thousands of times</a>. That’s why we built <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org//">Startup School</a>, a free online course where YC Group Partners help you answer these questions and many more while teaching you to build the foundation of a billion dollar company.</p><p>Throughout the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/announcing-startup-school-2022/">latest Startup School session</a>, YC’s Group Partners hosted live talks for 10,000+ students tuned in over Zoom. Each talk focused on one of those topics that the Group Partners were asked about again and again— from how to evaluate an idea, to finding the right co-founder, to getting your MVP out into the world.</p><p>The recordings of these talks were initially available only to Startup School students. After those students told us how helpful the videos were for them, we decided to make them available to everyone. We’ve been gradually releasing the talks over the last few months, and we’ve now released the final video from that set: <em><strong>How to Apply And Succeed at Y Combinator</strong></em> featuring Dalton Caldwell.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/embed/B5tU2447OK8?feature=oembed\%22 frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen title=\"How to Apply And Succeed at Y Combinator | Startup School\"></iframe></figure><p>When it comes to applying and interviewing for Y Combinator, there aren’t many people on the planet with more insight than Dalton. As a Group Partner and a Managing Director at YC, he’s been at the core of that process for over ten years now — reviewing applications, interviewing teams, and advising YC companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/brex/">Brex, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/whatnot/">Whatnot, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/retool/">Retool on how to succeed once they got in.</p><p>Dalton packs a ton of information into just 24 minutes, like why you should apply, the weird reasons that people talk themselves out of applying (like “I'm too early”), his tips on how to improve your application, and — because founders tend to be the type of people who like to know how things work — key insights on how YC actually reads applications. He somehow sneaks some good life advice (on “creating luck”) in there while he’s at it.</p><p>If you're considering applying — or, crucially, if you keep talking yourself out of it — Dalton's talk is absolutely worth the watch. (And while you're here, I'll share a little kinda-sorta-secret: though applications for the Summer 2023 batch technically closed a few weeks ago, YC reviews <em>all</em> applications — even those that come in late. Plenty of great companies have been accepted with late applications. But don't tell anyone I told you that. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">Apply here</a>.)</p><hr><h2 id=\"startup-school-2022-videos\">Startup School 2022 Videos</h2><p></p><p>You can find the rest of the recently released Startup School videos below, or bookmark <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB\%22>the entire playlist here</a>. Each video is 15-30 minutes long, and each was designed to pack as much info and insight into that time as possible.</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE-icVYRFU&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=2\%22>Should You Start A Startup?</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Harj Taggar</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBUhQPPS9AY&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=10\%22>How Startup Fundraising Works</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Brad Flora</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th8JoIan4dg&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=4\%22>How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Jared Friedman</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4SLDQDXdp0&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=3\%22>Keys To Successful Co-Founder Relationships</strong></a> with Catheryn Li and Divya Bhat</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1iF1c8w5Lg&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=4\%22>How To Talk To Users</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Gustaf Alströmer</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWZbWzAyHAE&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=5\%22>Startup Business Models and Pricing</strong></a> with Aaron Epstein</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyYCn_kAngI&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=6\%22>How to Get Your First Customers</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Gustaf Alströmer</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRZ_l7cVzzU&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=7\%22>How to Build a \"Minimum Viable Product\"</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Michael Seibel</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u36A-YTxiOw&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=8\%22>The Best Way To Launch Your Startup</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Kat Mañalac</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP7bpYsfa6Q&amp;list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&amp;index=9\%22>Tips For Technical Startup Founders</strong></a> with Diana Hu </li></ul>","comment_id":"646fa41cbd93340001aed3be","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/Startup-School-title-card-2.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-05-25T11:08:28.000-07:00","updated_at":"2023-07-21T10:37:06.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-05-30T11:10:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"The recordings of these talks were initially available only to Startup School students. After those students told us how helpful the videos were for them, we decided to make them available to everyone.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"645000ebb09be6000165fbad","name":"Greg Kumparak","slug":"greg","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/greg.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Greg oversees editorial content at Y Combinator. 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This event is for anyone interested in meeting a potential co-founder in the ClimateTech space.</p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://startupschool.org/climatetech-cofounder-meetup/" style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"YC ClimateTech Co-Founder Meetup\" target=\"_blank\">Register to Attend</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html--><p>The 2-hour virtual program will feature a 30-minute conversation by YC Group Partner Gustaf Alstromer and YC ClimateTech founders on how to find a good startup idea, and how to make progress in ClimateTech. This will be followed by a speed-dating session on the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">YC co-founder matching platform</a>, in which founders are matched for 5-minute 1:1 conversations.</p><p><strong>Speakers</strong></p><p><strong>Gustaf Alstromer</strong>, YC Group Partner<br><strong>Paul Gross</strong>, Co-Founder &amp; CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://remoracarbon.com//">Remora (W21)<br><strong>Jose Ignacio</strong>, Co-Founder of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.waterplan.com//">Waterplan (S21)<br><strong>Caroline McKeon &amp; Daria Balatsky,</strong> Co-Founders of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.alga.bio//">Alga Biosciences</a> (W22)</p><p>If you’re interested in starting a ClimateTech startup and want to meet other potential co-founders in the space, we hope you join us!</p><p><strong>Registration is limited and closes on Tuesday, October 25th. </strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://startupschool.org/climatetech-cofounder-meetup/">Sign up to attend here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>","comment_id":"63484a5f2184dc0001eebf38","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/climatetech2.jpeg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-10-13T10:26:55.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-10-14T09:27:35.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-10-14T09:00:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"We’re excited to announce the first YC ClimateTech Co-Founder Meetup. If you’re interested in starting a ClimateTech startup and want to meet other potential co-founders in the space, register to attend by October 25th.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. 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Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/catheryn/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-climatetech-co-founder-meetup/","excerpt":"We’re excited to announce the first YC ClimateTech Co-Founder Meetup! It will take place at 11am PT on Saturday, October 29, 2022. This event is for anyone interested in meeting a potential co-founder in the ClimateTech space.","reading_time":1,"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":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c04","uuid":"137bef50-c46e-42ab-9496-bd321c54e3fa","title":"Does co-founder matching work? It did for these YC companies.","slug":"does-co-founder-matching-work","html":"<p>We launched the co-founder matching platform earlier this year to help founders find their co-founders. When you sign up, you tell us about yourself and what you’re looking for, and we show you profiles that most closely match your ideal co-founder. If you message a candidate and they accept, we match the two of you.</p><p>Co-founder matching has also seen success with brand-new companies. Two pairs of co-founders met through the platform earlier this year, worked together on trial projects, became fully committed co-founders, applied to YC, and were accepted into the Summer 2021 batch!</p><p><strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.sequincard.com//">Sequin (YC S21) is one of these companies. Vrinda Gupta had left her job after launching credit cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve at Visa to work on a product to help women build credit. She spent a year working as a solo founder, and, in that time, raised a pre-seed and built an MVP. She knew she needed a technical co-founder who was mission driven, had fintech expertise, and was in it for the long haul.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Sequin.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Sequin (YC S21) co-founders, Vrinda Gupta and Mark Thomas.</figcaption></figure><p>That person was Mark Thomas. He had ten years of engineering experience at Paypal, cared deeply about gender equity, and spent six years as CTO of family-oriented startups. They had an instant connection and arranged to meet in person soon after. Vrinda recalls, “We met the day after we matched, and the day after, and then the day after that.”</p><p>Together, they went through YC’s batch this summer and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.forbes.com/sites/geristengel/2021/09/15/debit-card-startup-builds-credit-for-women/?sh=6283b60b3c67\%22>raised $5.7M</a>.</p><p><strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.kiwibiosciences.com//">Kiwi Biosciences</a></strong></strong> (YC S21) has a similar story. Anjie Liu started the company to solve her own pains with irritable bowel syndrome. She had a founding scientist to tackle R&amp;D, but wanted a co-founder to help her build a consumer brand and commercialize the product.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/kiwi.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Anjie Liu and David Hachuel, co-founders of Kiwi Biosciences (YC S21).</figcaption></figure><p>When Anjie saw David Hachuel’s profile on YC co-founder matching, she knew that he was “exactly what [she] was looking for.” David had previously sold a startup in the same space, and was immediately interested in her idea.</p><p>They took a very structured approach to co-founder matching. Both founders answered all 50 questions posed in <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://proof-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/firstround/50 Questions for Co-Founders.pdf/">First Round’s co-founder questionnaire</a>. They found deep alignment on “all the important things” (conflict resolution, vision for culture, etc.). When their month-long trial ended and it came time to say go or no-go, the decision was easy.</p><p>Anjie and David worked remotely for four months and finally met in person after getting into YC. They went through YC and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/14/kiwi-bio-aims-to-free-irritable-bowel-syndrome-sufferers-from-restrictive-diets//">raised $1.5M</a>.</p><p>We’re ecstatic about the companies who met through our co-founder matching and we’re excited to see the platform continue to grow and support more awesome founders in the future!</p><p>Looking for a co-founder? Check out the platform at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/does-co-founder-matching-work/www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching.

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The latest Startup School talks are now available to all

by Greg Kumparak5/30/2023

An orange and white title card reading "Startup School"

When you’re building a startup, you’ve got a lot to figure out.

How do you know if an idea is a good one? Do you need a co-founder? How do you get your first customers? How much should you charge? How (and when) do you launch?

All of these are questions that every founder asks at some point, and they’re the kinds of questions that Y Combinator’s Group Partners have helped to answer thousands of times. That’s why we built Startup School, a free online course where YC Group Partners help you answer these questions and many more while teaching you to build the foundation of a billion dollar company.

Throughout the latest Startup School session, YC’s Group Partners hosted live talks for 10,000+ students tuned in over Zoom. Each talk focused on one of those topics that the Group Partners were asked about again and again— from how to evaluate an idea, to finding the right co-founder, to getting your MVP out into the world.

The recordings of these talks were initially available only to Startup School students. After those students told us how helpful the videos were for them, we decided to make them available to everyone. We’ve been gradually releasing the talks over the last few months, and we’ve now released the final video from that set: How to Apply And Succeed at Y Combinator featuring Dalton Caldwell.

When it comes to applying and interviewing for Y Combinator, there aren’t many people on the planet with more insight than Dalton. As a Group Partner and a Managing Director at YC, he’s been at the core of that process for over ten years now — reviewing applications, interviewing teams, and advising YC companies like Brex, Whatnot, and Retool on how to succeed once they got in.

Dalton packs a ton of information into just 24 minutes, like why you should apply, the weird reasons that people talk themselves out of applying (like “I'm too early”), his tips on how to improve your application, and — because founders tend to be the type of people who like to know how things work — key insights on how YC actually reads applications. He somehow sneaks some good life advice (on “creating luck”) in there while he’s at it.

If you're considering applying — or, crucially, if you keep talking yourself out of it — Dalton's talk is absolutely worth the watch. (And while you're here, I'll share a little kinda-sorta-secret: though applications for the Summer 2023 batch technically closed a few weeks ago, YC reviews all applications — even those that come in late. Plenty of great companies have been accepted with late applications. But don't tell anyone I told you that. Apply here.)

Startup School 2022 Videos

You can find the rest of the recently released Startup School videos below, or bookmark the entire playlist here. Each video is 15-30 minutes long, and each was designed to pack as much info and insight into that time as possible.

Author

  • Greg Kumparak

    Greg oversees editorial content at Y Combinator. He was previously an editor at TechCrunch for nearly 15 years.