A few months ago I found this organization's website as I was searching for the keyword startups and angel investors. Y Combinator is an organization that provides seed funding (earliest stage of venture funding) to startups, mainly technology related startups. Y Combinator differs from other venture funding and investment firms and startup incubators by combining the two, sort of. This organization invests small amounts of money on startups, usually not more than $20,000 in return for a small stake in the companies they fund (usually 2-10% according to their website). The main benefit I see that Y Combinator offers to its startups, is all the great advice (brainstorming the startup ideas), education and legal support they provide, such as taking care of all the legal paperwork including the incorporation of these companies.

This approach is with the idea that startups will have a greater chance to succeed if they don't have to worry about all these administrations tasks, and instead focus in the design and development of their application. They also work differently than an incubator, they do not provide a place for startups to work from, they do expect that at least one of the founders move to the Bay Area (where they are located) for the duration of their 3 month program, in which they do provide invaluable insight and knowledge on how to succeed in getting a technology startup off the ground, I personally believe this is where the real value is.

The program has a duration of three months, during that time Y Combinator hosts a dinner once a week at their facilities, and at each one of these dinners they invite a startup expert to speak. These speakers are usually venture capitalist, startup founders, lawyers, investment bankers, accountants, etc... At week number 10, Y Combinator hosts an investor day where all the startups can present their product/service to potential investors, this happens only about 10 weeks after the startups start working with Y Combinator, now this is great, such a short time and you can start showing your product (or prototype) to potential investors.

My personal opinion on this organization's philosophy is that they really get it. They know that when people are developing software, they are more productive if they don't have to worry about anything else but to write code to release version 1 (or beta) to the masses as soon as possible. If you are starting your own company, specifically building a web application or any other type of software application, I highly recommend that you look at Y Combinator, even if the money they invest in your company is not much, the access to all the resources and people they offer you is priceless.

Y Combinator funds startups in batches, two a year, one from January through March and one from June through August. They don't really care about business plans, or the age of the founders, if you have a great idea, you like to write code and believe that you can execute your idea, check them out. The only thing you need to do to be considered for the Y Combinator program is to fill out an application, I am certainly going to try it with a startup I am currently working on.

The people behind Y Combinator are:
  • Trevor Blackwell
  • Paul Graham
  • Jessica Livingston
  • Robert Morris
Good luck!