1081
Startup Failure Post-Mortems
It's hard to say goodbye. Find out how 483 startups have failed and why in the words of their investors and founders.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 2,603 posts.
1082
Fundraising Advice for YC Companies
We’ve modified our fundraising strategy advice to YC founders. In the interest of everyone having the same information, here is the email I sent to the current batch this morning. Founders, As Y Combinator’s prominence has grown in recent years, we’ve seen a flood of new investors who are very focused on investing in…
1083
1084
Why YC
Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. Four times a year we invest in a large number of startups.
1085
Paul Graham on Doing Things Right by Accident
Read more on Y Combinator's blog.
1086
How to get hired at a startup when you don't know anyone
A few years ago I saw an early stage startup that I knew I had to be a part of. The only problem was that it was 900 miles away and I had no connection to them. The startup was Formlabs . At the time they had 10 employees, and like most startups reduced risk by hiring people they knew. They were also situated…
1087
1088
Building a Startup in 45 Minutes per Day While Deployed in Iraq
You may one day find yourself in a position where you’re eager to work on a startup but limited by the amount of time you can put into it due to a day job, family or other obligations. In this post…
1089
IK12 and YC
We are excited to announce that Imagine K12, the original edtech accelerator, is joining Y Combinator to form an edtech vertical within YC. We founded Imagine K12 in 2011 to help companies innovate in education technology in order to improve outcomes for children in the United States and around the world. YC founder…
1090
How we got our first 100 paying customers
Being a startup in the SaaS segment, customer acquisition has been one of the most challenging topics for us. In this article, we describe our experiences.
1091
Building a business, not just an app
This past week has not been the first outbreak of independent developer angst over the app store, but it feels like it has been one of the more intense. The pump was primed by the news that Kim Kar…
1092
1093
1094
Fellowship V2
Last fall, YC ran an 8 week experiment calledThe Fellowship [https://ycombinator.wpengine.com/yc-fellowship]to fund and work with startups at the idea or prototype stage. The goal was to see if we could create a program that could help more early-stage startups at scale. The experiment went well and I have a few…
1095
A Minimum Viable Product Is Not a Product, It’s a Process
Read more on Y Combinator's blog.
1096
Advice for companies with less than 1 year of runway
Read more on Y Combinator's blog.
1097
It's harder to get into YC if you’ve been through another accelerator
A new trend in Y Combinator applications is that an increasing number of applicants have already been through some sort of accelerator or “pre-accelerator” program. As we’ve dug into this trend, we’ve found that many of the applicants did these programs not because they needed the money or advice but because they…
1098
1099
Before Growth
We tell startups all the time that they have to grow quickly. That’s true, and very good advice, but I think the current fashion of Silicon Valley startups has taken this to an unhealthy...
1100
When to join a startup
<p>Something has changed in the last few years which has made an increasing number of people want to join startups. It seemed to start around ...
1101
Our Stock Option pledge
The latest news, feature releases, and how to grow with data. Get tactical growth tips once per week.
1102
1103
A Guide to Seed Fundraising
Read more on Y Combinator's blog.
1104
YC Updates and Additions
Y Combinator now has 5 major groups—YC Fellowship, YC Core, YC Continuity, YC Research, and Hacker News—and we’re putting one person in charge of each group. Paul Buchheit is taking over for me as managing partner of the core YC program. We’re going to continue doing YC Fellowship (!), and Kevin Hale is going to be…
1105
Paypal froze our funds, then offered us a business loan
About a year ago, we made the decision to use Paypal as the primary payment method for our company, Hacker Paradise. After about a month…
1106
Three Years as a One-Man Startup
I’ve spent most of the past 3 years creating one language learning web-app, Readlang.
1107
1108
Candy Japan 2015 Year in Review
2015 was a nerve-wrecking year for Candy Japan, with some dramatic ups and downs.
1109
To predict the future 1/3 of you need to be crazy
In a rapidly changing world those who copy the past have doomed their future. When companies or agencies search for disruptive and innovative strategies they often assemble a panel of experts to ad…
1110