Y Combinator Funding Application
Summer 2012
Application deadline: 8 pm PST on March 28, 2012.
Please try to answer each question in less than 120 words.
We look at online demos only for the most promising applications, so don't skimp on the application because you're relying on a good demo.
Though we don't make any formal promise about secrecy, we will try to avoid disclosing your plans to potential competitors.
If you're about to answer a question by saying you can't tell us because the answer is classified or controversial, please tell us instead about an instance that isn't.
We recommend you save regularly by clicking on the update button at the bottom of this page. Otherwise you may lose work if we restart the server.
Your YC username:
[User]
Phone number(s):
Please enter the Posterous url of a 1 minute video introducing the founders. (Instructions.)
YC usernames of all founders, including you, [User], separated by spaces. (That's usernames, not given names: "bksmith," not "Bob Smith." If there are 3 founders, there should be 3 tokens in this answer.)
For each founder, please list: YC username; name; age; year of graduation, school, degree and subject for each degree; email address; personal url, github url, facebook id, twitter id; employer and title (if any) at last job. Put unfinished degrees in parens. List the main contact first. Separate founders with blank lines. Put an asterisk before the name of anyone not able to move to the Bay Area.
Please tell us in one or two sentences about the most impressive thing that each founder has built or achieved.
Please tell us about the time you, [User], most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage.
Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together. Include urls if possible.
How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?
If we fund you, which of the founders will commit to working exclusively (no school, no other jobs) on this project for the next year?
For founders who can't, why not? What level of commitment are they willing to make?
Do any founders have other commitments between June and August 2012 inclusive?
Do any founders have commitments in the future (e.g. finishing college, going to grad school), and if so what?
Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?
Are any of the following true? (a) You are the only founder. (b) You are a student who may return to school when the next term starts. (c) Half or more of your group can't move to the Bay Area. (d) One or more founders will keep their current jobs. (e) None of the founders are programmers.
(Answering yes doesn't disqualify you. It's just to remind us to check.)
Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered. (The answer need not be related to your project.)
(Clicking on update doesn't submit your application; it just saves it to disk.)