FamilyLeaf's (YC W12) Y Combinator Application

Congrats on getting accepted and thanks for being so candid about your application.<p>I have a couple of questions however:<p>Did you face any problems having disclosed you scrapped a competitors site for potential clients/leads? Did all the founders think that was an acceptable method for building a base?<p>How did you derive the potential turnover figures and was the model and revenue discussed in depth at the interview?<p>Finally, how did you guys decide that FamilyLeaf was the right direction?<p>Best of luck to you all with the company.

Thanks for putting up the application. I could clearly see how you guys aren't afraid to "break some laws" i.e. data scrapping, getting free food, and even weed selling!

Thanks for the red robin tip!

Too bad YC got rid of the "if you were an animal, what would you be, and why" question, which was on the Dropbox-era application.

Direct link to the app (PDF): <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19699329/FamilyLeaf_YC_application.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19699329/FamilyLeaf_YC_application.p...</a><p>P.S. Wow, small world. I went to the same high school as you guys. Good luck with FamilyLeaf, I'm now a big fan!

The weed thing didn't seem to add much to the app at all (and could have been quite negative), but good to keep the theme going in the pitch video:<p>"It's spreading like a weed"..."It's already been extremely sticky"

Not that I care, but now the whole world know you got suspended for selling weed. This information cannot be good for you or your company, considering your family-oriented userbase

Congratulations! Your age might give you trouble--people will feel embarrassed to work for such young people, and people in general might not take you seriously. Good luck!

I hate to be <i>that</i> guy... but I'm not impressed by this application. At all. I am aware that YC is looking for adventurous founders who aren't afraid to bend the rules in their favor - or break them outright. I can appreciate that. These guys were clearly aware of that and it seems like they developed their responses accordingly. They deliberately showed their mischievous side to game the system. And then they released their yc application to further game the (pr) system. I guess this is a big part of what startups are about, so well played. I'm interested to see where this company goes.<p>Edit : should have said thanks in advance for the downvotes. Criticism is not accepted on hn these days.