Does YC ever consider ideas that aren't designed to be billion-dollar companies? For instance, if someone was working on a next-gen diagnostics tool for VoIP, they might realistically be able to get to $10-20M, maybe 10x if things go really well. But it's hard to see that becoming a billion+ company under any circumstances.

What advice do you have for such ideas?

YC funds startups. Startups to us are companies designed to grow fast. Read this if you haven't: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

It's OK to be working on something that's hard to imagine how it would grow to be a really big thing, that's how most ideas start out. (Apple made hobbyist computers, Google was another search engine of 1000 -- how big of a deal could they have thought these would become?). It's important to be open-minded to the pathways of how your idea could become something big as it keeps growing though, and it's good to stop and think about those ideas every once in awhile.

One of the biggest things I've learned from being around YC community is that most successful ideas start out as small but end up being very large. I would encourage you to think bigger about the fundamental problems you're solving and then how you can turn solving the immediate problem into something really big down the line. Hope this helps!

bootstrap. Then worry about VC money if and when you think you are ready to try to become a billion dollar company

10-20M sounds like a realistic projection for Dropbox. But they grew a little more than that.

Thanks for making yourself available, Matt. Sounds like an incredible opportunity.

What kind of progress do you expect founders to make by the end of the Fellowship? Put another way, if the goal of participation in Y Combinator is for companies to build enough traction to become top-tier candidates for an institutional fundraise, what is the outcome that participants in the Fellowship should hope to achieve?

We'd like teams to make as much progress as possible during the 8-weeks of the fellowship. If you have a prototype, that would mean launching and getting your first customers. If you're at idea stage that would mean building a prototype and talking to users. At the end of the 8-weeks we hope the teams will be ready to apply for YC W16 (it's not a requirement -- but we'll encourage it).

Hi, Matt and Kat. Cool to see the focus on helping more people start companies - I had written off an article bouncing around over the weekend alleging that rich families are the key to entrepreneurship [1]. Maybe it is true, but with enough YC fellowships it doesn't have to be.

Question: my organization is a nonprofit co-op. I know YC recently started accepting nonprofits - what's your opinion on them for YC fellowships?

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1: http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-...

Unfortunately we're not going to be accepting non-profits for this first experiment. If it goes well though, we hope to fund some this way in the future.

Hi Matt, we run a web design & development business and have been trying to free up resource to work on a saas product which we already have potential customers lined up for...

We would put full-time focus on this, but we can't really close up shop completely, we could put projects on hold, but we'd need to at least lightly manage/delegate tasks when things come up occasionally. Is that going to work?

Hi!

I am a grad student working on a purely research based concept that I feel could make a good start to a company. However, I'm fully committed to the research at the university for the next year. The YCF would be used to get this project from just a thesis to an applicable concept. Would this be a good start to what YC is looking for?

It would, but not until you're ready to work on it full-time. We're not sure yet whether we'll offer YCF again (will depend how it goes), but if we do in the future it could be a good fit.

Are there any plans to do a normal YC program (7%/$120k) but also be inclusive of remote teams?

0% for $12k is obviously a great deal, but my main stumbling block has always been the loss of income from dropping paid work, and $12k over two months is barely half an engineer's salary - let alone to cover multiple team members.

That said, it may well be enough to make someone like me think "well, at least I won't be earning zero dollars..."

You aren't "earning 12K" you are using that 12K to kick start your idea.

Ok, rephrase that as "at least I'm only losing 80% of my salary instead of 100%".

Plenty of people who could create great things are also saddled with families and expenses that run to 80+% of their disposable incomes. It's all well and good to suggest that an individual can live on ramen noodles, but a family and young children cannot and should not have to. That leaves only a few options left for such people to start a company: do it on the side in evenings/weekends; and save up a nest egg then quit/reduce your job to work on the startup.

Suggesting that willingness to forgo having a family is a pre-requisite for entrepreneurship is fallacious.

Amen brotha. That is the difference between employees and entrepreneurs when the bubble bursts.

hey Matt, what are key differences b/w the fellowship and the YC incubator?

It's a 12k equity-free grant, it lasts for 8 weeks, you can do it remotely, and it's primarily meant for idea and prototype-stage companies. No dinners and no formal Demo Day, but there will be kickoff and end events in Mountain View where teams will present to the YC community. We'll fly out remote teams for those.

Can my company join, aiming to finish our flagship product?

My company released lots of products, all of them had critical acclaim and high user reviews, but we ran out of money before releasing our main product, and we never had marketing money, so our sales are nowhere interesting.

I am wondering if you consider this early enough or not. (we had no investment beside from extra money from the original founders).

It sounds like you might be doing a company re-launch from the ground up? If that's the case, definitely apply for YCF.

If you still have successful ancillary products and just want to develop your flagship product with YC's help, consider applying to YC W16. Applications for that will open up in August.

Our other products were "successful" as in people liked them, but we never broke even.

I think you have the most fun job in Silicon Valley.

Is this US-only?

Nope, welcome to apply from anywhere.

Hi, my co-founder and I are currently working on our idea from Hawaii and Portland Or. Will separate remote locations be ok during the fellowship, or will you want us to both work from the same location?

Would it be ok to apply solo but also as a co-founder on another team?

Please only submit one application! Figure out whether you'd rather work on your solo project or with the co-founder, and then choose whichever idea you think is more promising.

Hi Matt! As I know it is not required to move to the Bay Area for the program. Will be possible to join in person in 2-3 weeks later, let's say, in October? Thanks

Question: what's the "end event?" Is it a demo day? Or something different?