If you're accepted, what are your plans for the money invested? I think I'm a little confused. THE YC FAQ says we can spend it any way we see fit. However, the only thing I expect to spend money on are living expenses while in Mass (rent, food, bills).<p>If you're a founder, please share a little bit about your experience. Did you find it difficult to live on the investment? Did you use personal savings? Were family and friends feeding you money? How did you use the investment?
We track our expenses using gnucash, which can generate cool reports like this one:<p><a href="http://www.getdropbox.com/u/86/appjet-summer07-expenses.gif" rel="nofollow">http://www.getdropbox.com/u/86/appjet-summer07-expenses.gif</a><p>So that's how we (2 of us) spent most of our $15k summer funds.
The YC money is more than enough for the items you mentioned. That is, given your bills don't include an existing mortgage or payments on your new 911 Turbo.<p>Btw, if you're applying for the coming session, it's in Mountain View, not Mass.
we spent it all on common living expenses. we spent our own money on random things we wanted just because.<p>we made it last forever. i think 15k lasted 4 1/2 months for two people. our rent was 1800 in a SF. and the only reason it went that quickly is we had a month where we spent more than we realized by accident. it was really easy, the only thing i did less was go out for restaurant food and beer less.<p>(socialmoth)
My plans are to spend as little as possible on living expenses. Just need one room and a kitchen for me and my co-founder. Food shouldn't be too much since I love to cook (no need to buy packaged food) and I'm sure there's more than a couple cheap farmers markets in the bay area. The more money we can put into operating the business, the better.
I'm not a founder...but...<p>I think we're going to put like 30-40% into living expenses, and the rest into the company for things like:<p>Computers
Internet
Server Space
Web Service Credits
Advertising
Press Releases
ETC ETC
15k each in my opinion is trash, they can keep it. The best reward is the networking aspect. Meeting people in the field and getting to know people that can really fund your idea and help you get it off the ground.