We finished the first draft of the application questionnaire, and we implemented about half of the features we'd like to show in our demo.<p>We are a team of two awesome cofounders, and our idea is not technically heavy. <p>How's your application coming along?
Sounds like you're moving along quite nicely. I realized that I will not finish my PhD in time for the deadline, so it's been postponed 1/2 a year. <p>At one point, I toyed with the idea of submitting, just to receive feedback, but thought it would be somewhat unethical. Good luck all.
The application process has taken us longer than I thought it would because it has made us question whether there really is a market for the idea. Yes, it does help to solve a problem, but we don't have a working product to get user feedback.<p>So for the past couple of weeks I've set the application aside and have focused on administering a market survey, so most of my time has been on the right wording for the test.<p>Hopefully with the help of social networks, email, WOM, etc... We'll be able to get a large enough sample to help us understand if we're heading in the right direction. If so, we'll submit our application with the survey results.<p>I am sure, though, that upon reading the questions, the person taking the survey will know quite easily what our start-up will be doing... which can be good and bad. Our positive spin on this is the survey will be our public declaration that we are up to something.
I'm experimenting with a couple of ideas to see if one has potential. If so, I might consider applying in October. I've received lunch invites from a couple of investors to chat further, but I don't need the money yet. I believe that I should take investment only after I feel confident that the idea has a good chance of success. I can experiment with ideas on my own; it's much faster and I can change direction quickly if something doesn't look like it's working. If I do apply to YC, it'll be for the community and the support, not the money.
I already submitted my application before I finished my prototype, which I now have to get done before the deadline. I'm trying to use this as really strong motivation to just finish the prototype instead of waiting until feature creep, polish, etc. is completed before submitting. I'll resubmit once the prototype is minimally functional.
My biggest problem is being a single founder; pg said he usually doesn't accept them so I'm probably dead.
I sent an email asking to withdraw my application (I doubt it would be accepted anyway; but it turns out that I'm going to be busy on the "fly to Cambridge" weekend, and I don't want to waste their time) last week. I haven't seen any response, but I assume that someone reads the info@ address and has removed my application from their stack of reading materials.
I'm not submitting an application, but my partner and I have copied it to Google Docs and filled it out for our own use. It turns out all our discussion meant when we wrote it down we were already 95% on the same page. It's still very useful as a way to refresh my memory, like pitching the idea to myself.