Apparently Weebly took YC financing after being featured on TC. I am pretty sure this creates a different mentality from the investor perspective, YC included.

If YC finances a rising company, as opposed to paper-idea company, they have a much better look at how the market is reacting; would it be fair to say that in this way, it is much easier to spot potential successes, and fund very much in the style of a normal VC, as opposed to early stage seed funding?

I would assume so. And if that's true, is it fair to say the Weebly would've done equally well without YC funding, and directly went for larger investments? Or was YC the stepping stone for that? And if so, how?

we would not have been able to raise if it wasn't for yc, and several of the yc alums that helped us along

I just created a blog for my upcoming web site!

They've REALLY improved since the last time I looked. I thought back in March that they really needed to have a blog, and they have it! Here's my site:

ratemyapp.weebly.com

What Weebly Could Do: Make their editor a drop-in / turn-key service for other sites to use as their Custom Profile Editor for users's profile pages.

Co-brand that biatch and call it a day.

Is this like Infogami 2.0?

Perhaps Viaweb 2.0

Congrats to the Weeblys. I used Weebly for the first time about a week ago when I wanted to quickly put a page of info. It works well.

Is that considered angel, or VC money?

VC

you'd be surprised. the lawyers consider it a series a, but journalists consider it angel

One sure thing is that YC invests in companies that enables the average Joes (like me) to do things the simple way. It has to be dead simple to use (well I am sure there a few exceptions). I am not sure I would use Weebly, but it sure can help several people with little technical background. Does anyone knows if Weebly lets you use a custom URL?

Weebly lets you use a custom URL and you can download your site as a zip archive.

Seriously now, is this a business? Seems more like a project to me.

It seems to me that Weebly has a long term strategy. They are trying to build a good user base. As they improve their service those non-technical users will learn how to build more complex websites and eventually some applications. It is sort of like starting a Kinder_garden with the goals of adding a Grade each year so your students won't have to look for another school.

That doesn't have anything to do with them making money. I don't think their monetization path is very important because best-in-breed web applications don't have a problem getting acquired.

If Weebly was a Web 1.0 company, the founders would be billionaires already.

"If Weebly was a Web 1.0 company, the founders would be billionaires already."

Poor logic.

Very poor logic. Logic doesn't prevail at Y-Combinator.