Applications for the YC Summer 2011 batch close on March 20th. If you're in the Bay Area or Chicago and want to get some in-person feedback about your application from some YC alumni, Grubwithus is hosting a series of dinners to do just that! Just join the Hacker News Grubwithus group at http://www.grubwith.us/groups/hacker-news and we'll notify you when the meals are posted.
I'm honestly not sure if I should apply for YC or not. I'm having no problem meeting people and (presumably) raising money or revenue (although I haven't asked for a check yet from either).
If I were doing a consumer service, it'd be a no brainer. However, I'm working on infrastructure/security technology, although with some cool demos, and I'm not sure if being a YC startup would help in getting meetings with fortune 50 CIOs or various defense/government agencies.
I'm in a similar boat, doing ediscovery/cybersecurity validation tools. Not quite YC's cup o' tea, I think. (And figuring out whose cup o' tea it is is one of my challenges.)
Have you looked at any of the Federal grant programs, in particular, SBIRs? If you fit, that's some pretty easy money...
Drop me a line, if you don't mind, I'd be quite interested in hearing about what you're doing, particularly given your background. dkovar - gmail.
Barring a new remote dining edition of Grubwithus, I'll have to wait for the Winnipeg dinners for YC alumni. :)
But in all seriousness, I'd love it if someone would consider taking a glance at our application. People who should know have been telling us we're on to something, but I worry that we're just not communicating that effectively. I could pledge to eat during the feedback process if that helps.
Windsoc does look like a good idea, implementing individual APIs is a pain. I'm no YC alum, and I'm not sure if there are any competitors providing the same service; but it sounds like a promising service.
Thank you for your feedback. There are competitors providing something similar, but not in the way we think developers require. They're also more focused on selling to large corporations rather than working with smaller ventures.
I've e-mailed some whom I've already met, but I guess I've always approached it as I would speaking to investors, that cold pitches don't work. And I wonder what would happen if all 1600 applicants did the same.
I think you're right about investors and wrong about YC founders. Put yourself in a YC founder's shoes. If you got a cold pitch from an applicant, would you respond?
(note: I get emails every application season and always reply...)
Cool, I just signed up for the Monday 14th dinner @ 7:30 PM @ La Méditerranée! (Which, by the way, I never thought about until now means, if my French doesn't totally fail me, "borne from the middle of the earth"... right? Or perhaps the Latin, mediterranus, "in the middle of the earth?")
Sounds awesome, just joined. Would appreciate a few days notice if possible since I'd be coming to SF from NYC. If any YC alums are up for doing something similar in NYC please let me know too. Thanks again
YC is getting big enough that alums could probably create a cottage industry reviewing apps for a fee. My roommate just submitted his app, and would have jumped at something like that. So much time spent googling for 'successful YC app', 'successful YC app video' instead.
1. Setup YCappreview.com
2. Get enough alums on board
3. Figure out how to charge and how to distribute revenue
I am about two hours south of Chicago and am really looking forward to this opportunity. If you have any tentative dates, the information would be most welcome.
We'd love to get feedback on our application as well, but we're not based in either of those places. Can any alum review it remotely? - over email, phone..?
