founders of Airbnb, Stripe, Doordash and Ginkgo Bioworks often come back to tell the inside story of what happened in the early days of their startups. Talks are strictly off the record to encourage candor, because the inside story of most startups is more colorful than the one presented later to the public.
Public Launches
Once a startup has something built that’s ready to launch, we help founders figure out how to present it to users and the press. We prepare founders for launches on community sites like Product Hunt and Hacker News, and for their first press pitches and interviews.
First Customers
B2B and consumer companies often get their first 40-50 paying customers from the YC community. With that, you not only get first customers, you get the smartest early product feedback possible.
Weekly Meetups
Throughout the batch, we host weekly meetups in San Francisco. These events often feature special guests like the founders of YC and successful YC founders.
Demo Day
On Demo Day, the latest batch of Y Combinator-funded founders present their companies to an audience of specially selected investors and press. We doubt there’s another occasion when such a large percentage of the top startup investors have their attention focused on the same thing.
In the weeks following Demo Day we keep in close touch with the startups as they negotiate the fundraising maze, and help them decipher the real messages in investors’ sometimes deliberately ambiguous responses. Often we talk to the investors ourselves, to find out what they’re really thinking about a particular startup. Because YC-funded startups are a known quantity to investors and get introduced to enough of them to create serious price competition, companies tend to get higher valuations than they might otherwise.
BEYOND THE BATCH
YC doesn’t stop after the 3 month program ends. Here are some of the resources available to YC alumni as their companies grow.
ADVICE
Ongoing office hours
Office hours don’t stop after the YC program. We have office hours year round, and startups from all previous cycles can book time whenever they want.
COMMUNITY
Alumni community
Today the YC alumni community is probably the most powerful community in the startup world. It’s powerful not just because of its size, but also because its members have such a strong commitment to helping one another. A culture of helpfulness has been an important part of YC since the beginning, and founders know that if they ever come across a challenge they need help with, they not only have the partners at their disposal, they have 6,000+ domain experts they can call on.
Alumni Reunion
Each year, YC hosts a formal gathering of alumni. Exciting things happen when you bring founders together — ideas are exchanged, deals get made, problem solving happens amongst peers.
Founder Communities
Founders have access to WhatsApp groups and Bookface channels that reach specific communities. There are lists for hardware, biotech, edtech, non-profits, international, women founders, Black founders, Hispanic and Latino founders, and more.
Alumni Demo Day
Active YC founders get an early look at the YC companies in each batch at Alumni Demo Day.
Deals
Each YC company receives access to discounts and free accounts for over 100 products. Some of these are highly significant, including hundreds of thousands of dollars of free hosting for each company provided by major cloud hosting companies.
BRAND
Credibility
When one company in YC does well, the whole community benefits. Because YC has such a strong track record, early adopters, investors and press are often more willing to take a look at YC founders, even if they’re first time founders.
Company Directory
YC companies are showcased in the YC Startup Directory. Our startups can be filtered and discovered by potential customers, investors, or hires.
HIRING
Work at a Startup
Work at a Startup helps YC founders build their team — from first employees to VPs of product and operations. Thousands of jobseekers across hundreds of YC companies have landed roles through the platform and extended YC community.
Hacker News
HN is a news aggregator where users can find and discuss the latest news and submit content on anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity. YC alumni also post engineering, product, and design jobs on HN.