What you should consider before joining Y Combinator?

I’m excited to share that FlyCode is joining the YC S22 batch. Based in Silicon Valley, Y Combinator is one of the most prestigious start-up accelerators in the world. Well known companies like Airbnb, Stripe, Coinbase, Dropbox, Brex, GitLab, Deel and Reddit, have successfully graduated and become extremely successful.

Source: https://www.ycombinator.com/

We spoke with other alumni founders and investors in our network before joining YC.

This post is intended to share some of the points you should consider before joining YC:

Price of the deal for your startup

YC is relatively expensive if you raised money prior to YC and the next round will be higher. The new standard deal is a $500K investment in 2 separate Safes that convert at the next priced round ($125,000 on a post-money safe in return for 7% and a $375,000 on an uncapped safe with a Most Favored Nation (“MFN”) provision. In my opinion, if you raise a small Pre-Seed of $1M-$2M prior to YC, then YC is worth the price, but you should run the full fundraising scenarios to understand the YC Safes' dilation level.

The stage of your product

We have launched FlyCode closed beta during January 2022 and released our open beta during April 2022. In June 2022 when the YC summer batch started, we had a working product with customers. I believe this point is crucial in your decision to whether or not to join YC. Pre-products or other early-stage products might want to consider waiting until they have a working beta to use your YC time for product iterations and customer validation.

Timing and state of mind

Timing is a key factor to consider when to join YC. It is a 90-day program that goes by quickly. To get the most out of the experience, you must define your goals and commit to it. It’s worth mentioning that from speaking with other founders YC alumni people have different approaches about the level of engagement with the program. When we decided to join YC, we also decided to devote our efforts to get the most out of the program. Consider joining at a later time if the founding team has different priorities or if the founders aren't willing to focus on YC.

Remote or not?

YC summer batch of 2022 is back in person. The program itself is still remote but with lots of opportunities to meet the batchmates during the program. At FlyCode are a global team with the founders based in Israel and in NY so it was important for us that the program will still be remote. Being a part of the YC community / alumni network of founders is one of the key reasons we joined, so we try to meet our batchmates online and in person whenever possible.

The type of product you are building

While YC invests in pretty much any field as you can see in the YC Startup Directory, I believe that software companies have the most to gain from the feedback and quick iteration during YC. There are some common misconceptions about applying to YC, which are worth reading if you are considering applying.

Summary - more reasons to consider

Considering the various considerations above, we believe YC is an excellent opportunity for FlyCode. In addition to the above, there are some other reasons why you should join YC:

• Great partners that can help us. We are fortunate to be working with Nicolas Dessaigne as our assigned partner (ex CEO & Co-Founder @ Algolia). Getting help from a founder that built a Dev- Tool is really valuable for us.
• We get to be part of the YC community / alumni network of founders. The YC community is made up of 3,000 companies and 7,000 founders.
• We get access to all the resources of YC. We can leverage YC platform and internal products to get additional exposure and acquiring more customers
• Increase the chances of being successful. We strongly believe that YC increases the chances of FlyCode to be successful. We also believe that early stage startups need all the help they can get to scale. YC is a great choice for those who wish to build meaningful businesses over the long run.
• Sense of urgency as founders we always push ourselves and the team forward. YC is helping to push us even further with a sense of urgency

About FlyCode

FlyCode makes web apps editable without coding so companies can iterate and release products faster. When PMs need to improve the customer experience in their applications they can simply use FlyCode to edit product copy in resource files or hardcoded strings, as well as images and links in the same git-based workflow that their developers use.

PS: still not sure whether or not you should apply? We’d be happy to help you with some advice so feel free to reach out