Got an idea? Willing to hustle for a summer to see it grow? Y Combinator just announced their summer application drive. Applications are due by April 2nd and by the 10th, a few will be selected to present in Mountain View on April 21-22nd. If selected, your team will relocate to work and learn in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
For those of you unfamiliar with Y Combinator, it’s the seed financing fund guided by Paul Graham’s philosophies that helps young startups launch through mentoring and investing a base $5,000 plus $5,000 per founder. In exchange they take a 1-10% stake in the company. The teams are usually composed of young college grads with some programming skill. It’s not not a program meant for industry veterans. Some have criticized the program for taking too much ownership for such a small investment. Some readers have also called shenanigans on the operation. Here are some of the companies we’ve covered before. Kiko, Reddit, and Loopt are some notable Y Combinator companies. Exits, so far, have been through acquisition. Kiko died, and was then acquired by Elliot Noss. Conde Nast bought Reddit.
Some other programs such as TechStars have adopted the model. TechStars is another well backed program based in Boulder, Colorado also offering experienced mentors and cash to aspiring startups. While not the same ground floor financing as Y Combinator or TechStars, the venerable VC firm Charles River Ventures also adopted a smaller financing program (up to $250K debt) called Quick Start.
Here are the details for applying. Aspiring web entrepreneurs should also check out the Startup School coming to Palo Alto in March. With some work your company may be ready in time to present at TechCrunch 20.
For a while there I was kind of worried about the future generation taking over the world, but at the Tech Youth Leadership Forum – I was quite blown away by the ideas generated by the high school future tech leaders in a similar business plan competition. They’ll solve the world’s problems (and create new ones).
Lightspeed venture partners have a more generous program for this summer.
If a team has an idea, they can apply, and if they are selected each member gets $10,000 to work on it in the summer and the team gets hosted at their offices.
And guess what… they don’t get any stake in the company!!
A perfect way to get one’s idea started without giving anything up.
“investing a base $5,000 plus $5,000 per founder”
Oh Its the YComb team that is on the winning end of this deal. For a mere $10k they get a captive audience that must sit and smile (but not laugh or vomit) while they trot out the same sanctimonious drivel they have been trotting out for years.
$5,000 plus $5,000 per founder… for what?! 1-10% stake
That’s too much!
Lightspeed venture’s program is much better!
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http://www.MillionReturn.Com — Return $1m from 1 page! How?
The YC founders also have frequent dinners together. Recently Joe Kraus (JotSpot) attended and so did Evan Williams (Blogger) among others of similar stature.
The fact that they take a small percentage is a great way to align their interests in my opinion. I’m sure it filters out the people who would rather have 50% of $1 million than 10% of $100 million, which is nothing but good for YC.
Paul was Reddit’s #1 user in the early days and gave them critically useful feedback. I would _pay_ to start a company under the YC umbrella.
Too bad no such thing exists in the realm of ’social entrepreneurship.’
#6, totally agree. I wish there are more programs, maybe by VCs or by foundations (eBay, Craigslist come to mind). There are various university competitions that with VCs involvement but the pitfall is that finalists rarely emerge to become real companies/nonprofits. Kiva.org may be an exception but they already had good traction before coming out as Stanford social entrepreneurship challenge as finalist.
Strange, I thought Graham wasn’t going to hold the next one until July-ish, maybe the recent surge of all of these VC competitions is pushing people to hold ones earlier, would be a shame to miss out on the ‘next big thing.’
“Some Programmer Experience” – actually, I think one of the major big points is that one of the people on the team must be a programmer…which is understandable…
Light Speed Ventures Competition…where are you hearing all of these news online? Is it posted somewhere b/c I thought only Stanford people knew about the competition
I think Lightspeed rocks !
I would be awesome if Paul Graham did this for companies ALREADY launched by similar audience(college folks) AND have recieved some traction AND don’t want to jump into the big VC redtape yet at the same time continue to have some $$$ to survive cheap and take it to the next milestone(whatever that may be).
More and more companies are being profiled that recieved a decent start yet wasted crapload of time doing the VC thing, then realizing they just wasted two months of precious time that comes right after the launch.
It’s a win-win for all – Y-Combinator increases its chances of a hit; and the lil guys behind the start-up get the much needed financial help and start-up advice from gurus without the VC redtape(assuming there isn’t one).
-Zaid
We have been looking forward to applying for YComb for the past three months. As with most other startups, the investment does not count as much as the connections and experience gained through such a partnership. Moreover, it also provides free marketing coverage for a company funded by YComb. Paul Graham is a brand, and many startups (such a Kiko, Reddit, etc) take full advantage of it when they partner up with him.
- Jawad Shuaib
founder, Shuzak.com
IMO, the problem with these VC funded incubators is that when you offer a marginal deal, you get marginal companies who apply. Maybe one or two work out and produce a small return, but since when are VC firms in the market for charity work?
If a VC offered $50-75,000 for a 5% investment and limited it to say 2 companies, I bet the applicant pool would look very different and much more promising.
Squasher, a firm that funds various smaller startups is taking advantage of economies of scale. Paul Graham has openly admitted that he would be glad if just 2 out of 10 startups they fund actually succeed. In other words, the money gained on the 2 successful startups would more than makeup for the amount lost in the other eight.
Most web startups, today, do not require multitudes of employees initially. Not surprisingly, at the startup stage, large sums of money is often not a necessity.
- Jawad Shuaib
jawad.exe@gmail.com
Y Combinator can help you speed up your bus. so why not ? it’s a very good program
I have kindly expressed 8 social community and social responsibilty websites for anyone to embrace:
http://launchpa...m.php?itemid=22
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-rockbottom: picking yourself up
-aboutface: admissions and revelations
-kinglycrisis: taking charge
-sayinitloud: speaking up and out
-globelevancy: meeting the dream
-dumpit: integrating the haves and have nots
-droppedzone: beware you can’t deny it
-newsanity: asserting oneself
-energysender: energy, it’s everywhere
Jawad (Shuzak) Paul Graham is a brand
A brand … of what?
it’s a trap!
There’s an averse selection problem here: any start up that looks for incubation and will give up 1-10% for $5K per founder is most likely to be eventually featured on TC in the deadpool section
I’m confused – is it for college students or not? One of the companies they funded told me they weren’t college students…. I have no idea, just curious.
I’m curious about their involvement in the projects they fund in terms of business strategy – one of their companies I know for a fact has pissed off a few people in the business. I wouldn’t think that it’d be something Y combinator would have advocated but you never know.
BlogReader, the name Paul Graham is a brand for tech startups. I am not arguing that $5k can necessarily buy you the next Digg, but it can bring in publicity. Does anyone here think that the YCombinator backed startup, Wufoo, really worth a mention in prominent blogs such a TechCrunch? No. The fact that I am even mentioning it here is testament to the logic that bad publicity is not as good as good publicity but it is still better than no publicity at all.
There is a hype around startups funded by YCombinator. Some lucky startups get to take full advantage of that.
- Jawad Shuaib
founder, Shuzak.com
From reading numerous Paul Graham articles, he seem to only speak to the “hacker” crowd. Even if your the next Chad Hurley with great idea and design skills, I doubt if you’ll even get $10.
Patricia: what YC company pissed people off in the business and what did they do?
YCombinator is a nifty idea. Feel bad for those college grads. though, not a lot of money to work off of.
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I cant belive you guys. $5000 plus $5000 per founder for 1 – 10% stake is USURY no matter how you look at it. If they are in for the charity work then they should follow the lightspeed model.. You cant be claiming to help the “poor kids” while robbing them blind at the same time.