Garry Tan's tips for applying to YC

Hey, guys. Welcome back by popular demand. We're gonna talk really quickly today about three tips in order to get a better Y Combinator application. You're applying to Y Combinator? That's awesome. I was a partner there for five years. I worked with more than 700 companies while I was there.

I am so glad that you're starting a company, and I'm so glad that you would consider going to what I think the best place to actually start your company. So let's get right into it. First point, show, Don't tell. If there's a story to be told about a specific user and a specific problem, start with that. What is it about that problem? What is it about those people that require your solution?

And how have you actually solved it for them? If you've actually created something real, make sure you mention that. If you actually have users using it in real life, make sure you mention that. And especially number three, if someone is actually paying for it, definitely mention that.

Y Combinator will receive applications from every part of the spectrum, from the earliest stage when people literally just quit their jobs or haven't even quit their jobs yet, and maybe they're talking through an idea. All the way down to companies that are already doing revenue, already making even a million or $2,000,000 a year in revenue. That's a wide range.

The most important thing for you is to establish where you are on that stack, And if you're farther along, great. One of the things that you wanna make sure people understand is how large this market opportunity actually is. Is there a way you can show that your business or your problem set that you're trying to solve can be worth a billion dollars or more.

And in sort of real terms, what that means is in the next five to ten years, is there some real way for you to get to a hundred million dollars a year in revenue? I know that's a really high bar, but that is what venture investors are looking for when they make an investment. Y Combinator is looking for successful startups that can grow very quickly.

It's important for you to be able to show that the problem you're trying to solve and the solution that you've created can result in something that can truly be massive. And that's why the story matters. If you have real customers, say so. If you have stories about why those customers choose you over all your competitors, say so.

If you have some sort of special sauce, if you have something that nobody else has truly figured out, definitely say so. Point number two, don't use buzzwords. Plain English is best because Y Combinator uses plain English to figure out whether or not you know your stuff.

Everywhere else in the world, people use special inward buzzwords to determine whether or not you're a part of the in crowd or the out crowd, and they will invest based on that. Great investors don't use buzzwords to figure out who to invest in. They use their brains. Great investors try to understand what you're saying, and then they make their own mind up.

That's how we try to do investment at Initialized, and that's how Y Combinator decides who to let in. Don't use buzzwords to show that you are a part of the in crowd. Use plain English to actually communicate what is actually happening with your startup. Talk to me about the problem, talk to me about the solution, and tell me why you are different. Why is it that your solution will beat all comers?

And it's not gonna come from saying words like hyperverticalization or unbundling or any sort of term like that. I don't need to know that you went to the right parties or can use the right terms. I want to know, do you have something unique? Are you looking at the world in the right way?

One of the things I realized while investing in so many companies is that the best way to actually figure out if someone has anything is actually look at it from plain English. If I sit down with someone and just have a conversation about what they're doing, do I get excited about what they're doing? And do I believe that this needs to be manifest in the world?

That is what you're trying to get across in your YC application, but this is advice that's broadly useful for any pitch situation. A great pitch is not something incredibly complicated that impresses the listener. A great pitch is actually very simple, understandable statements put side by side from one another that when you zoom out, you realize that is a really big idea.

Finally, I'm pretty convinced that everything I ever needed to know in startups, I basically learned in high school newspaper. How you should be writing is actually an inverted pyramid. When you write, there's a beginning, middle, and an end. Normally, throughout our school days, we're taught to have a topic sentence, exposition, and then conclusion.

When you write for YC, but when you write for all things having to do with your startup, you should actually use the inverted pyramid. Instead of saying the conclusion at the end, figure out what that conclusion is and put it right at the beginning. Right after that, start adding proof.

That way, when someone actually hears it or when they read it on your homepage, they can decide very quickly whether or not what you say makes sense. Right after it enters their brain, there's a bunch of proof that makes it more and more real. When you invert the conclusion and the exposition, you get exactly what you want. It's using your readers time effectively. So that's it.

Three really easy things you can do to make your YC application better. Thanks so much for watching, and I do actually have a giveaway this time. My giveaway is actually my time and my advice, especially because if you watch this, you probably have a YC application coming up. Please go to this link down here, bit. ly/GaryTan-ychelp. That's bit. ly/GaryTan-ychelp.

What you'll find there is a Google form. Put in a Google Doc of your y c application and I will comment on it. I've worked with YC companies for years, and I'm happy to be a resource to you. Thank you for subscribing. Click the bell to get a notification, and thank you for watching all the way to the end. I'll see you later. Thanks.