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Founders at Work: 150+ YCombinator Founders’ Stories

by Alex StacenkoDecember 22nd, 2021

Too Long; Didn't Read

Jessica Livingston's book "Founders at work" (2007, 32 stories) inspired thousands of founders to start their startups. She has put in one place [150+ founders stories] to inspire a new wave of founders. She hopes the site saves 50-100 hours for 1000+ new founders. Everyone can contribute to the site to share their own founder's story with us at http://foundersatwork.io/#add.com/ The Social Radar: What I Did at Y Combinator (S05)

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featured image - Founders at Work: 150+ YCombinator Founders’ Stories

Jessica Livingston's book "Founders at work" (2007, 32 stories) inspired thousands of founders to start their startups.

I find and put in one place 150+ founders stories to inspire new wave of founders. (+pitchdecs, 1-minute videos, demo day videos, applications, and “early workplaces”). And I am finding every day more and more stories! Sometimes I think that stories find me. Today it is impossible to write and publish material book about YC founders, let it be a digital, neverending book, that writes itself.

It was an amazing journey, it changed my mindset. I rushed into unknown unknowns, where angels fear to tread... and I want to share this with everyone.

I hope, that FoundersAtWork.io saves 50-100 hours for 1000+ new founders. It is my "embarrassing MVP" I continue to work on, and I need your feedback.

Everyone can contribute founder's story!

2005

Y Combinator (S05)

What I Worked On (text, 2021)
Why I Do YC (text, 2008)
The Social Radar: What I Did at Y Combinator (text, 2015)
Grow the Puzzle Around You (text, 2018)
How to make something people want (video, 2015)

Kiko (S05)

How My First Startup Got Picked For Y Combinator (video, 2021)
Shitty First Startups (video, 2015)
I Almost Sold To Yahoo For $1,000,000 At 22 (video, 2021)
I Sold My Startup On Ebay For $258,100 (video, 2021)

Reddit (S05)

Our Y Combinator Summer 05 Application [what would lead to reddit]
How Reddit's Alexis Ohanian Stays Productive--Even on Travel Days (text, 2017)
Interview with Jessica Livingston (video, 2010)
Alexis Ohanian has left Reddit's board in a 'long overdue' move. Here's how he launched Reddit into a $3 billion behemoth and became an outspoken activist in the tech world. (text, 2020)

2006

Wofoo (W06)

Interview with Jessica Livingston (video, 2010)
Wufoo Sold For $35 Mil. Here's The Story Behind Its Success. (text, video, 2011)
How to Design Software Users Love (video, 2012)
Interview with Kevin Hale (video, 2014)
How to Build Products Users Love (video, 2014)
How to solve cofounder problems? (video, 2016)
How to Work Together (video, 2019)
Motivating Employees Without Fear (text)

Scribd (S06)

How Tikhon Got into Y Combinator Twice (video, 2016)
The Challenges a Repeat Founder Faces (video, 2017)

2007

Justin.tv/Twitch (W07)

The story of a serial entrepreneur (video, 2012)
The Value of Terrible Ideas (video, 2014)
Justin Kan's Story (video, 2021)
Yale Program on Entrepreneurship (video, 2015)
Justin Kan made $1B from Twitch by Live Streaming his Life (video, 2021)
How Twitch Reached $1,000,000/Month in Revenue (video, 2021)
How We Chose The Name Twitch (video, 2021)
How we ALMOST sold Twitch to Google for $1 BILLION (video, 2021)
Selling Twitch to Amazon...the real story (video, 2021)
What Did I Spend My Money On After Selling Twitch and Investing (video, 2021)
Do I regret selling Twitch? (video, 2021)

Weebly (W07)

Interview with Jessica Livingston (video, 2010)
How To Find Product Market Fit (video, 2018)

Disqus (S07)

Interview with Disqus - Part 1 (video, 2008)
Interview with Disqus - Part 2: The Y Combinator Experience (video, 2008)
Why Disqus Founder Daniel Ha Chose Name First, Idea Later (text, 2011)
Daniel Ha Founder of Disqus (video, 2011)
9 lessons on the path to reaching a billion readers (text, 2014)
How 2 Students Grew Their Startup Idea Into an 8-Figure Business (audio, 2016)
Q&A With Disqus Founder Daniel Ha: 'We Weren't a Rocket-Like Startup' (text, 2017)
How Commenting App Disqus Makes $20m+ Annually (audio, 2018)

Dropbox (S07)

Interview with Jessica Livingston (video, 2010)
Drew Houston on Being Rejected from YC (video, 2017)
Congrats Dropbox! (text, 2018)
On Starting and Scaling Dropbox (text, video, 2017)
Dropbox's original YC application

2008

Snaptalent (W08)

So, you got a Y Combinator interview, now what? (text, 2009)

Trigger (W08)

Mental model for product management: a way to classify features (text, 2014)

Posterous (S08)

Interview with Jessica Livingston (video, 2010)
Design for Startups by Garry Tan (video, 2018)
Applying to Y Combinator? 3 tips from a former YC partner (video, 2019)
3 Tips to Nail the Y Combinator Interview (video, 2019)
My $200 million startup mistake: Peter Thiel asked and I said no (video, 2019)
How I got into Y Combinator (video, 2020)
Co-Founder Conflict & Why I Quit my Startup (video, 2021)

2009

AirBnB (W09)

Interview with Jessica Livingston (video, 2010)
Brian Chesky - Startup School 2010 (video)
Airbnb's Surprising Path to Y Combinator (text, 2017)
An Unbelievable Journey (text, 2017)

Mixpanel (S09)

Acquiring your first 100 customers (text, 2018)
The first 18 months of starting a company: it's life or death (text, 2018)
Here's what I learned when I became "CEO" at 20 (text, 2018)
Let's talk about fundraising (text, 2018)
How to approach someone to be your mentor (text, 2018)
Decisions, decisions. It gets harder as a company grows (text, 2018)
Mixpanel's Y Combinator application in 2009
This pitch deck got our startup a $865M valuation

Stripe (S09)

Running Your Company by Patrick Collison (video, 2018)

2010

Creative Market (W10)

The Pre-launch Strategy That Got 70,000 Users In 9 Months for Creative Market (audio, 2015)
How To Make Your YC Application Stand Out (text, 2016)
Advice for New Managers (text, 2016)
Launching Creative Market: Our Playbook for Kickstarting a Marketplace (text, 2017)
Creative Market's Core Values, and the "3 Shits" That Shape Our Culture (text, 2018)
What Happens When You Stop Second Guessing & Trust Your Instincts (audio)
7 Proven Strategies for Launching an Online Marketplace (audio)
YC SUS: Aaron Epstein and Eric Migicovsky give website feedback (video, 2020)

Seeing Interactive/OwnLocal (W10)

How we got into Y Combinator (text, 2018)
Read Our YC Application
Application video

Rapportive (S10)

Having a launched product is hard (text, 2010)
What's so special about Y Combinator? (text, 2011)
My FounderLY interview (video1, video2, text, 2011)

Opzi (S10)

Euwyn, Ruby, and Ramen (text, 2011)
What I Learned From My Y Combinator Experience (text, 2018)

Crowdbooster (S10)

Y Combinator is over, now what? (text, 2010)
Crowdbooster boosts effective social media to new levels (text, 2011)
Privilege and inequality in Silicon Valley (text, 2016)
Should you apply to YC? YES, but here's one reason why you shouldn't (text, 2011)

Fanvibe (S10)

Y Combinator Experience (text, 2010)

2011

Vidyard (S11)

Vidyard: How a YC startup is using YouTube to sell its own video hosting solution (text, 2011)
How One Founder's Wedding Day Call Led To Millions In Funding From A Top VC (text, 2015)
May the $35M be with you, says Battery Ventures to Vidyard in Series C funding (text, 2016)
Vidyard's Michael Litt on Building a Startup Ecosystem in Waterloo (text, 2018)
From Selling Firecrackers To Landing $70 Million For His Canadian Startup (audio, text, 2018)
"Imposter Syndrome Is Real And Nothing To Be Ashamed Of" (text, 2018)
Processes Before Velocity: Why Your 100th Employee Will Change Your Company (audio, text, 2020)
History

Segment (S11)

Success Without A Diploma: How 3 MIT Dropouts Made It Big (text, 2017)
From Show HN to Series D (text, 2019)
PMF (twitt, 2019)
How MIT college kids founded multibillion-dollar company Segment (text, 2020)
May 5, 2011 to Oct 12, 2020 — 9 years, 5 months to build a $3.2B SaaS company (twitt, 2020)

Parse (S11)

How Tikhon Got into Y Combinator Twice (video, 2016)
The Challenges a Repeat Founder Faces (video, 2017)

2012

Muse (W12)

Female Founder Stories: Kathryn Minshew and Alex Cavoulacos (text)
One-Minute Pressure Cooker: The Muse's Pitch (video, 2013)
Kathryn Minshew at Startup School NY 2014 (video)
7 Classic Startup Founder Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them) (video, 2015)
What Kathryn Minshew, Co-Founder of The Muse, Learned From an Earlier Failure (text, 2018)
A Q&A With Kathryn Minshew, The Muse (2018)
The Muse's Successful Application to Y Combinator (W12)
The Muse Y Combinator W12 Application video

PlanGrid (W12)

Founder Stories: Tracy Young of PlanGrid (YC W12) (text, 2014)
Tracy Young on Scaling PlanGrid to 400+ People (text, video, 2019)

CoinBase (S12)

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on Cryptocurrency and the Future of Decentralization (2021)
Coinbase Listing: The Journey From Y Combinator to Nasdaq (text, 2021)
Brian Armstrong seeking cofounder on HN (text, 2012)
Coinbase YCombinator Demo Day Practice (video, 2012)

Mattermost (S12)

Redpoint Founders Series: Ian Tien, Mattermost (video, 2020)
Mattermost's Journey (text, 2021)
The Mattermost Origin Story (text, 2021)

Referly/Mattermark (S12)

Time to Say Goodbye Seattle, Hello San Francisco (text, 2010)
Timeline: Starting Referly Took Me Three Years (text, 2012)
Thoughts On YC Interview Prep (text, 2013)
Zombie Startups (text, 2013)
Is My Startup Burn Rate Normal? (text, 2014)
Are you Managing the Signals Your Startup is Sending? (text, 2014)
Female Founder Stories: Danielle Morrill, Founder of Mattermark (text, 2015)
For Seed Stage Startups, It's Hire or Die (text, 2015)
The Creative Destruction of Building and Growing a Career (audio, 2016)
Danielle Morrill's guide to the galaxy (text, 2016)
How Mattermark Acquired Early Users (video, 2016)
Insights From A YC Alum On How To Prepare For The Y Combinator Interview (text, 2017)
Mattermark YC Application

Soylent (S12)

How to Make Good Decisions (according to science) ft. @John Coogan (video, 2021)
9 Y Combinator Secrets To Grow Your Business (video, 2021)
How This Tweet Got Me $2 MILLION For My Startup (video, 2021)
Y Combinator | How I Got In - TWICE! | 2021 Application & Interview Process Explained (video, 2021)

Eligible (S12)

To get something great, you must risk something good (text, 2014)
Almost dead (text, 2015)
Why one of the only women to go through Y Combinator twice moved her company to NYC (text, 2017)
How I Risked Everything To Build A $20M Company In 3 Years (text, 2018)
Eligible Sales Plan & Compensation Letter (text, 2018)
My Journey from Struggling Actress to Successful Tech CEO (text, 2019)
Interview with Katelyn Gleason — CEO and Founder of Eligible (text, 2019)
Why I started a company to feel less lonely in the world (text, 2019)
Brave not perfect (text, 2019)
Female Founder Stories: Katelyn Gleason, Founder of Eligible (text)
YCombinator S12 Demo Day (video, 2012)

2013

InfluxData (W13)

My Journey to InfluxData (text, 2016)
Journey to CEO, again (audio, text, 2021)

Prizeo (W13)

Y Combinator Lessons Learnt by Andrej Pancik (video, 2013)
Represent Stories — Andrej Pančík (text, 2016)

Strikingly (W13)

How A YCombinator Startup Is Born: The Story Of Strikingly (text, 2013)
How to get into Y Combinator –- the No BS Approach (text, 2016)
Strikingly – Out of Failure, a Star is Born (text, 2016)

Zenefits (W13)

How a series of humiliating events led to one of the fastest-growing startups EVER (text, 2015)
Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup. Then It Self-Disrupted (text, 2016)
How to Raise Money with Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, and Parker Conrad (video, 2017)
How to Build Multi-Million Dollar Companies (text, video, 2017)
Parker Conrad's hard-won billion dollar startup lessons (text, video, video2, 2020)
The Comeback Of A Fallen Tech Unicorn CEO (text, 2020)
The One Thing Everyone Knows About Building a Startup is Wrong with Parker Conrad (Rippling) (video, 2021)
Parker Conrad: 'I like working with people who have a chip on their shoulder' (text, 2021)

Watsi (W13)

The Story Behind the Launch of Crowdfunding for Operations Startup Watsi (video, 2015)

Q&A with Watsi (video, 2015)
How Watsi is Crowdfunding Universal Healthcare By Personalizing Human Connections (video, 2015)
Grace Garey Speaks at Female Founders Conference (video, 2015)
Founder Stories: Grace Garey (text)
Ways we work (text)
Hack to start (audio, 2015)
The technology of transparency (text, 2015)
If fundraising is broken, fix it! How Watsi became the first Y Combinator non-profit (text, 2015)
What Startups Can Learn from Watsi's Wildly Successful Email Campaign (text)

Lollipuff (W13)

Female Founder Stories: Fei Deyle (text, 2015)
From electrical engineer to Y Combinator fashion startup founder (text, 2019)
Lollipuff's Y Combinator Application Video
Lollipuff @ Y Combinator Demo Day (W13)

DoorDash (S13)

The Road to IPO (video, 2021)
Lecture 8 - How to Get Started, Doing Things that Don't Scale, Press (video, 2014)
DoorDash's Application Video for YC S13 (video)
DoorDash at YC Summer 2013 Demo Day (video)

URX (S13)

1 year, 11 months at Google University (text, 2013)
People and Pine Cones- URX's Y Combinator Story (text, 2013)
7 lessons learned growing from 4 to 20 people (text, 2015)
Good Idea, Bad Startup (video, 2015)
How to ace your YC interview (text, 2016)
My biggest product strategy lesson learned from operating and selling URX (YC S13) (text, 2017)
How startups can avoid flawed decision making (text, 2021)
5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Began Leading My Company (text, 2021)

Standard Treasury (S13)

Getting in to YC (text, 2013)
Advice on the YC Application (text, 2013)
A (Successful) YC S13 Application (text, 2013)
Building A Founding Team at Standard Treasury (text, 2013)
Five Lessons from Building A Great Core Team at Standard Treasury (text, 2013)
Going Through Y Combinator (S13): Nine Lessons Learned (text, 2013)
Standard Treasury's Series A Pitch Deck (text, 2015)
Founders and Mental Health (text, 2014)
Mental Health, Trauma, and Startup Founders (text, 2014)
My Mental Health Story: Depression, Plagiarism, and Analysis (text, 2014)

Watchsend (S13)

How I learned to code (text, 2013)
Y Combinator applicant advice (text, 2013)
Insights from 6 hours of YC Mock Interviews (text, 2013)

Asseta (S13)

What to Do If You Don't Have a Technical Cofounder (text, 2020)
Advice for My Son (text, 2020)
32 Questions Founders Should Ask Investors (text, 2020)
Should You Quit Your Job and Start a Company? (text, 2020)
What's the Tempo of Your Start-up? (text, 2020)
Team Spotlight: Anton Brevde (text, 2020)
When to Hire a Chief of Staff? (text, 2020)
The Expert Problem (text, 2020)
Conquering Imposter Syndrome (text, 2020)
Move Fast and Don't Break Things (text, 2020)
High Expectations vs. Happiness (text, 2021)
Asseta Y Combinator Demo Day

One Month (S13)

How a Non-technical Solo Founder Got Into Y Combinator (text, 2013)
What is Y Combinator Like? (text, 2014)
Y Combinator and The One Metric that Matters (text, video, 2014)
How to get a busy person to respond to your email (text, 2014)
How to get into Y Combinator (text, 2015)
One Month's Y Combinator Application (text, 2013)

WebFlow (S13)

How Webflow got into Y Combinator (text, 2015)
From freelancer to founder: an interview with Webflow's CEO Vlad Magdalin (video, 2019)
Grew no-code startup to $20M in rev, pioneering Pegasus movement (video, 2019)
Founder Interview (video, 2020)
The Future is No-Code (video, 2020)
How Webflow went from almost bankrupt to building a no-code empire (text, 2020)
Building an Enduring Company, One Hard Lesson at a Time (video, 2021)
Quarterly community update and live Q&A with Vlad: Q3 2021 (video, 2021)

2014

Emailio (W14)

Emailio, A Y Combinator Productivity Startup, Fixes Your Bad Email Habits (text, 2020)
The Story of Martin Stoyanov -a Y Combinator Participant with a Mission to Disrupt the Way we Use Email (text, 2020)

Zinc (W14)

How I "failed" at a YC startup, worked at early Stripe, and then raised $20M (text, 2021)

SketchDeck (W14)

A company is just a belief engine (text, 2014)
Advice for first-time founders (text, 2015)
How to brand your startup (text, 2015)
The Art of Shipping Early and Often (text, 2016)
Managing your cofounder relationship for the long run (text, 2016)
Letting your engineers choose what to build (text, 2017)
What I wish I knew when I became CTO (text, 2018)
Growth almost killed our company (text, 2019)
SketchDeck CMO David Mack: Giving Feedback; How To Be Honest Without Being Hurtful (text, 2020)
SketchDeck's Y Combinator W14 application

Clear (W14)

How Delhi-Based Startup ClearTax Made It to Y Combinator (text, 2014)
Here's why Indian startups must apply to Y Combinator (text, 2015)
Archit Gupta of ClearTax On Cracking YCombinator (video, 2016)
How ClearTax's Archit Gupta Found Mentors In Y Combinator And Paytm Founder (text, 2016)
Y Combinator is like a B-school that helps develop a global peer network, says alumnus Archit Gupta (text, 2016)
The first India-focused startup in Y Combinator, this dropout's venture files 3 per cent of India's tax today (text, 2016) email [email protected])
From 1K Customers In First 11 Days To 1 Mn Today: ClearTax's Journey Post The YCombinator Stamp Of Approval (text, 2016)

Cruise (W14)

The Story of Cruise (YC W14): How 4 people built a self driving car in 7 months. (text, 2014)
Life Tips from Kyle Vogt of Cruise at Disrupt SF (video, 2016)
The Startup That Could Help GM Beat Google to the Self-Driving Car (text, 2016)
Kyle Vogt: Cruise Automation | Lex Fridman Podcast #14 (video, text, 2019)
Y Combinator Application

Rickshaw (W14)

Female Founder Stories: Divya Bhat, Founder of Rickshaw (YC W14) (text, 2015)

ProductHunt (S14)

A Hopeful Applicant's Y Combinator Experience (text, 2011)
Product Hunt Began as an Email List (text, 2013)
The 20-Minute MVP (text, 2014)
YC + PH (text, 2014)
Making Product Hunt (text, 2014)
How We Got Our First 2,000 Users Doing Things That Don't Scale (text, 2014)
3 Pieces of Advice for YC Applicants (text, 2014)
"Should I apply to YC?" (text, 2014)
How To Build World's #1 Product Launch Platform with a Globally Distributed Team: An Interview With the Founder of Product Hunt (text, 2018)
5 Years of Product Hunt (text, 2018)
How we made our first dollar at Product Hunt (text, 2018)
Ryan Hoover on Product Hunt's Acquisition and Lessons Learned About Launches with Dalton Caldwell (video, 2019)
Ryan Hoover on Startups, Success and Staying Curious (text, 2020)

Ginkgo Bioworks (S14)

Engineering A Better Future (video, 2021)
Interview: Jason Kelly CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks (video, 2021)
Jason Kelly of Ginkgo Bioworks, a Synthetic Biology Co. That's Starting a New Industrial Revolution (video, 2021)
Ginkgo Bioworks at YC Summer 2014 Demo Day (video)

Snappr (S14)

What the Y Combinator experience actually looks like (text)
Kicking off with a snapshot of ... ourselves! And our YC story so far (text)
Snappr YC Demo Day Pitch - Opening

Front (S14)

A month at Y Combinator: What it's like after you've been accepted (text, 2014)
Mathilde Collin, Front — Founder Story (text, 2018)
Mathilde Collin on Feature Prioritization and Employee Retention at Front (video, 2018)
After PMF: People, Customers, Sales by Mathilde Collin (video, 2018)
Take a look into Front's Journey to get into Y Combinator (text, 2020)

Tinker (S14)

A simple method to prepare for an interview at YCombinator (text, 2017)
A Simple Method to Prepare for an Interview at YCombinator — Updated 2020 (text, 2020)

Aptible (S14)

How to Get Into Y Combinator (text, 2014)

Zen99 (S14)

Why You Should Apply to Y Combinator (text, 2015)
How to Prepare for the Y Combinator Interview (text, 2015)

Shout (S14)

Our Journey To and Through YC (text, 2014)

2015

Staffjoy (YCF 15)

Insights from the creators of Staffjoy (text, 2015)
Staffjoy founders on the Y Combinator Fellowship experience (text, 2016)
Denouement (text, 2017)
Staffjoy's Pitch Decks That Raised $1.7M
Staffjoy's YC Fellowship Application

HigherMe (W15)

"Hi! My name is Rob, and I used to own 7 ice cream stores." (text, 2015)
Almost Inconceivable: Startups, Planning, Long Odds, and Babies (text, 2017)
Don't Burn Money Linearly (text, 2018)
Lessons learned through raising $1,000,000 from angel investors (text, 2018)
Your chances of getting into Y Combinator are not 1 in 100 (text, 2018)
From Ice Cream to Y Combinator: An Interview With Rob Hunter (text, 2020)

Gradberry/Tara AI (W15)

From Dubai to Buffalo: The journey of Iba Masood (text, 2018)
Raising a Series A as a Female Founder (video, 2019)
A framework on how to find the force multiplier co-founder (text, 2019)
How to setup company culture and core values at your early-stage startup (text, 2020)

Cleanly (W15)

Itay Forer of Cleanly shares his Y Combinator Journey (text, 2021)

Flip (W15)

Is Silicon Valley's Pioneering Sneakerhead (text, 2016)
Silicon Valley Insights (text, 2016)
How Building A Sneaker Marketplace Answered A Billion $ Question (video, 2019)
Flip (YC W2015) Application Video

Gitlab (W15)

GitLab from YC to IPO (text, 2021)
Our Y Combinator experience (text, 2016)
What Founders Ask Founders About Getting Into Y Combinator (text, 2016)
Gitlab's Secret to Managing 160 Employees in 160 Locations (video, 2017)
GitLab's Application for Y Combinator Winter 2015 (text, 2016)
GitLab Y Combinator Demo Day Winter 2015 (video)
GitLab Y Combinator Alumni Demo Day Winter 2015 (video)
Gitlab history (text)

Replika (W15)

Friendship with an AI Companion | Lex Fridman Podcast #121 (video, 2020)
Speak, Memory (text, 2016)

80 000 hours (S15)

What's it like being a nonprofit in Y Combinator? (text, 2015)
How can founders improve their social skills? (text, 2017)
A Guide to Machine Learning PhDs (text, 2017)
Application

New Story (S15)

How New Story Got Into Y Combinator (text, 2015)
What's It Like Being a NonProfit in Y Combinator? Five Questions with New Story CEO Brett Hagler (text, 2015)
3D Home Printing for the Developing World – Alexandria Lafci and Brett Hagler of New Story Charity (video, 2018)
New Story YC Demo Day 2015

Shotput (S15)

The Hack that got me into Y Combinator (text, 2019)
How I got the Y Combinator interview 46 days late (text, 2019)
My First Y Combinator Application that got me the interview (text, 2019)
Pitching a bunch of millionaires for 10 minutes (text, 2019)
Derivative/d Y Combinator 2014 Application

Cofactor Genomics (S15)

YC Backs Cofactor Genomics To Pursue RNA Testing, Which Could Offer Better Diagnoses Than DNA (text, 2015)
how-to-apply-to-y-combinator (text, 2015)
Lessons Learned from Cofactor's Y Combinator Experience 7-months later (text, 2016)

ScentBird (S15)

Сulture is Something That Works When Your Policy Fails (text, 2020)
How to Manage a Team of 43 Developers in Different Time Zones (text, 2020)
How many programmers does it take to sell perfume on the Internet? (text, 2020)

2016

Boom (W16)

On Starting and Scaling Boom (text)
E638: Blake Scholl, CEO & Founder of Boom, resurrects the dream of the supersonic passenger airplane (video, 2016)
Blake Scholl on supersonic airplanes and how he built a $1B company (video, 2019)
RTCA 2019 Symposium: 02 Opening Keynote: Boom Supersonic With Blake Scholl (video, 2019)
Building a supersonic jet startup with Blake Scholl - Podcast Ep 1 (video, 2020)

Revl (W16)

Revl, Interview with CEO Eric Sanchez (text, 2016)
There and Back Again. A Journey With Revl Arc (text, 2017)
Revl Deck Crowdfunder

Outschool (W16)

Outschooling in the Bay Area (text, 2015)
What I learned from my father (text, 2017)
Outschool co-founder Amir Nathoo | Top tips for startups (text, 2017)
My journey to founding Outschool (text, 2017)

Instabug (W16)

Political Turmoil Leaves Cofounders of Egypt-based Instabug in Limbo (text, 2013)
What it's like to build a startup in a country that's rebuilding itself (text, 2015)
ArabConnect: Omar Gabr discusses SoLoMo (video, 2015)
6 Reasons Why In-App Feedback Is A Must While Beta Testing (text, 2015)
How to Launch Your Mobile App in 16 Steps (text, 2015)
Lessons 10 Years On (video, 2018)
Instabug Untold Stories (text, 2018)
What It's Like Dealing With Silicon Valley Customers From Egypt (text, 2019)
How to Find Over 200+ Beta Testers for Free (text, 2019)
Serendipitous discovery (video, 2020)

Paystack (W16)

Paystack's Y Combinator Application (text, 2017)
How to put together a strong Y Combinator application (text, 2018)
Helping African Businesses Get Paid, Shola Akinlade of Paystack (video, text, 2018)
Building from Ground Up (video, 2020)

Superside (W16)

How We Got into Y Combinator (text, 2016)
What to Expect as an International Founder at Y Combinator (text, 2016)
What is Superside? How is it Different from a Design Agency or Freelance Marketplace? (video, 2020)

GetAccept (W16)

Our story
From Malmö to Silicon Valley in less than two years - the story of GetAccept (text, 2017)
How 4 Swedes got their SaaS accepted into Y Combinator while still at $0 MRR (text, 2019)
5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS (text, 2021)
Secure Series B and build a global business in Malmö (video, text, 2021)
GetAccept - YC W'16 Demo Day

LendEDU (W16)

How LendEDU made it into Y Combinator on their second try (text, 2016)
How LendEDU Raised the Most Valuable Seed Round Imaginable with Y Combinator (text, 2019)

Innov8 (S16)

Founder Stories: Ritesh Malik of Innov8 (text, 2017)
Founder Mindset - Fundamental for startups (video, 2020)
Startup Journey from 0-200Cr (video, 2021)
Innov8 pitch in Ycombinator [PITCH ANALYSIS]
Innov8 Coworking at theY Combinator Demo Day SS'16

Iris Automation (S16)

Iris Automation gives drones situational awareness, making autonomous delivery a reality (text, 2016)
The story of how two college friends joined forces to disrupt an industry with Iris Automation (text, 2019)

Burrow (S16)

Burrow is Casper for Designer Sofas (text, 2016)
How I Raised It with Stephen Kuhl of Burrow.com (audio, 2018)
The Story of How a Sofa Startup Got Into Y Combinator with Just a Pitch Deck (text, 2019)
How 'Couch In a Box' Company Burrow Leveraged Big and Small Investors for a $4.3 Million Seed Round (text, 2019)
Burrow CEO Stephen Kuhl: The shift to e-commerce is here to stay (text, 2020)

Lendsnap (S16)

Lendsnap Lets You Apply for a Mortgage in Under 30 Minutes (text, 2016)
The True Story of How Orion Willow Got Lendsnap Accepted Into Y Combinator (text, 2019)

Suiteness (S16)

Founder Interviews: Kyle Killion of Suiteness (text, 2019)
Kyle Killion's story of getting Suiteness into Y Combinator along with tips on how to apply (text, 2019)

Jumpcut (S16)

#11: Kong Pham - Jumpcut - Y Combinator Alumni Interviews (YC S16) (audio, 2020)
How I Raised $2 Million From Investors (My YC Demo Day Pitch Breakdown) (video, 2020)
Entrepreneur Gains#11 - Kong Pham - Jumpcut (Y Combinator S16) (video, 2020)
Prior YouTube Star Launches Startup and Does $12M in Sales! (video, 2020)
Kong Pham on Y Combinator and unconventional business strategies? (video, 2021)
Going viral & dating tips (we got DEEP!) with YouTuber (Simple Pickup) turned YC founder (video, 2021)

Nova Credit (S16)

Founder Stories: Nicky Goulimis of Nova Credit (text, 2017)
Path to Y Combinator Acceptance and Beyond (text, 2019)
Immigrants - A Conversation with Nicky Goulimis (video, 2019)
How to scale and expand, the journey of a female founder (video, 2020)
How Effective is Fintech in Reducing Inequality (video, 2020)
Nicky Goulimis | The Breakfast Show US (video, 2020)
Interview with Nicky Goulimis (video, 2020)

Saleswhale (S16)

What the Y Combinator experience is like, according to 4 graduates (text, 2018)
Singapore's Saleswhale raises $5.3M to bring AI to sales and marketing teams (text, 2019)
The Y Combinator Alum who returned to Singapore to build Saleswhale (text, audio, 2019)
I'm a CEO and this is what I care about from Marketing (text, 2020)
What is Collaborative Intelligence? (text, 2020)
How Your Startup Can Conquer the U.S. Market, from Southeast Asia (video, 2020)
Hubspot + Saleswhale: Kickstart your ABM campaign in minutes, not months (video, 2020)
Run best-in-class demand gen plays with Saleswhale's new Topic Library (text, 2020)
Our $90,000 mistake & why I would do it all over again (text1, text2, 2020)
Gabriel Lim Co Founder and CEO Full SmartChickens Episode Final (video, 2021)

The Flex Company (S16)

Why More Women Should Apply to Y Combinator (text, 2016)
Choose Love Over Fear: How We Grew to $4M in Under 1 Year (text, 2017)
The Flex Company's Successful Y Combinator S16 Application (text, 2018)
The real reasons we made Flex (text, 2020)
How we took Flex® from concept to reality (text, 2020)
Flex CEO Lauren Schulte Wang on gratitude (text, 2020)

2017

WaystoCap (W17)

Early days, Y Combinator experience and more (text, 2017)
The Morrocan Startup providing a marketplace to connect African businesses (text, 2020)

Solugen (W17)

On sales, product roadmaps, and building a more sustainable future (text, 2020)
My Climate Journey (text, audio, 2021)

UpKeep (W17)

UpKeep is now Part of the Y Combinator (W17) Family! (text, 2017)
Q&A Founders Story with Ryan at UpKeep (text, 2021)
Ryan Chan the founder of UpKeep shares his Y Combinator Journey (text, 2019)
Bootstrapping With A Paycheck to YCombinator and $10M Series A: Ryan Chan, CEO of UpKeep (Part 1) (text, 2019)
How an App Developer turned His No-Income Startup into a Multi-Million Dollar Venture (text, 2021)

Boxouse (W17)

Y Combinator brings hardware veteran Luke Iseman on full-time to help startups grow faster (text, 2015)
#268 – An Interview with Luke Iseman of yCombinator (audio, 2015)
Starting a Hardware Startup (video, 2015)
How to Get Into Y Combinator (video, 2015)
This couple couldn't afford to live in San Francisco, so they're building tiny homes made from shipping containers (text, 2016)

Armory (W17)

DROdio's Bio (text)
DROdio .Readme (text, 2019)
Is Y Combinator worth it? (text, 2020)
YCombinator W17 Armory Demo Day

Neema (W17)

Y Combinator, how to nail the interview (text, 2017)

Simple Habit (W17)

Simply Mindful: How Burnout Inspired One Entrepreneur's Million-Dollar Idea (text, 2018)
Women's History Month Interview Series with Yunha Kim (text, 2020)
Yunha Kim: Steps of Risk Pave the Success of Simple Habit (text, 2020)
Yunha Kim
Application

Brex (W17)

Henrique Dubugras and Anu Hariharan Discuss Brex's Corporate Card For Startups (text, video, 2018)
I Am Living Proof Of The American Dream: With Henrique Dubugras Co-founder of Brex (text, 2018)
How the 22-year-old founders of Brex built a billion-dollar business in less than 2 years (text, 2018)
How This Entrepreneur Created A $1.1 Billion Company At 22 Years Old (text, 2019)
The State of Fintech with Henrique Dubugras (video, 2021)
Dreaming big and achieving big: Henrique Dubugras, Brex (audio, text, 2021)

Thematic (S17)

Thematic is taking part in YCombinator! (text, 2017)
How to make the most out of YC Startup School (text, 2018)
Thematic plans to become a $1 billion company (text, 2018)
Commercializing AI research: Lessons learned and Thematic's journey (text, 2019)
What Chief Customer Officers can learn from YCombinator's approach to disruption (text, 2019)
How we moved our startup from New Zealand to Silicon Valley (text, 2019)
How to Start a Startup for AI Engineers (video, 2021)

Peergrade/Eduflow (S17)

4 lessons we learned from Y Combinator (text, 2018)
Peer feedback with Peergrade by CEO David Kofoed Wind (video, 2018)
Acquiring new teachers for free with David Kofoed Wind, Peergrade (video, 2019)
Founder Interviews: David Kofoed Wind of Peergrade (text, 2019)
The story of when 8 x Co-Founders flew from Denmark to San Francisco for Y Combinator (text, 2019)

Guggy (S17)

Guggy's story of evolving from "just another Israeli Startup" to a YC startup (text, 2019)

RideAlong (S17)

RideAlong's Journey Into Y Combinator (text, 2019)

Roofr (S17)

Y Combinator Founder Richard Nelson Talks Using Beta Blockers And Toastmasters to Rock YC Demo Day (text, 2017)
Growth & Roofr's Journey - Our 2017 In Review (text, 2018)
Richard Nelson Y Combinator Pitch (video)

70 Million Jobs/Commissary Club (S17)

Announcing 70MillionJobs (text, 2917)
I'm Richard Bronson, founder/CEO of 70MillionJobs, former "Wolf of Wall Street" partner. Spent 22 months in a federal prison, now run Y-Combinator startup that finds jobs for 70 million ex-offenders. AMA. (text, 2017)
This CEO Wants To Hire 70 Million People (text, 2017)
From Wolf of Wall Street to a "Made Man" in Silicon Valley (text, 2019)
"Wolf of Wall Street" Works to Help 70 Million Americans with Records (text, 2020)
Prison is my baseline (text, 2020)

2018

Let's Do This (W18)

Fenner's, start-ups and sport-star investors (text)
How two college friends got Serena Williams and Usain Bolt to back their business (text, 2021)

Spinal Singularity/UroDev Medical (W18)

A Thanksgiving story: Life-changing injury doesn't dim Marine's gratitude (text, 2013)
From Special Operations To Startup Founder (text, 2016)
From veteran to entrepreneur: Spinal Singularity founder shares his journey (text, 2016)
The Story of Capt. Derek Herrera, USMC (Ret.) (text, 2017)
How a paralyzed veteran is taking action to help other wounded warriors (text, 2019)

Veriff (W18)

Ycombinator, $7,700,000, Earning the trust of the internet (video, 2018)
Kaarel Kotkas "Y Combinator and growing as hell" (video, 2019)
Veriff in 2020: The Story So Far (text, 2020)
An interview with Kaarel & Janer about 5 years in Veriff (text, 2020)
Journey from Estonia to YCombinator to United States (audio, 2021)
Kaarel Kotkas of Veriff: Five Things I Learned As A Twenty-Something Founder (text, 2021)
A non-founder's guide to the galaxy of Y Combinator (text, 2017)
On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene (text, 2020)

Runa (W18)

To do or not to do Y-Combinator? (text, 2018)
YC application

Atrium (W18)

E900 Justin Kan of Justin.tv, Twitch, Atrium: live-stream video pioneer, YC, failures & successes (video, 2019)
I Messed Up and I'm Sorry (video, 2021)
Twitch founder who sold for $970 million chats with a guy with $970 in his bank account (video, 2021)

Vanta (W18)

From YC darling to fundraising powerhouse (text, audio, 2021)
Early Engineer at Vanta (YC W18): Tom Denham (text, 2021)

Nuvocargo (W18)

Y Combinator as a solo nontechnical founder (text, 2018)
Y Combinator: Application & interview advice from a Winter '18 alumni (text, 2018)

OpenLand (W18)

The Ultimate Guide to YCombinator Interview Preparation (text, 2018)
OpenLand YC Interview Answers (text, 2018)

Proof/Jarvis (W18)

How We Got Into Y Combinator After Failing Miserably The First Time (text, 2018)
Is Y Combinator Worth It? A Founder's Experience (text, 2018)
Y Combinator Demo Day Pitch (video, 2018)

Repl.it (W18)

Former Facebook engineer quit to build the programming tool he always wanted (text, 2018)
Rejected Then Recruited: Our Journey into Y Combinator (text, 2018)
Repl.it CEO Amjad Masad is democratizing coding for all (video, 2020)
Amjad Masad pitches early stage Repl.it to Daniel Gross (video, 2020)
The Future of Code (video, 2021)
I dreaded the idea of starting a company. (twitt, 2021)

OpenPhone (S18)

Modern Treasury (S18)

Why We're Building Modern Treasury (text, 2018)
Modern Treasury: The Quadrillion $ Quest (text, 2021)

Easol (S18)

Branding, Owning Mistakes and the Y Combinator Experience (video, 2021)

Alpha Vantage (S18)

The Harvard MBAs Trying To Upend Stock API Investing (text, 2018)
This 90 second YC Demo Day pitch raised millions for my startup! (video, 2018)

Goodly (S18)

1-on-1 chat with Greg Poulin D'16, Co-founder and CEO of Goodly (text, video, 2020)
YC Application

Momentus (S18)

My story (text, 07.08.2018)
My interview for WSJ (text, 07.08.2020)
Article for TechCrunch (text, 18.08.2020)

2019

Deel (W19)

Deel's Experience at Y-Combinator (text, 2020)
On another level: Israeli FinTech Unicorn raises $425M at a $5.5B valuation (text, 2021)

Our World in Data (W19)

Our World in Data is at Y Combinator (text, 2019)
History of Our World in Data (text, 2019)

Demodesk (W19)

The story behind Demodesk (text, 2019)
How we got into Y Combinator and what we've learned on our journey (text, 2019)

Rebank (W19)

How We Got Into Y Combinator (Part 1) (text, 2021)
How We Got Into Y Combinator (Part 2) (text, 2021)

InEvent (S19)

Pedro Goes of InEvent shares his Y Combinator Journey (text, 2021)
Pedro Goes, InEvent (video, 2021)
Using online events to generate leads (video, 2021)
Application that got InEvent into Y Combinator.
InEvent - Founders video

Multis (S19)

Prolific (S19)

From Oxford to Y Combinator (text, 2019)
Reflecting on Y Combinator: 3 Lessons We've Learnt about Growth and Culture (text, 2019)
YC application
Prolific Founder Video

Kraftful (S19)

Podcast: Google's Nest exec isn't into smart homes (audio, 2019)
4 Crucial Keys to Get Into Y Combinator (text, 2019)
How life prepared me for building a startup in 2020 (text, 2020)
Keep your eyes on the users (text, 2020)
Being a Toddler Mom CEO during a Pandemic (text, 2020)

Data Mechanics (S19)

Our Experience Going Through YCombinator (text, 2020)

Wren (S19)

A Day in the Life of Y Combinator (text, 2020)
Y Combinator-backed Project Wren is aiming to make carbon offsets more consumer friendly (text, 2019)
At the end of my freshman year I hacked the key to personal growth (text, 2020)
Applying to YC Early Decision (text, 2019)

Mighty (S19)

The first 18 months of a startup (text, 2021)

2020

Mistro/Stable (W20)

Violet Alumni Spotlight: Sarah Ahmad, Co-Founder & CEO at Mistro (text, 2020)
What happened when we pivoted 2 weeks before the Y Combinator interview + advice on applying (text, 2021)
100 businesses paid to use Stable before we wrote a line of code — here's how we did it (text, 2021)
From college student to CEO (text, audio, 2021)
Mistro - YC Application

Termii (W20)

Meet YC (W20) Backed Termii — the Twilio for Africa (text, 2020)
Gbolade's — YC Experience (text, 2020)
Termii YC Application

WorkPay (W20)

WorkPay Graduates from Y Combinator (YC) W2020 Class (text, 2020)

Liveflow (W20)

LiveFlow Y Combinator Experience Retrospective (text, 2021)

PostHog (W20)

The time before YC (text, 2021)
Moving to San Francisco (text, 2021)
Pivot to PostHog (text, 2021)
The YC Interview (text, 2021)
After the HN launch (text, 2021)
How we raised $3M for an open source project (text, 2021)
Building an all-remote company from scratch (text, 2021)
Why you may not need a sales team (text, 2021)
PostHog raises $12 million in funding led by GV and Y Combinator (text, 2021)
A story about pivots (text, 2021)
Winning from the back - late mover advantage (text, 2021)
Optimize for not breaking up with your co-founder (text, 2021)

Cotter/Typedream (W20)

How to Prepare for your Y Combinator Interview (text, 2020)
Building in Public with Michelle Marcelline (video, 2021)
Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur: How Michelle Marcelline Went From Working For an Insurance Company to Founding Her Own Company (text, 2021)

Farel (S20)

A Rising Tide Lifts All Planes (text, 2021)
How to Quickly Test Your Business Idea: The Case of Farel (text, 2021)
How to Build a Team into a Startup (text, 2021)
Selling as an Enterprise Startup with no Product (text, 2021)

Fig (S20)

Launching Fig (text, 2021)
Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal (text, 2021)
Brendan Falk, Matt Schrage - Fig (video, 2021)
S4 E8: Brendan & Matt, Fig (audio, 2021)

Porter (S20)

Our Journey Building Porter (text, 2021)

webapp.io (S20)

How to get into Y Combinator: application tips from the founders of webapp.io (text, 2021)

Virtually (S20)

How to Ace the Y Combinator Application (text+application, 2020)
Being a Founder in the First-Ever YCombinator Remote Batch (text, 2020)
At the start of a company's life, sales don't come from clever persuasion. They come from building trust. (text, 2020)
Ep: 197: How this former Ex-Facebook Engineer has build an online learning platform with Ish Baid (audio, 2020)
Why we're building Virtually - Our Mission Statement (text, 2020)
My Experience Going Through On Deck Scale (text, 2021)
My 5-year Journey to Joining Y Combinator (text, 2021)
Going Through the First Remote Batch of Y Combinator (video, 2021)

2021

Chatbiz (W21)

The Journey of Chatbiz.id to Southeast Asia (text, 2021)
Chatbiz.id (YC W2020) Application Video

MagicBell (W21)

How my lifestyle business enabled my gender transition and, why I wouldn't trade it for building a unicorn (text, 2019)
Starting a new tech business as a transgender woman (text, 2020)
A Quora Designer Breaks Down the Notification Maze (text, 2020)
5 Valuable Lessons Learned From Building a B2B SaaS Business (text, 2020)
The YCombinator Experience - Remote Edition (text, 2021)
Meet MagicBell, the startup empowering product teams to build relevant notification experiences (text, 2021)
MagicBell - YC W21 Application
MagicBell's YC application video

Waydev (W21)

4 lessons I learned about getting into Y Combinator (after 13 applications) (text, 2021)
Vision is not everything, says successful multi-time Y Combinator applicant (text, 2021)

Wasp (W21)

Journey to YCombinator (text, 2021)
Following YC, Wasp raised $1.5M Seed Round led by Lunar Ventures and HV Capital (text, 2021)
Our fundraising learnings - 250+ meetings in 98 days to the oversubscribed round (text, 2021)
ProductHunt launch
HackerNews Launch

Clear (W21)

How I got into Y Combinator with a 4 day old idea whilst still at university (video, 2021)
How to manage your time/ how I built a YC startup whilst still at university (video, 2021)

Awesomic (S21)

Awesomic startup journey: from $0 to $100K ARR (text, 2021)
Launch HN: Awesomic (YC S21)

Lago (S21)

Taking part in Y Combinator from Europe: is it worth it? (text, 2021)
Being startup employee number one (text, 2021)

MindFi (S21)

Meditation didn't fit my busy life. I found this eye-opening way to fix it. (text, 2018)
CSTV Ep 42 :: A Conversation with Bjorn Lee (video, 2018)
A day in the life of a meditating CEO (text, 2018)
MindFi.co founder Bjorn Lee has built an algorithm for mental health and wellness (text, 2021)
Diving Deep Into Mental Health (video, 2021)
How to get into Y Combinator (video, 2021)
Rising from the valley (video, 2021)