“We would not have applied should YC have been in person for S20. We were running a UK-regulated fintech at the time so it would have been very disruptive for us to move into a time zone which is 8 hours away from all our customers. YC being remote meant that we could stay close to customers while getting all the benefits of Office Hours, the talks, sharing metrics, etc. For founders based outside of the Bay Area / US like us, who plan to remain based outside of the Bay Area, remote can actually be a big plus. Plus, thanks to YC in large part, the US is now one of our largest markets.” — Jamie Parker (<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.herondata.io//">Heron Data</a>)</p>\n<p>“We were able to keep building our hardware product and working in the lab while doing YC, which probably would have been almost impossible if we had to go to SF for the summer.” — Michael Dubrovsky (<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://Www.SiPhox.bio/">SiPhox)
/n“One point of initial worry was about the participation of investors during the remote YC Demo Day. But we realized that it turned out as a huge advantage, because now we had 2K+ investors logging in remotely from different parts of the world to listen to our pitches. Hence, we were able to talk to way more potential investors than what we had anticipated. Second point of worry was networking with batchmates and building long-term bonds. I think it turned out fine and I am still close to a few companies from my batch. The group office hours and post demo day fundraising got us closer. And I don’t think we missed out on it.” — Saurabh Nangia (<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://thepeoplemesh.com//">Mesh)
/n(A common misconception about YC is that founders do a lot of socializing during the batch. This has never been the case because founders are way too busy. The friendships tend to happen afterwards, either in small self-organized groups or at alumni events.)</p>\n<p>“At the end of the day, we saw the remote thing as an opportunity to focus more on the business.” — Manav Kohli (<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://polyoperations.com//">PolyOps)
/nYC is a three-month opportunity to concentrate on your startup, alongside others who are doing the same, with access to the best resources to unblock you. If you have any more questions, I’d check out this <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">page or you can email the admissions team at apply@ycombinator.com.</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://apply.ycombinator.com//">Apply to YC Summer 2021</a>.</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104754","feature_image":null,"featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-03-14T23:04:30.000-07:00","updated_at":"2021-10-20T10:52:05.000-07:00","published_at":"2021-03-14T23:04:30.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710a7","name":"Lindsay Amos","slug":"lindsay-amos","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Lindsay.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Lindsay Amos is the Senior Director of Communications at Y Combinator. In 2010, she was one of the first 30 employees at Square and the company’s first comms hire.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/lindsay-amos/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710a7","name":"Lindsay Amos","slug":"lindsay-amos","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Lindsay.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Lindsay Amos is the Senior Director of Communications at Y Combinator. In 2010, she was one of the first 30 employees at Square and the company’s first comms hire.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/lindsay-amos/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/apply-to-yc-summer-2021/","excerpt":"The deadline to apply to the Y Combinator Summer 2021 batch\n[https://apply.ycombinator.com/] is Friday, March 19 at 8pm PT. Due to COVID-19,\nSummer 2021 will be the third batch in a row to be fully remote.\n\nWe occasionally get questions about what a remote batch is like. Our 2020 Year\nin Review [https://blog.ycombinator.com/2020-year-in-review/] is helpful here,\nand I thought I’d include some quotes from when I asked founders from Summer\n2020 (our first all remote batch) about their experience.\n","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71bf3","uuid":"7ddcb3be-cc18-4261-b178-945b0eb1fd85","title":"Inside YC: The Admissions Team","slug":"inside-yc-the-admissions-team","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p>Twice a year, YC accepts <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://ycombinator.com/apply/">applications from startups around the world. The Admissions Team is responsible for designing that process and reviewing the tens of thousands of applications we receive each year.</p>\n<p>How do we review that many applications? Mostly, it’s lots of people reading lots of applications! There’s no secret machine learning model that can find companies with great potential. Instead, we build lots of custom software to help our team work efficiently. Our app reading software allows us to quickly read applications, send messages to founders if we have any questions, and decide which teams we want to interview.</p>\n<h2>History of the Admissions Team</h2>\n<p>When YC first started, the admissions process was pretty manual. YC’s 4 founders printed out the applications, wrote comments in the margin, and passed them around the room. As the batches started to grow, Paul Graham wrote the first software to accept and process applications (it was originally part of the same code that powered <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://news.ycombinator.com/">Hacker News</a>!). By 2014, YC was receiving 3,000 applications per batch, PG retired, and we moved to our current application software. Then in 2016, the Admissions Team was created and began to hire more people to review applications, analyze data, and update the application. Today, a team of 5 runs the admissions process.</p>\n<h2>What’s unique about the Admissions Team?</h2>\n<p>The Admissions Team is powered by human judgement, but it couldn’t work at YC’s scale without software. Sometimes, our problems can be solved by software (like automatic parsing of a founder’s responses), but sometimes it’s a human problem (how should we evaluate teams that haven’t launched yet?). This interaction between humans and software is always changing. Each admissions cycle brings more applications than the previous one and our system is always being pushed to the limit in unexpected ways.</p>\n<h2>What are some projects we’ve recently worked on?</h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Rewriting our software to video interview teams (instead of flying<br />\nteams to California).</li>\n<li>Building new internal tools to allow us to do interviews more often<br />\n(like the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/early-deadline-for-yc-winter-2022//">early interviews</a> we’ve been running this year).</li>\n<li>Reviewing applications we didn’t fund but that raised money from<br />\nother investors, to learn how to improve our application reading and<br />\ninterview process.</li>\n<li>Analyzing YC application data — for example, we looked at whether<br />\nrepeat applications hurt a team’s chances of being funded. (It turns<br />\nout they don’t! Teams that re-apply and have made progress since<br />\ntheir first app are much more likely to get into YC.)</li>\n<li>Working with the Outreach and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org//">Startup School</a> teams to get more teams<br />\napplying to YC.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The thing I love about the Admissions Team is that we have a lot of autonomy to experiment and change our process. It’s also incredibly exciting to read all of these ideas which may someday change the world. If you’re interested in joining our team, we’re hiring <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/careers?ashby_jid=ef00c8d1-76e7-4cc3-82fe-7cc3e4679652\%22>Software Engineers</a> to improve our software and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/careers?ashby_jid=c8a4c1c8-9410-479f-86e7-cb2c1ca35e32\%22>Admissions Associates</a> to read applications.</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104891","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/BlogTwitter-Image-Template-2.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-08-19T02:00:13.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-06-24T15:16:36.000-07:00","published_at":"2021-08-19T02:00:13.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Twice a year, YC accepts applications from startups around the world. The Admissions Team is responsible for designing that process and reviewing the tens of thousands of applications we receive each year.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710a9","name":"Mark Thurman","slug":"mark-thurman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Mark-1.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Mark is a Product Engineer on the YC Admissions team. Previously he worked on backend systems and API design for Evernote and App.net.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/mark-thurman/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71177","name":"Jobs","slug":"jobs","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/jobs/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710a9","name":"Mark Thurman","slug":"mark-thurman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Mark-1.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Mark is a Product Engineer on the YC Admissions team. Previously he worked on backend systems and API design for Evernote and App.net.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/mark-thurman/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/inside-yc-the-admissions-team/","excerpt":"Twice a year, YC accepts applications from startups around the world. The Admissions Team is responsible for designing that process and reviewing the tens of thousands of applications we receive each year.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"63ed7c5ebb97530001aa5cd2","uuid":"c2766136-77ff-4a0c-9a1f-9d50f593e6b9","title":"Why would you start a startup in an economic downturn?","slug":"why-would-you-start-a-startup-in-an-economic-downturn","html":"<p>There will likely be a recession in 2023, and the major downsides to starting a startup are obvious: There is less money in the system so selling and fundraising are harder; investors have less money to invest and companies have less money to spend on products.</p><p>But these are also reasons it’s an especially good time to start a startup, especially with YC.</p><p>Cost-sensitive customers can be helpful in the early days of your company. If they pay you in this tough environment, it's a stronger signal. There’s a higher likelihood you’re building something they really want.</p><p>And though our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/deal/">new standard deal</a> of $500,000 gives you some slack, you will likely have to develop very smart habits around spending because fundraising is harder. Learning how to <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html/">stay alive</a> is arguably the most important skill you can have as a founder.</p><p>I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two of the top YC companies, Airbnb and Stripe, were started in the depths of the last recession (2009).* They learned how important it is to build something people want and not assume investors will be there to save them early on.</p><p>None of this is new. It’s common knowledge, especially in the tech community, that many successful startups were created during recessions (just search “startups + recession” and you’ll find a bunch of articles), which may be one reason we’ve seen high numbers of applications from founders leaving their big tech company jobs, especially in the last couple of months.</p><p>If running a startup is like commanding an army, then YC is elite basic training. You’ll learn how to navigate the challenges (or realize you’re not up for it) when your company is small and with the support of advisors and YC batchmates. You’ll build a solid foundation of learning how to build something people want and staying alive. </p><p>The YC training prepares you by default for succeeding through recessions. And it’s easier to internalize that training today when the macroenvironment supports it. The alternative is learning it on the battlefield when the stakes are way higher — when you’ve already raised money and have employees who depend on you. </p><p>As YC founder Paul Graham <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html/">wrote, “Bad shit is coming. It always is in a startup.” If you’re interested in starting a startup, we’re entering a counterintuitively good time to do it. It won’t be easy, but if you get through the early days, you’ll be better prepared than most. And if the challenge excites you, you probably have the right personality for it.</p><p>*Their products were also tailored to a cost-sensitive environment. Stripe made it easier for brick-and-mortar businesses to cut costs by selling online and Airbnb created a new income stream for hosts and lower-priced accommodations for travelers.</p>","comment_id":"63ed7c5ebb97530001aa5cd2","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/02/stephblog.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-02-15T16:44:14.000-08:00","updated_at":"2023-02-21T08:30:00.000-08:00","published_at":"2023-02-21T08:30:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"In an economic downturn, there are obvious downsides of starting a startup — but there are also powerful upsides; because to survive, you have to *actually* build something people want.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710c8","name":"Stephanie Simon","slug":"stephanie","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/steph-af6b11e61b7a3c55b099c780fe0a359236ceaab496850b530d178aedb8cefb2c.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Stephanie Simon is the Head of Admissions at Y Combinator. \n\nPrior to YC, she was a software engineer at Earnest and co-founded Murmur, a venture-backed local search startup.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/stephanie/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116d","name":"Essay","slug":"essay","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/essay/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},{"id":"63ed8ba5bb97530001aa5ced","name":"#271","slug":"hash-271","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"63ed8ba5bb97530001aa5cee","name":"#240","slug":"hash-240","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710c8","name":"Stephanie Simon","slug":"stephanie","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/steph-af6b11e61b7a3c55b099c780fe0a359236ceaab496850b530d178aedb8cefb2c.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Stephanie Simon is the Head of Admissions at Y Combinator. \n\nPrior to YC, she was a software engineer at Earnest and co-founded Murmur, a venture-backed local search startup.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/stephanie/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/why-would-you-start-a-startup-in-an-economic-downturn/","excerpt":"There will likely be a recession in 2023, and the major downsides to starting a startup are obvious: There is less money in the system so selling and fundraising are harder; investors have less money to invest and companies have less money to spend on products.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"672905a1d4414200016d141e","uuid":"cb6cab8c-006f-4413-9392-f1b5d8dbe99d","title":"YC Winter 2025 batch applications due by Tuesday, November 12, 2024","slug":"yc-winter-2025-applications","html":"<p>At YC's Startup School conference this year with Paul Graham and Sam Altman, one of the consistent themes was that this is the best time in the last 20 years to start a company.</p><p>To better serve founders given the rapid rate of technological change, YC recently switched from two to four batches per year.</p><p>The Winter 2025 batch will run from January to March, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">applications are due on November 12.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/embed/y8gYw5Z85-A?feature=oembed\%22 frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen title=\"Apply to the YC W25 Batch!\"></iframe></figure><p>Many of the famous YC companies applied last minute, right before the deadline, with little more than an idea. So if you think you're \"too early\", you're probably not, and you have nothing to lose by applying.</p><p>To apply, please <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">submit an application</a> by Tuesday, 11/12 @ 8PM PT.</p>","comment_id":"672905a1d4414200016d141e","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/11/Screenshot-2024-11-04-at-11.36.14-AM.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-11-04T09:34:25.000-08:00","updated_at":"2024-11-05T09:00:00.000-08:00","published_at":"2024-11-05T09:00:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"To better serve founders given the rapid rate of technological change, YC recently switched from two to four batches per year.\nThe winter 2025 batch will run from January to March, and applications are due on November 12.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was cofounder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/jared-friedman/"},{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71070","name":"Aaron Epstein","slug":"aaron-epstein","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Aaron-E-2.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Aaron is a Group Partner at YC. He was the co-founder and CEO of Creative Market (YC W10), a marketplace for graphic design assets, which was acquired by Autodesk in 2014.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/aaron-epstein/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117d","name":"Admissions","slug":"admissions","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/admissions/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. 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Apply to YC Summer 2021
by Lindsay Amos3/15/2021
The deadline to apply to the Y Combinator Summer 2021 batch is Friday, March 19 at 8pm PT. Due to COVID-19, Summer 2021 will be the third batch in a row to be fully remote.
We occasionally get questions about what a remote batch is like. Our 2020 Year in Review is helpful here, and I thought I’d include some quotes from when I asked founders from Summer 2020 (our first all remote batch) about their experience.
“Remote was super helpful, especially due to immigration reasons. Was cool meeting batch-mates over video. Special shout out to the MarketForce team in Kenya :).” — Dipo Areoye (Icon)
“We would not have applied should YC have been in person for S20. We were running a UK-regulated fintech at the time so it would have been very disruptive for us to move into a time zone which is 8 hours away from all our customers. YC being remote meant that we could stay close to customers while getting all the benefits of Office Hours, the talks, sharing metrics, etc. For founders based outside of the Bay Area / US like us, who plan to remain based outside of the Bay Area, remote can actually be a big plus. Plus, thanks to YC in large part, the US is now one of our largest markets.” — Jamie Parker (Heron Data)
“We were able to keep building our hardware product and working in the lab while doing YC, which probably would have been almost impossible if we had to go to SF for the summer.” — Michael Dubrovsky (SiPhox)
“One point of initial worry was about the participation of investors during the remote YC Demo Day. But we realized that it turned out as a huge advantage, because now we had 2K+ investors logging in remotely from different parts of the world to listen to our pitches. Hence, we were able to talk to way more potential investors than what we had anticipated. Second point of worry was networking with batchmates and building long-term bonds. I think it turned out fine and I am still close to a few companies from my batch. The group office hours and post demo day fundraising got us closer. And I don’t think we missed out on it.” — Saurabh Nangia (Mesh)
(A common misconception about YC is that founders do a lot of socializing during the batch. This has never been the case because founders are way too busy. The friendships tend to happen afterwards, either in small self-organized groups or at alumni events.)
“At the end of the day, we saw the remote thing as an opportunity to focus more on the business.” — Manav Kohli (PolyOps)
YC is a three-month opportunity to concentrate on your startup, alongside others who are doing the same, with access to the best resources to unblock you. If you have any more questions, I’d check out this page or you can email the admissions team at apply@ycombinator.com.
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Lindsay Amos
Lindsay Amos is the Senior Director of Communications at Y Combinator. In 2010, she was one of the first 30 employees at Square and the company’s first comms hire.