I’ve found the best guide to the YC application, straight from a YC alum.

Y Combinator is the world’s best startup accelerator for early-stage founders, where you can apply even with just an idea. 18% of YC companies are valued at over $100M, and 4% have grown into billion-dollar businesses.

You can apply to the Winter 2025 batch until November 12. To apply you should just fill out the application form.

This isn't the full version of the application guide (the complete one has even more examples and useful materials), but I've compiled some of the most valuable tips below:

High-Level Recommendations

• Answer questions directly, clearly, and concisely:
  • Base your responses on facts and numbers.
  • Use simple language and avoid marketing buzz.
  • Most answers should be 1–5 sentences long.
• YC invests in people, so focus on your team and what makes each of you exceptional.
• Share insights and obstacles that you discovered while working on the idea.
• Good application should be a cohesive compelling story.
• Last, but not least: be honest.

Application Questions

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

• Use clear, specific language that accurately describes your product or service. Avoid jargon and vague terms.
• Identify what sets your company apart and include that in your description. This helps to quickly communicate your unique selling proposition.
• Ideally, it should be clear for whom and which problem your product solves.
• Make sure that the description is not greater than 50 characters.
• Use phrasing like "Airbnb for X" only if everyone would know the company you are referencing.

Examples:

Algolia: Developer-friendly, enterprise-grade search API

Loom: Record and share video messages instantly

Company url, if any:

• If you don’t have a website you can easily build one in 1-2 day without coding using tools like Framer. There are many good templates available for free if you lack design skills.
• Benefits of having a website:
  • Communicating your idea in a clear and concise way is hard, and creating a website is a good way to practice doing that.
  • Easier to understand what you are building.
  • You can put a waitlist or a booking form to start accumulating potential customers.

If you have a demo, attach it below.

If you have an MVP that you can show, spend some time to make a short 60-90 seconds demo video. It might be easier to understand what your company does, and it will demonstrate that you can actually build things.

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

• You can expand your 50 characters description to give more details.
• It should be clear who is your customer, what problem they have and how exactly your product solves it.
• Share your long-term vision in a single sentence.
• Keep it under 5 sentences.

Example:

MagicBel

MagicBell is an out of the box, notification system with multi-channel delivery. Notifications are created via the API and the embeddable notification center can be fully customized to match your product's UI and UX. Companies with existing email notifications can simply bcc them to a project-specific email address to roll out MagicBell to their users within 30 mins. You can think of it like a smart router for your company’s notifications to your customers

MagicBell enables you to think in terms of users and respect their notification preferences, instead of being bogged down by the complexity of understanding platform APIs for different channels.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

Ideally, YC would love to see your team in SF. However, if your business benefits from you being in a different location, explain that in the following question.

How far along are you?

• Provide a brief description of the company's current state using facts and numbers, ideally in a 3-5 bullet point list. Avoid fluff.
• If you have revenue or other strong indicators like users or LOIs, list them first.
• Be honest about your company's state; don't present it better than it actually is or mislead partners. No one will want to work with you if you're not genuine.
• If you have made little progress, don't hide behind a wall of fluff or a lot of different research, customer interviews, etc. You might think such an answer looks more solid, but it's actually quite the opposite.

Example:

- Founding team of 4 is assembled
- 70% of the MVP is done
- 10 onboarding calls are scheduled in 2 weeks

How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time? Please explain.

Ideally, all cofounders are working full-time on the startup. If you have left your Google job to work on the startup - that’s a green flag, because it shows that you are serious about it.

How many active users or customers do you have? How many are paying? Who is paying you the most, and how much do they pay you?

Answer each part of that question, and note that each response should contain factual numbers.

Example:

- 4 couples are using the product
- The app is free, but we got $150 in donations

Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you’re making?

• Write one sentence on what inspired you to solve that problem.
• If you have experience in the domain, it's a great opportunity to sell your team's expertise in 1-2 sentences.
• Use facts and numbers to support that people care about what you are building (again, 1-2 sentences long):
  • Payments, product usage, LOIs, etc.
  • Customer interviews, market research, etc.

Who are your competitors? What do you understand about your business that they don’t?

• List a few of your most promising competitors. If there are no direct competitors, list companies whose products are currently used to solve the user's problem.
• Show how you are different from them, and why it makes sense.

How do or will you make money? How much could you make?

• Briefly recap your business model and provide Total Addressable Market (TAM) calculation.
• There are two effective ways to express that your idea is big: a) calculate the TAM, or b) show what percentage of the market you need to capture to generate $100 million in annual revenue.
• Use a bottom-up approach to calculate your TAM instead of referencing some analytics reports.
• Ideally, it should be a clear path to $100M ARR, so your company can be considered a unicorn.

Please describe the breakdown of the equity ownership in percentages among the founders, employees and any other stockholders.

Every founder should be essential to what your company is doing. If not, why bring them on the team at all? Giving your cofounder just 10% equity seems like a bad idea. They might not be motivated enough to stay when things get tough. Michael Seibel advice on that: “Aim for roughly equal equity splits”.

If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them. One may be something we’ve been waiting for. Often when we fund people it’s to do something they list here and not in the main application.

• I recommend adding a few other promising ideas that you have also considered.
• Consider this format:
  • 50 character description of the idea
  • 1 sentence behind that idea

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I hope you found these tips valuable! If you have any useful links related to YC, feel free to share them in the comments. Let’s gather all the best resources in one place!