- The YC partner panel discusses remote options for YC participation for founders with families
- YC provides a Family User Manual for founders with families
- It is not a remote program, as the live interaction and trust-building is important
- Some founders commute back and forth while others bring their families
- YC supports nursing moms and provides resources for balancing family and work
- Retail and voice apps are seen as promising industries/technologies
- YC looks for determined and formidable founders with strong co-founder relationships
- Equal equity split among co-founders is preferred
- Technical co-founders are important for maximizing the 3-month YC program
- Insights and understanding of the market opportunity are valued
- Metrics and tracking of important numbers are crucial for founders seeking investment or YC acceptance.

- The first priority for founders should be to build a product that people love.
- Metrics that define happy and engaged users can vary for each company, but key metrics like weekly active users, NPS, and retention are important.
- Qualitative feedback from users is also valuable in gauging how much they value the product.
- YC believes it is still beneficial for most companies to spend three months in the Bay Area due to the access to funding and network of founders.
- YC continues to support founders after the program, offering assistance with fundraising, introductions, and a community platform for founders to connect and help each other.
- During challenging times, founders should focus on keeping personal burn low, maintaining good relationships with co-founders, and being efficient with resources.
- Pivoting and adapting to market demands can also be crucial for survival and growth.

- Differences between male and female founders in interviews were discussed, with the observation that women who presented confidently and focused on numbers were more successful.
- Advice for founders included practicing pitches, knowing your numbers, being confident, and not underselling yourself.
- As companies grow, it is important to understand unit economics, manage organizational changes, and learn how to scale yourself as a founder.
- Startups should not just throw humans at problems, but find more efficient ways to solve them.
- YC accepts companies at various stages, with the focus being on how the program can help them succeed rather than the amount of money raised.
- YC accepts early-stage companies and examples were given of founders who were accepted at an early stage.

- Y Combinator (YC) often funds founders who are at a very early stage, even before they have incorporated their company.
- Founders can join YC with an idea they have been working on for 6 months or a year, and during the 3-month program, they may decide to pivot into something completely different.
- Early usage or indicators of people loving the product can also be enough for YC to invest in a startup.
- YC has a program called Startup School that allows anyone with an idea to participate and watch the content.
- The speaker thanks the YC partners and everyone else.

- YC discusses remote options for founders with families
- YC provides a Family User Manual
- Live interaction and trust-building are important in YC program
- YC supports nursing moms and helps with work-life balance
- Retail and voice apps are seen as promising industries/technologies
- YC looks for determined founders with strong co-founder relationships
- Equal equity split among co-founders is preferred
- Technical co-founders are important for YC program
- Understanding market opportunity is valued
- Metrics and tracking are crucial for investment or YC acceptance
- Building a product people love is the first priority for founders
- Key metrics like weekly active users, NPS, and retention are important
- Qualitative feedback from users is valuable
- Spending three months in the Bay Area is beneficial for most companies
- YC supports founders after the program with fundraising and networking
- Focus on personal burn, good relationships, and efficient resource use during challenging times
- Pivoting and adapting to market demands is crucial
- Confident and number-focused women founders are more successful
- Practice pitches, know your numbers, be confident, and don't undersell yourself
- Understand unit economics, manage organizational changes, and scale as a founder
- Find efficient ways to solve problems instead of throwing humans at them
- YC accepts companies at various stages and focuses on helping them succeed
- YC funds early-stage companies and accepts founders with ideas in development
- Early usage or indicators of people loving the product can be enough for YC investment
- YC has a program called Startup School for anyone with an idea
- Speaker expresses gratitude to YC partners and others.

YC Partners answer questions from the audience.

Read the transcript here: https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-partner-panel-at-the-seattle-female-founders-conference

On stage: Kirsty Nathoo, Kat Manalac, Holly Liu, and Adora Cheung.

Moderated by Sharon Pope.

So Dora and Holly can stay up here because it's now time for the YC partner panel.

And I want to just remind you that you can submit questions.

If you don't have a question you particularly want to ask you can upvote someone else's and I'm taking the questions from you So please if you haven't yet go ahead and submit and I will just stand Great no, I like standing.

So, starting off, this was 1 of the more popular questions that's come through so far.

For FEMA founders who have families, are there remote options for YC or what options are available for participating in YC if you don't live in Silicon Valley?

Oh yeah, so recently we put out something called the YC Family User Manual.

Actually, Amy and Sharon worked really closely on that.

And so it's essentially we give it to all our founders when they join the batch, and it's tips and advice for people who have families on how to balance that, resources they can use.

And so what we've seen a lot of both moms and dads come through YC and they've all sort of made it work in different ways.

And so we've seen folks who have, there have been cases where they brought the whole family, there have been cases where they've kind of commuted back and forth.

So the short answer is it is not a remote program and part of it is the benefit of building that trust, building that interaction, seeing that, feeling that live.

I just think it's honestly, and the word strong, but a bit of a lost opportunity, I was gonna say waste, if you don't come there.

So we actually have an international founder in our group.

She just had a baby, is 6 months old, and she is doing a company in Mexico.

And we have a ton of international founders that actually fly back and forth, mainly because the business is over there.

And then they come over for the dinners and the group office hours because it's just so much important for her business to kind of move forward.

So we have a lot of support stuff like the user family manual that comes.

I've definitely seen there's another group in my batch right now.

He brought his three-month-old son and three-year-old.

all the other things you could go to, particularly for women who, there's a lot of support also as well for nursing moms.

There's also a really good blog post by a female founder, YC, who talked about making it work, particularly while she was nursing.

So it's just, it just is a lost opportunity if you're just not there.

We'll make sure to tweet that article out so people can, after the conference.

We'll share it out so everyone can take a look.

So, another question, what industries or technologies does YC think are extremely promising right now?

So, 1 of the things I think that is exciting about YC is that we get a lot of applications every 6 months, and we get to see sort of, it's like seeing into a crystal ball.

So ideas from Some of the smartest, most creative people around the world come to us.

And so I think some of the best ideas that we've ever funded and some of the best ideas out there aren't even things that we would necessarily think of.

It's just what you're all working on that we get to get insight into.

There's a really great blog post that 1 of our partners put out, if you look up startup zeitgeist, and it shows 8 years of data from YC applications.

So it shows sort of the trends that we've seen, like in 2011 We saw a ton of Bitcoin applications.

About 2 years ago, everyone was building chat bots or things on top of Slack.

And so I think that's 1 of the most exciting parts of what we do.

It's not calling what's going to be the next big thing, but getting to see a little bit into the future of what might be.

So in terms of ideas, 2 that come to mind.

And in particular, I think brick and mortar is trying to go online now, and online peer plays are trying to figure out brick and mortar, and there's like a clash of cultures there, and no 1 has really figured that out.

So I think there's a lot to do there in women's retail and all these categories.

I think, I mean, obviously Amazon's a big player on the online retail and they're trying to move offline too, but I think there's a lot of room there for lots of startups to win there.

And then the second 1 is, I actually haven't, I feel like it's a little bit like blockchain, but like voice apps.

So every home, like almost every home now has an Alexa or a Google Home or 1 of these things.

Like the biggest thing that people use it for is just information retrieval or reminders or stuff like that.

But the UX is quite odd, and it's not how we as adults are used to using things.

So I think there's a lot of UX stuff to do there and figure out what those apps will look like.

But yeah, I think everyone thinks that blockchain voice is the future, but no 1 has figured out great applications for it.

And so I'm always curious when people are working on that what those could be.

The other thing is, we've talked a bit about how we have applications from all sorts of technologies, and we actually put out what we call requests for start-ups, which talk about some of the things that maybe, you know, we'd love to see applications from.

But 1 thing to bear in mind is just because what you're working on isn't 1 of those, that doesn't mean that we're not looking for it.

We want you to tell us what we should be interested in.

So don't kind of self-select yourself out, because it's not 1 of the things that we mention.

It's something that we hear people saying, well, why C isn't looking for companies like mine?

And we totally are because we're just looking for great companies.

lot of people are asking about what qualities of the companies and founders you find most attractive and also the red flags in an application.

I feel like we addressed the companies question, but Kirstie, you've seen a thousand companies go through.

What is it about founders in terms of what you look for, but also red flags?

I think Because we're looking at so many of these companies at such an early stage, we're really, really focusing in on the founders themselves.

And so we want to see people who are determined, who aren't going to give up the minute that things get a little bit tough, particularly where there are teams of co-founders, we want to be able to see that there is some existing relationship there, and it's not just somebody that you met in a coffee shop 2 weeks ago and brainstormed for 2 hours, and it's all gonna be amazing.

You know, as you've heard from pretty much everybody today, The co-founder relationship is so incredibly important because it's something that will get you through the lows and the highs.

And they will understand what you're going through.

You'll understand what they're going through.

And 1 of the number 1 reasons that we see startups failing is actually that the the founder relationship breaks down So so a lot of the things that we're looking for in the applications are around Do we think the founding team is going to be that that really amazing team that can make this work.

1 tell we have in that way is we look at the equity split.

So we like to see teams that have as close to equal equity as possible between the co-founders.

And that's because Even if someone came up with the idea and was working on it 6 months or so before, sometimes we'll see, I came up with the idea, so I have 80% and my co-founder has 20%.

But the reality is the vast majority of your company's life is in the future.

It takes, I think, an average of 10 years now to IPO or exit.

So you want the co-founders to be on as equal footing as possible.

If I could sum it up in 1 word, like founders that are just formidable.

Like I'm like, okay, they're just gonna do it regardless, regardless of what happens here in this room, in the interviewing room.

And I think that that's 1 of the things that we find and we love to find.

I will touch a note on 2 things, 1 around the technical co-founders, so and having teams, we do love teams, but we've accepted solo founders as well.

We've accepted non-technical founders as well.

But the reason why we anchor against those is it's only 3 months that YC is happening.

And if you don't have somebody that can actually build and do something, then you're losing time on learning.

And finally, I was talking to Akshaya Avni.

When you're in a particular space, particularly if it's very crowded, I'm very interested in what types of insights do you have?

Like I was talking to Avni about her insights.

I was like, wow, that totally makes sense, increasing the village on childcare.

And that I think is just something if you're thinking about too.

I have another question for you, Adora, as well.

All right, so the next question, so we've talked about knowing your numbers and how it's so important, but maybe it's even more important for female founders.

So Adora, when you're considering an investment or considering an applicant to YC, what metrics are you most focused on?

What do you think are the most important ones to, that they're tracking and that they know rock solid.

Well, if they haven't built anything yet, there's, I guess, nothing to really look at except for just understanding what the market opportunity is.

2 is they're starting to build, you know, 1 of the things that we tell every founder is you should, instead of growing really, really, really fast, the first thing you should do is build a product that people really, really love.

And so that can be defined as, you know, that, so then I would say the question is, what are the metrics that define what happy, engaged users are?

Happy, engaged users getting continuous value out of the product.

And so it's different for every single company.

But usually, you can get 3 to 4 key metrics that give you a 360 overview of what that means.

You should always be looking at retention, meaning, you know, 5, you know, 100 people came this month, how many stayed the next month and so on and so forth.

And so that's a quantitative way to look at it.

And so we would always probably ask for those kind of metrics.

And then the more qualitative is when you're talking to people, you can kind of get a feel of how good your product is already or how much they value it.

So for example, if you ask them, oh, what did you think?

And they're like, oh, That's pretty cool.

That doesn't feel like they're happy and engaged.

But if they're like, oh my god, Holly, how can I get an invite link so I can send it to 20 of my friends now?

And so that's more of a qualitative thing that you can get out of that.

And I think to Avni's point earlier, is there like she was saying you have 7 weeks until the application deadline so start and start tracking and make some progress.

Do you think that there's, is there a period of time you look at in terms of the metrics or is it more flexible?

It's this entire period when you start at building and start at using and just you want to see some growth in terms of your NPS is getting better, your weekly active users are getting better.

I mean, the metrics tell you the what, but you need to deep dive and know the why so that you can continue doing the things that keep working.

So maybe unsurprisingly, a question maybe Kat will answer.

This room wants to know if YC will ever have a Seattle office or accelerator.

I think for now, and I travel a lot internationally all around the US, and I think at this point in history, it still helps most companies to spend 3 months in the Bay Area.

There is just, it's so easy to raise money there.

There's a huge, I mean, it's relatively, relatively.

I mean, you know, it's hard, but it's much easier than pretty much anywhere else in the world.

And then there is just a huge network of founders.

And so spending 3 months building that network of investors and other founders who can help you as you grow, I think makes sense.

And then you can come back and bring that network and all that knowledge with you back here or back wherever your users are.

The 1 thing I, my sort of hope is the way that we get, organically get YCs all over the world is that we fund a really incredible company.

They grow, Poppy, I'm looking at you, where's Shift Labs?

They grow, they become billion dollar companies and their founders start reinvesting in the ecosystem so that they start investing in the founders here.

And so that's, I think, the most, my dream for YC long term is that it's the alumni in each of these regions that sort of grow the whole community.

So question, and obviously we've seen some great YC alums on stage today, how does YC interact with founders after YC?

So it's a fairly common misconception that people think that YC ends after the three-month program and actually that's not true at all because we are still investors in your company and we're here to help.

We want to help the founders that have been through the batch already and so we're here as a resource.

We're always available to ask and answer questions whenever founders come back to us And so some examples of things that we help with after the batch are, you know, maybe the founders have raised a million dollars out of demo day, and they're now a year past that, and they're thinking about starting to raise their series A.

And we can come and we'll help them pull together a pitch deck, we'll help them with their practice pitches.

We will introduce them to people who could be helpful.

And then Continuing on, we also now have our later stage program where we work with companies who maybe have 50 employees or 100 employees and how do those companies scale and what sort of problems are they coming across that we can help with.

And so the idea is that we are always a resource for everybody who's been through YC.

And so any of our experience, if we can be helpful, we want to be helpful to you.

And on the back end, we've built a lot of software.

It's like Facebook meets LinkedIn meets Quora, where all of our founders sort of every day are sort of talking to each other, asking questions, helping each other out.

And I think more often than, founders will come to us occasionally if they have questions, especially around fundraising, but I think more often they're asking their community, the community of founders, to help each other out.

So that's, I think those touch points happen on a monthly basis, if not more.

So I'll just chime in and say another misconception is that YC is about the 3 months.

And so, and this doesn't necessarily, you don't have to take them up on it, but office hours are open for any partner afterwards.

And so for me, 2 years out of YC, I actually take way more value out of that than even during the period when it's very intense and there's a lot of stuff and you're mostly working with your group partners.

There are people that have experience across the board.

They're from everything across the board.

And so for me, when I talked about mentors, most of my mentors are actually YC partners.

And so the ability for me to every month or whatever it is, own reaching out to them and having that has been so invaluable.

So for those of you that are kind of evaluating YC as a program, don't ever think about it as just like a three-month thing.

You get into this tribe of people and founders that I think is just so invaluable.

So I think that and this is obviously something that actually I think if Holly and Adora want to take this 1.

So as a founder how do you keep the momentum going when the funds are running dry and growth is getting really challenging?

Or maybe I guess I guess if it would help to put a finer point on it, can you talk through a time where you felt that crunch and how you were able to push through it, whether it was fully dry or close?

So, we started our company in 2006, exited in 2017, and 2008 was the worst year ever for all startups everywhere around the world, but particularly in Silicon Valley.

A big venture capitalist called Sequoia Capital had sent out a deck, said RIP good times, get to cash flow positive, and there was just no money anywhere.

So for us, what we did, so A, it's obviously super, I have a co-founding team of 4 total and good news is we got along which was great and we were pretty cheap so we got even cheaper we cut our we cut our burn drastically and we basically hunkered down all of us in some ways because we were smaller, it felt really good that we were all in the same boat together.

For about 2 to 3 years, our Christmas party was basically an office party with board games.

But nobody really complained too much, so that's pretty good, with a gift exchange, which is great.

And I think the other thing that we did that was for us, and I'm not saying it's for everybody, but we did change our business model during that time because we saw basically $3 million contracts just disappear overnight.

And We said we just cannot kind of function with that.

And we were just stupid enough to just try to continue to exist during that time until funding came in about a year later.

And that's when we just walked down to the pub and had a drink after the money goes in the bank.

So by the way, term sheets are signed, that means nothing.

I mean, being a founder is a little bit of an irrational choice.

So the first 3 years that we were around, we actually only were able to raise $100,000.

And so for the Bay Area, that's not a lot of money.

So I mean, the number 1 rule in a startup before, especially if you don't have product market fit yet, is just to keep your personal burn low.

So you gotta, you know, yeah, you can't spend money on anything, only on the must needs.

So I mean, we couldn't afford board games.

But honestly, it's just keeping your personal burn low and just having a good relationship with your co-founder and just being on the same page of where you're going and keep trying.

And just like you guys pivoted, we actually, it's funny because we pivoted also into the thing that started growing, then got us venture capital during this time when we were just like on credit cards and barely making it.

Yeah like that mentality, it's like that that that mentality of not, like you don't have anything, really makes you think, it makes you be really efficient with what you do and it really makes you think what you can do with very little and I think that's actually when some of the better ideas come about.

So even if you raise money, you should always keep that in mind and keep that mentality and mindset and always keep your brand low.

Okay, so another interesting question, especially for this conference, Are there differences that you've seen in interviews between male founders and female founders in terms of how they present, et cetera?

I don't know if I have anything to add on this 1.

I mean, you're the most recent interviewer.

So I guess of the women that have come in and the women that we have taken.

So I don't know in terms of pitching, But I do realize there's 1 thing that I've realized not just from this 1, but over time is Partly for I've heard this advice given to men about in order to sound very smart is to speak slower but I feel like that advice doesn't help for women.

I actually think the ones that just bowled us over with the numbers of like, this is this, this, this, and this, and we're like, wow, OK.

And those were the ones that we ended up taking.

And I was like, OK, that, like, they just didn't even give in edgewise in some ways.

It's not like they weren't listening either.

You definitely have to be open to listening.

But I'd have to think a little bit on, was there a difference in terms of pitching?

As founders who have pitched investors, were there things that you kind of had to coach yourself on that you had to improve upon.

Yeah definitely I know some of this stuff sounds really silly but doing those Superman poses like getting your head in the game the visualization pieces practice practice practice practice practice practice and know your numbers but I'll let you talk about that.

Honestly I think it's like knowing your numbers, I don't know, that's just the number 1 thing.

And I always just knew my numbers and was able to, if you asked me anything, I could tell you in a split second.

I think confidence, just going in, and even if it's, like I said before, even if it's super awkward feeling, just being confident.

In the beginning it was really funny because when I was asking for money, I'd always like smile weirdly.

Or like almost crack up because it was just so awkward for me.

Because there's always a silence also after you ask.

Some people just start rambling after that because the other person hasn't spoke yet but it's you know just pause and wait for the reaction.

So I was I was I've been talking to a lot of the international founders and 1 French founder actually a man a male French founder you know came up to me and said you know demo day is coming up and I have to say I'm really uncomfortable because you know American men pitch themselves in such this overblown, bold way, and we're not taught to speak like that in France.

I mean, it's very embarrassing and uncomfortable.

And so it's just something that we had to practice so that he could fight past that discomfort.

Because you have to, a lot of investors are sort of used to seeing these bold, confident pitches.

And so that is something that I think, international founders, but also I see some women kind of undersell themselves.

I was reading hackathon applications a couple years ago, and it was the first time I noticed It would be teams, mixed teams, male, female.

And the male on the team would say, hey, we built this world-changing, award-winning hack at this last hackathon.

We're the best on the planet, stuff like that.

And his female counterpart, who had built that same hack with him, said, you know, I contributed to this product and it was really like a stark contrast and it's something that I saw over and over again.

And so it just made me, whenever I talk to women, I'm like, don't undersell, you know, what you're doing or what you're bringing to this team, because you're an important piece of it.

And so that's, I think, a main thing that I tell women over and over again before they go out and pitch.

I have a couple more questions but I just wanted to do that.

So what would be the advice, so we at YC have obviously seen a lot of companies go from that early stage to the growth stage.

So what do you think some of the best advice is for a company as they're getting to that next phase?

So maybe they're like getting over 30 employees, approaching 50 employees.

There's 1, the product side, in terms of how do you grow your product.

See all Y Combinator transcripts on Youtube

YC Partner Panel at the Seattle Female Founders Conference