Marr Labs (YC W24)’s Post

Y Combinator just announced that they will have the first ever Fall batch! Last year, Pasquale and I applied to YC after seeing a post about a special interview round for AI startups. The Fall batch is another great opportunity! Truth be told, I had my many doubts about YC when applying, because of many negative comments I had heard: - "YC takes too much of your equity - it's not worth it." - "They accept too many startups - the quality of the batch has gone down." - "What's the value of YC if you've been to HBS?" - "YC is for new grads who don't have much experience." - "YC just wants you to get quick revenue - it's bad for your company." In retrospect, I can you tell you that YC was 100% worth it, and we never regreted our decision. Many of these concerns, while valid, were missing the point. YC completely changed my perspective as a founder and transformed Relari's trajectory. In fact, I haven’t met a single YC founder who regretted their decision or felt that YC hurt their startup. Just last week (four months post-batch), we had an Alumni Office Hour with our Group Partner Dalton, who provided insightful and refreshing perspectives on the latest challenges we’re tackling. Yes, you can continue to connect with YC partners even after the batch ends! We also met a few S24 companies, and their energy was contagious - it took me back to one of the most intense and rewarding three months of my life. If you're on the fence about applying to YC or have any doubts about the Fall batch, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m more than happy to help you think through the concerns!

Garry Ten (CEO of Y Combinator) announced that starting in 2025, there will be four batches of startups each year, one per season, instead of the usual two. Will this lower the quality of YC projects? I don’t think so because the annual number of projects will remain the same. For example, the current S24 batch has 256 projects, while future cohorts will have around 125. This means smaller batches with more attention for each project, similar to how smaller class sizes lead to better performance. Moreover, YC likely missed some great startups before due to timing issues. Now, good startups that didn’t fit within previous batch schedules won’t have to wait, which could increase the quality of projects they accept. Another positive is having four demo days per year, all in-person, which adds a special atmosphere. Meeting founders in person before investing is crucial to me. However, one concern is the workload for YC Partners. Previously, they were only busy for six months a year, but now they’ll be working full-time across all 12 months. This may lead to some partners leaving and new ones joining, and we’ll see whether this strengthens YC in the long term. What do you think about these changes? Are there any downsides I’m missing?

Thinking about applying to Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch? Here's what I learned from applying and getting into YC S23. I partnered with Reforge to publish my real YC application -> full artifact here: https://bit.ly/3VhH6Io 1. Team Matters Most: YC prioritizes teams over everything else. Demonstrate your complementary skill-sets and ability to work as a team to effectively evaluate ideas and ship products together fast. 2. Pick a Fertile Idea Space: Focus on markets that have a high success rate for startups. The idea itself can evolve, but if you pick the wrong market, it will be difficult to succeed in the application process. 3. Flexibility is Key: Spend more time than you think you should on the "ideas you explored but didn’t end up applying with" section. We applied with an eldercare management platform, but ultimately got accepted for the developer productivity tool we built prior to that. 4. De-risk for your investment upfront: Investors seek to minimize risk. Anticipate and address potential pitfalls of your team, market, and product in your application. 5. Showcase Traction: Demonstrate traction and market understanding in your application. Since we pivoted the week of the application, all we had were several customer interviews and a successful LinkedIn campaign. Even if your initial idea doesn't resonate, showcasing your speed to learning is crucial. 6. Be Concise: Respect YC partner time by writing concise, confident answers in the application interviews. You can check out my full YC application and more suggestions with this link -> https://bit.ly/3VhH6Io Are you applying to YC for the next batch? Let's connect and explore how I can help your startup! #startups #entrepreneurship #founder

Y Combinator 🟠 is opening a fall batch for the 1st time! At a pivotal time in history where AI, Computer Vision and Environmental Tech are advancing at lighting speed YC just tripled down: • New fall batch announced for ~100 companies • $500K investments up for grabs • Applications due THIS MONTH The opportunity for new startups is only growing, especially given the latest results we are seeing from the most recent YC batches - In aggregate companies are growing revenue by 4X or more in a single quarter during the YC batch itself! For Lobster Capital, this is great news… More batches mean more high-quality, vetted deals hitting the market. With YC’s rigorous selection process, we can expect to see a fresh wave of innovative startups that have been thoroughly coached and prepared for success. As an investor I love to connect early, and often with incoming YC founders.

Today is YC WINTER 24 Demo Day Read this to know what is YC demo day! Y Combinator Demo Day is an event where startups from the YC accelerator program present their businesses to a selected audience of investors and press. This day is crucial for the startups as it offers a platform to showcase their progress, pitch their ideas, and potentially secure further funding. During the event, each startup typically has a few minutes to make their pitch, highlighting their business model, achievements, and future plans. The aim is to impress the audience and stand out among many innovative companies. Read this article to know more about the YC demo day.

At RightShift, we're always inspired by game-changers in the tech world. Today, we're spotlighting Y Combinator, the accelerator that's redefining what's possible in entrepreneurship. Did you know: 🚀 YC has launched over 3,200 companies with a mind-blowing combined valuation of $400+ billion! 🚀 It's not just for tech bros anymore - even publishing legends are joining YC batches! 🚀 YC's latest batch had 401 companies... selected from over 16,000 applicants! Talk about exclusive. 🚀 They're taking on problems like fusion energy and space debris removal. Moon shots? More like galaxy shots! But here's the real kicker: YC isn't just changing startups; it's reshaping our entire culture. They've turned founders into the rock stars of our era, inspiring a whole generation to dream bigger and push boundaries. From Airbnb to Stripe, from DoorDash to Coinbase, YC companies are the household names of tomorrow. They're not just building products; they're crafting the future. So next time you're doubting if your idea is "too crazy," remember: YC once backed a company whose plan was to have strangers sleep on each other's couches... Dream big. Start small. But most importantly, start. Want to read the full article and get insights like these straight to your inbox? Subscribe to RightShift Pulse. We bring you the stories that inspire innovation, right when you need them. #YCombinator #Startups #Innovation #DreamBig #RightShiftPulse

One of my favorite advantages of Y Combinator is that thousands of YC veterans have specific advice for you. Sometimes, that advice isn't public. But this essay is one of the best, and anyone can read it. Paul Graham's "Do Things That Don't Scale" describes a common thread between almost every successful company. Here are a few of his examples: Recruiting - "You can't wait for users to come to you. You have to go out and get them." He describes Stripe (one of the most successful YC companies ever) not waiting to onboard users who wanted to sign up in the early days. If they agreed, one of the Collison brothers (the founders) would simply use their laptop to sign them up on the spot. Instead of being shy and lazy about it, they were bold. Initial fragility - "Almost all startups are initially fragile. Founders ... unconsciously judge larval startups by the standards of established ones." It's fine if reporters and juggernauts dismiss your startup, but dangerous if you start to dismiss or doubt your own. Delight your users - "Your first users should feel that signing up with you was one of the best choices they ever made." Wufoo (one of the early YC startups) sent each new user a hand-written thank you note. This is one of many ways you can delight them - try to make them TOO happy. Experience - "The feedback you get from engaging directly with your earliest users will be the best you ever get." Laser focus on an "insanely great" attention to users. He explains that the product doesn't have to be insanely great at the beginning, but the user's experience does. That means over-engaging, which is fine. It promotes a tight feedback loop. Fire - A narrow focus is critical. "It's like keeping a fire contained at first to get it really hot before adding more logs." Startups who build things for themselves ("I was so sick of experiencing X, so I created Y solution") will do this without even thinking about it. Manual - "There's a more extreme variant where you don't just use your software, but are your software." Essentially, do things manually that you would automate later. A feature doesn't have to be code complete if you can get away with it at the beginning. There are more in the article - I highly recommend reading it. But my main takeaway is the most successful companies didn't automate and scale every single action from Day One. In PG's words, "startups take off because the founders make them take off. There may be a handful that just grew by themselves, but usually it takes some sort of push to get them going." That usually means manually doing things that don't scale.

Accelerators are broken 😞 It's 2024 and the best accelerator in the world Y Combinator is promoting 89% male founders as if it's a good thing??? It's a tragedy. Life as a woman solo founder is a daily shock to my system. I'm continuously horrified. Luckily I only surround myself with incredibly supportive people which acts as a buffer. Thankfully I have the courage to to change the things I can - so watch this space. Just because the powers that be don't want you to succeed, it doesn't mean that YOU don't have the power to do things differently. You'll never win in a system that was built to keep you down. So you must build your own ecosystem as an alternative. #changestartshere #womenfounders #startups #accelerator https://lnkd.in/ewwSun3d

Y Combinator is going 4 batches per year Here’s what this means for founders: Spring and fall cohorts are joining the traditional winter and summer sessions. YC will now be running almost year-round. Cohorts will shrink to around 100 startups each. That’s half the size of recent groups, which hovered around 200-400. More focus, more connections, more impact. With 4X in-person demo days, investors will have twice the time to meet half the number of companies. More chances for startups to shine! But why this change? 🤔 YC President Garry Tan wants to keep the focus on quality over quantity. By spreading out the sessions, YC can be more responsive to founders, funding them right when they’re ready to start. “The value of any network is the square of its nodes,” says Tan. Expand the network, keep the quality, and the value multiplies. 📈 The move is also a response to criticism that cohorts were getting too big, losing that YC “exclusivity.” Going back to smaller, more focused batches could bring back some of that old YC magic. What do you think? Will this new approach make YC even stronger, or is it diluting the brand? P.S - if you need any written content for your early-stage startup... Send me a DM or schedule a call here - https://lnkd.in/d5VeNGkm Ciao👋🏾

Launch YC is one of the coolest pages on Y Combinator's website 💚 There, you will see some of the coolest startup ideas, built by world-class founders - many of whom I'm glad to be friends with. Every YC startup gets a chance to launch their startup there and have YC show it to the world. Launch YC's launches also get sent to thousands of people who subscribe to their newsletter - that way, early adopters can get a step ahead of their competitors by using innovative tools built by YC founders. Today was our turn: we just launched Briefer (YC S23) through Launch YC! If you haven't yet given us an upvote, this is your chance. Link in the comments 👇