@cornbreadfed614 How were you able to demonstrate on your application that you know more about your niche than anyone in the world ? Looking back why do you think your application was successful and what would you change now?
AMA: Grading our YC app from S20 (raised $24M after)
- Thread starter cornbreadfed614
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cornbreadfed614
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@antiteck I wrote about it here - https://www.commandbar.com/blog/grading-commandbars-yc-application/. TLDR on how we demonstrated knowledge of our niche is that we focused our answers on non-obvious ideas/insights about the space ("we discovered X and think this happens because Y"), not credentialism ("we are really good at X because Y")
@cornbreadfed614 Thank you!
jackwallar1000
New member
@cornbreadfed614 Love this post, thank you for doing this. I have a couple of questions:
2. How did you meet and choose your co-founder?
- Could you share more about your background and how it contributed to your success with YC and finding the right market fit as a founder?
- Would it be possible to see both your initial YC presentation and your seed stage deck? I'm curious to compare the two.
cornbreadfed614
New member
@jackwallar1000 > Could you share more about your background and how it contributed to your success with YC and finding the right market fit as a founder?
Only background bullet point that was directly relevant is that we'd been building web apps together as a founding team for a while so I think had a good sense for the pains that are common across different products.
>Would it be possible to see both your initial YC presentation and your seed stage deck? I'm curious to compare the two.
yes! will do a teardown of the seed deck soon
Only background bullet point that was directly relevant is that we'd been building web apps together as a founding team for a while so I think had a good sense for the pains that are common across different products.
>Would it be possible to see both your initial YC presentation and your seed stage deck? I'm curious to compare the two.
yes! will do a teardown of the seed deck soon
jackwallar1000
New member
@cornbreadfed614
Are you technical? Some of your posts suggest a strong interest in UXR and PM
Amazing; really looking forward to the post.
Are you technical? Some of your posts suggest a strong interest in UXR and PM
will do a teardown of the seed deck soon
Amazing; really looking forward to the post.
davidgarcia
New member
@cornbreadfed614 I'm considering applying in March, can I ping you over a DM?
cornbreadfed614
New member
@davidgarcia for sure!
@cornbreadfed614 Hey can you get me in touch of your head of staffing? Or you by yourself… answer a few questions and potentially test something we are building.
@cornbreadfed614 Around what period is the S24 batch opening? I would really want to apply. Currently working on my MVP I hope it will be ready then.
cornbreadfed614
New member
laurencesantos
New member
@cornbreadfed614 How did you get your first customers? Were they from YC network? How did YC network help you?
cornbreadfed614
New member
@laurencesantos Outbound to YC founders that included personalized loom videos showing how our product could help them (~20% reply rate on probably 200 emails)
iamqueensheba
New member
@cornbreadfed614 Best tool for productivity, (drug/substance/software/meditation)?
lastounceofhope
New member
@cornbreadfed614 Hi! Thanks for doing this! Really impressed by your start up and congratulations on everything.
My co-founder and I applied for the W24 late batch (only 10 spots) with just an idea (no product), but we had a demo of what it would look like (B2B SaaS). We didn't get in but we were told that we were among the strongest applications and were encouraged to apply for the next batch. We are planning to apply to the next batch - my question is: should we apply right away when the app opens (i think they have an early app/deadline sometimes?) or should we wait til the actual hard deadline? I'm asking because if we apply early, we might not have any product by then, but if we apply later, we might have something to show (i.e. product and maybe some users).
Just wondering if the decision to apply early affects chances of getting in or not (i know you can also 'update' your app on the site)...
Thanks again!
My co-founder and I applied for the W24 late batch (only 10 spots) with just an idea (no product), but we had a demo of what it would look like (B2B SaaS). We didn't get in but we were told that we were among the strongest applications and were encouraged to apply for the next batch. We are planning to apply to the next batch - my question is: should we apply right away when the app opens (i think they have an early app/deadline sometimes?) or should we wait til the actual hard deadline? I'm asking because if we apply early, we might not have any product by then, but if we apply later, we might have something to show (i.e. product and maybe some users).
Just wondering if the decision to apply early affects chances of getting in or not (i know you can also 'update' your app on the site)...
Thanks again!
elijah2017
New member
@lastounceofhope Apply when you feel it's better for your startup. If you think your application will be stronger with your product ready then apply when your product is ready.
I don't think YC is first come, first served. You won't harm your application by applying by the deadline (or even after if your startup is awesome).
I don't think YC is first come, first served. You won't harm your application by applying by the deadline (or even after if your startup is awesome).