[The deadline for the 2005 Summer Founders Program is now past.  
If the summer program works out, we may fund more early stage 
startups.  Check http://ycombinator.com in a couple months.]


2005 Summer Founders Program Application Form

 Please try to answer each question in less than 100 words.  The
 shorter, the better.

 If we accept you but decide later that you misled us, we reserve
 the right to pull out of the deal.

 We don't make any formal promise about secrecy, but we'll try to
 be more upstanding about it than regular VC firms are.  We don't
 plan to let anyone see these applications except us and our advisors.
 In particular, we don't plan to let other startups we fund see
 them.  Feel free not to tell us technical secrets, but understand
 this will weaken your application.

 It's to your advantage to be candid about risks and uncertainties.
 This is seed funding; we expect risk.  At this stage, if you're
 not worried, you lack imagination.

 Please don't edit the questions, because your answers will be
 mechanically extracted from the application form.

--------- snip and send to sfapply@arcp.com --------------------

Please list your company's name, url (if any) and a phone number
(preferably a cell phone).

Please list the founders, one per line, with age; year, school,
degree, and subject for each degree; slashdot id; email address;
and url.  Put unfinished degrees in parens.  List the main contact
first.  Put asterisks before any who won't come to Cambridge.

Tell us in one or two sentences something about each founder that
shows he or she is an "animal," in the sense described in How to
Start a Startup.

Tell us in one or two sentences something about each founder that
shows a high level of ability.

For founders who are hackers: what cool things have you built?
(Extra points for urls of demos or screenshots.)

How long have you known one another and how did you meet?

What is your company going to make?

If your project is software, what OS(es) and language(s) will you
use, and why?

If you've already started working on it, how long have you been
working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written?

If you have an online demo, what's the url?  (Big extra points for
this.)

How long will it take before you have a prototype?  A beta?  A
version 1 you can charge for?

How will you partition the work this summer; who will work on what?

If you already have a business plan, what's the url?  (Don't send
us your business plan.  Put it on a server and tell us the url.
Ascii text preferred.  Don't password protect it.)

How will you make money?  Who will your customers be, how many are
there, and how will they hear about you?

Will you do price discrimination?

Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors?  Who
do you fear most?

Who will lose most if you succeed?  (This need not be a competitor;
TV networks have been hurt by email.)

Which companies, in order, are most likely to buy you?

What do you know about your business that other companies in it
just don't get?

What's new about what you're doing?

Why would it be hard for someone else to duplicate?

Have you made any discoveries you consider patentable?

What might go wrong?  (This is a test of imagination, not confidence.)

If you're already incorporated, when were you?  Who are the
shareholders and what percent of the company do each own?  If you've
had funding, how much, at what valuation(s)?

If you're not incorporated yet, please list the percent of the
company you plan to give each founder, and anyone else you plan to
give stock to.  (This question is more for you than us.)

If you'll have expenses beyond the living costs of your founders,
Internet access, server rental, etc., what will they be?

Describe, in one sentence each, any companies any of you have started
before.  If they failed, why?  (We consider failed companies valuable
experience too.)

If you could trade a 100% chance of $1 million for a 10% chance of
a larger amount, how large would it have to be? Answer for each
founder.  (There is no right answer.)

If your startup seems at the end of the summer to have a good chance
of making you rich, which of the founders would be likely to commit
to continue working on it full time over the next couple years?

Which of the founders would still want to be working for this company
in 10 years, if it were successful, and which would rather sell out
earlier and do something else?  (Again, no right answer.)

Are any of the founders covered by noncompetes or intellectual
property agreements that overlap with your project?  Will any be
under consulting contracts this summer?

Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your
founders?  If so, how can you safely use it?  (Open source is ok
of course.)

Will any of the founders have other jobs, responsibilities, or
consulting work this summer?

Tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered,
and who discovered it.  (The answer need not be remotely related
to your project.)

What else would you have asked if you were us?



form (c) 05 yc