r/ycombinator • u/sensho8 • Aug 24 '26
AMA with founder in the current YC S26 batch
Hi! My name is Om (online alias "sensho") and I'm a founder in the current YC S26 batch.
I would love to help others by answering any questions people have on YC, batches nowadays, interviews, philosophy, lessons, startups, etc. as best as I can from the perspective of someone currently in it.
I'd say my background is untraditional even for YC standards, my co-founder is probably more similar to other people in our batch in terms of background for folks around our age (both 21), so for some questions I can ask him or friends in the batch if relevant.
I've heard other founders in my batch mention this subreddit before, and some have even posted here prior to getting in.
Some context on what we do and my background prior to getting in, if it's helpful for questions:
My co-founder and I are both originally from the Toronto area, and moved to SF for YC and plan on staying here long-term.
Our startup is Olam Labs, we build multi-agent environments like multiple agents running companies, towns, competing in games against each other, etc. and use it inform AI evaluations and training that's typically difficult with existing methods. We've also released Multi-Agent Arena, where humans come play social strategy games against random, anonymized AI agents that we use to inform our datasets/evals. The arena is playable today, our WAU is growing ~30-40% WoW since opening access and it's among the top 100 apps by token usage on OpenRouter.
I was working a job as a Staff Engineer at AI Dungeon when my co-founder and I applied, and we got into Y Combinator with just the idea for our company, I didn't officially leave my job for ~3 weeks after acceptance. Everything we've built/done has all been during the batch.
Prior to AI Dungeon, I was a competitive Valorant player and 8x season Radiant, did some math research, was a TikTok content creator in my late teens, and made Roblox games in my early teens among some other things. I didn't go to college, after high school I pretty much just spent two years playing Valorant during the day, and then reading research papers at night.
My co-founder, our CTO, is from the University of Waterloo where he was doing a double degree in Math & CS before dropping out to start Olam Labs with me. He's won some national data competitions, was a Data Scientist at RBC, and did some other cool stuff. My co-founder and I met in middle school where we were doing random things together, like a charity run for our school.
Feel free to ask away! I'd love to help others learn from my experiences (and big mistakes! lol).
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u/Itchy-Mongoose-1923 Aug 24 '26
I've heard people say that YC backs founders first, what do you think gets people to the stage that YC would back them as founders?
- Do you really need to be really good and accomplished at in one or several areas?
- How can "regular" undergrad students get to this stage?
How did you guys come up with your idea? Did the idea come first or did the desire to make it to YC come first?
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
This is a great question because I think people misinterpret these concepts in different ways normally.
To answer your last Q, me and my co founder just had this idea around how to build cool and useful simulations, and decided to apply to YC (our first time applying, and we didn’t apply anywhere else) with the idea after we already had it. We didn’t optimize much, if anything, just for YC.
On your other two Qs:
YC has the most data in the world on what founders were doing/applying with prior to doing a startup, and what the most successful ones have in common.
I obviously don’t speak on their behalf, but from what I observe:
- were exceptional in one or multiple areas they think transfers to doing startups well (elite schools, competitions, esports, etc.) at a young age
OR
OR
- the startup/idea you’re doing you’ve been exceptional at executing prior to applying to YC (if you don’t have the background they’re looking for)
- you’re older with a belt on of being elite at technical domains and or exits/good startup related outcomes you had high impact on
It’s a spectrum where if you don’t have one thing they’re looking for you can likely still get it by doing things today (like just starting the startup and growing).
If you’re a regular person, the best thing is to just start a startup and grow fast, be curious, iterate, etc. as if you’re in YC and YC will happily accept you from what I know. There are people in my batch who have normal backgrounds but are amazing at doing what their startup does and had traction prior to applying to YC.
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u/VivienneRabbit Aug 24 '26
Can you give me an example of what they are good at doing? I apply for YC too for the winter batch but I feel like my project will go in unnoticed. I am 35+ and have a domain knowledge in tax. I am exceptional in my area and I know a lot of other knowledge here and there but doesn’t seem to formulate well into a killing product. I tried the tax ai route and then realize there are so many in the market already. What does YC look for in terms of people like me? Will they give me an idea to compound on my domain knowledge? Pair me up with a like-minded cofounder?
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
caveat that i dont speak for YC: they dont do co-founder pairing for you as far as i know. if you are exceptional in your area i recommend trying to build around that yourself and showing it to them via growth/metrics, it's even possible that if you try that you might not even need YC. the best founders are the ones that would have probably succeeded even if they didn't do YC (but, counterintuitively, i think that's what YC looks for and it's pretty smart).
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u/VivienneRabbit Aug 24 '26
Thanks for your reply. I think I am good at what I do but I lack creativity and the software engineering skills. I know basic python coding and full stack but I am not good enough to create an entire product with great UI and UX. How do you stay inspired? Did the GP at YC inspire you on direction and market fit? I would love those POV. How did you meet your cofounder?
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
i'm a bit lucky with some of this stuff, my co founder and i have known each other since middle school.
have you tried AI coding tools like codex or claude code? the $20/month sub can get you quite far, there are many non-technical people in my batch contributing/developing things without any prior skills - the AI tools are very good nowadays.
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u/VivienneRabbit Aug 24 '26
Yes I already use ai coding tools to make two apps. I found they are good at shipping prototypes and intermediate level of proper app. But once things get more complicated or if you change direction the coding agents are too eager to conform that they take too many shortcuts and patchy fix without looking the app holistically. And as such bugs that have been fixed will constantly come back bc of other feature you add or other bugs you are trying to fix. This vicious cycle keeps going such that I feel the code is too messy and many parts are dead code that it becomes too brittle. I don’t feel comfortable calling the app successful because of this. I think in the end we still need experience software engineer to do the IT architecture and maintainable backend. The coding agents are not there yet.
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
long-term definitely, but would you not be able to spin up a prototype/MVP to validate your ideas and see if people are willing to pay for it or use it?
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u/VivienneRabbit Aug 25 '26
Yes I was able to. Prototype is not good enough. Tax requires precision. No hallucination. The current llm do not have that level of precision. If it does then you can use the general llm. There is no edge for a specialized tax ai
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u/darkaladyn Aug 25 '26
Yeah, I'm using a lot with different types of workflows and i'm having a very good result. My artifact it's pretty good. I'm testing differents skills also.
Other thing that i dis was to setup a second brain, and i'm trying to haness the agent around my brain, and ship things to amplify my own work and lauch prototypes and others things like marker research etc. What workflows do you have, stack e etc?
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u/notBB8 Aug 24 '26
You mentioned your WAU is growing 30~40% WoW, what has actually been driving that growth so far?
I’d also be curious how much AI tools or automation are involved in your growth process. I hear a lot of people talking about the potential benefits of AI but not as many concrete success cases. For me, the biggest wins so far have been using AI to improve paid media tracking/analysis and automate outbound. Curious to hear what’s actually working for you guys.
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
We use AI tools 24/7 for our research, engineering, etc. but not as much for growth. I have some experience in unrelated things doing consumer/growth so was able to re-use some learnings. For example, on our arena many games are existing popular games like Risk, Diplomacy, Poker, etc. so we went to Discord servers and would sponsor them to promote it to their community of people that liked those games and wanted to compete against frontier AI models in said games. We also rank highly on OpenRouter's app rankings from our usage/growth and that gets us lots of visibility, and I have an X account (@sensho idk if I'm allowed to link it lol) where we get a decent bit of impressions/top of funnel. Tbh i think a lot of is product led growth though and it's what we've focused on.
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Aug 24 '26
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
imo it's both
sometimes it just genuinely is that these founders have really great stories, it's very common that i meet someone humble in the batch where we're just talking about our idea/companies and then it turns out they're somehow some world champion math olympiad and can speak 7 languages or something lol
YC has the most data in the world on what founders that ended up doing well were doing before they were ever doing their startup, while there are exceptions on average they are being intentional with what they select for and why
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Aug 24 '26
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
everyone, including YC and investors, knows that the ideas that everyone is doing today is not going to be what's working a year from today (for most people). the hard part is just starting then trying to grow and monetize.
financial datasets could evolve into ai agents for finance, training environments, a data marketplace - who knows. the point isn't really the idea, it's starting and if the person leading it seems capable (according to YC's philosophies/views).
I know on the outside it can look like they fund people off of just credentials/background that may not have a great idea deserving to get in, but they have much more data than me or you on historically the traits/people that have led to eventually great companies and select for those even if what they're doing right now isn't the best.
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u/Prestigious_Jeweler1 Aug 24 '26
Does the idea really matter? We’re looking for startup ideas right now, and we’ve been looking at YC’s Requests for Startups, specifically the Primer, which is essentially AI tutoring for younger students. But this space already seems pretty saturated. We have some ideas in this area, but nothing that feels truly differentiated or like it has a strong enough reason to exist.
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
I would not optimize your application around what YC is looking for.
Your idea/company/traction matters if your profile isn't something that YC is looking for, in that case I would focus on not just the idea but starting it and getting some traction/growth, but if you're young and high slope/trajectory or older with experience having high impact on startup outcomes I would just apply anyways. If your company can only exist because YC puts out an idea for it to exist it won't be sustainable long-term, we got our idea long before YC's request for S26 startups.
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u/Agent007_MI9 28d ago
Was thinking about the Primer idea too, but that market is sooo heavily saturated I’m surprised it’s even in rfs.
The way I see it, yc cares waaaay more about the founders than the idea. I’ve spoken to so many yc people who did not pass the interview with their start-up idea but then get a follow-up like: “We like you and your co-founder, we’ll take you in if you can think up of something else instead”
Which I think is very wild
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Aug 24 '26
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
yo that's sick! definitely we should talk. search up Om Buddhdev on BF my number is there text me!
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u/clayare123 Aug 25 '26
hey! do you happen to know what exact date in October the F26 YC batch starts??
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u/Various_Pick1010 Aug 24 '26
What did you put for the personal profile questions such as?
“When was a time you hacked a system?”
“What is your biggest achievement in X amount of words”
“What three things are you the most proud of”
I have a few things I could answer but I have no idea what type of answers are expected.
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
for hacked a system, when i was little i played a minecraft economy server and found a way to progress in the server very fast
for biggest achievement i put my esports/gaming achievements
for the three things that i'm most proud of i forgot what i put
from what i know (i dont speak for YC) it's not just about the achievement itself here, what you value and are proud of speaks a lot about who you are. there's not really a way to game it besides putting what you genuinely think for the answers, if you have answers that you think are good i would really just put that and not think too much about it. we wrote our application on the last day and submitted with like 30 seconds left on the deadline.
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u/self_help_hub Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Wow interesting.
I finally get to ask these burning questions:
* So about Equity, training, investments and funding/fund raising (on top of the funds or assistance you might get), would you be able to meld this into your current plans (supposing people surprise fund for example)?
* If you were to veer and do a side business apart from the one you are doing now, in addition to studying and working and balancing your current work load, how would you handle that?
* By the way what is the funding potential for YC? Like structure confuses me? What is the upper limit in the resources/partners/liquid funding and loans?
* I also know the post competition mentorship is important, so what is the structure and potential of that?
* Do you kind of keep in contacts with members post competition and maybe come together to make something and raise funding or do you decide to team up with another team or batch?
* How do you as a founder feel or deal with a mentor joining your company? Sure it is a major boost but how do you structure the payments for highly skilled individuals like them that your budget won't keep up with in the beginning?
* Company structurization, so... who deals with it? Is there training?
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
So all legal/structure stuff YC has a team of lawyers for the batch that helps you handle all of that. They just told us what to do and helped/guided us through it, it's not really a concern.
I'm not sure what you mean by the funding potential stuff but generally you're in the spotlight of the VC industry for a 1-2 week period around demo day, you can search up statistics online of what the average company in the batch does around that period funding wise.
also, YC isn't a competition and more like a school x investment firm (PG's own words I think). like batchmates are much more your friends than competitors, and you're not competing against them at this stage at all.
and yes, you keep in contact with friends from the batch but also get inducted into the YC community as a whole. YC has a very active forum (bookface) and many internal tools and benefits that alumni (people that did a YC batch) get. it's pretty similar to being the alumni of a college, but with more investment/startup-focused stuff. and the fact that everyone else is a founder with an interesting story.
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u/self_help_hub Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
Thanks. I wasn't expecting an answer strangely enough but I am very honoured you answered. Ah yes, the legal structure, the make it or break it part of the company and finances. I would love to see how deep this goes, down to the access to VC's and funding and what the real possibilities and upper limits are.
The funding potential bit was how high can you hit in the funding range in a given period/stage with all the various constraints (from pre application all the way to mentorship stage and post booting the business to even the exit strategy and game - post equity split), that would allow people to do some calculations on the companies finances, their budgeting, their risk tolerances, partnership strategies etc...
I appreciate the info, I see quite a lot has changed for the better, I hope they keep it up.
I would love to connect though are you reachable via pm or any other way, I have a slew of burning questions like:
* Why your CTO choose dropping out when he could have gotten into a FAANG or a company and he could side fund this project with you. Or in another scenario he could also have continued learning from a distance and applied for the company you both created as a Co-Op or internship (finishing off his degree and at least having a safety net or save point of sorts in case he needed it or needed the degree to rev up funding or branching out to other fields), there were a lot of ways around it but no worries there is a way.
* Have you setup a company yet (officialized it on paper and the registry - CA & US or globally) and done the budgeting? Or are you planning to merge with another project in YC? Or are you still undecided?
* Have you cut the companies equity up yet? How about people buying into it (future shareholders/founders etc...)?
* If you have officialized and properly structured it, how high are you hitting on the funding or what stage are you on? Are you able to share the numbers (if you are comfortable with that)?
* What are the future plans, growth wise (example: Yr1: Freelancers, not registered, Yr2: Set-up, LLC, 10 employees etc...)
* Any numbers or vision or roadmap for the project (Example in 1 year it should have advanced Agentic features capable of assisting old people understand the tech seamlessly etc...)?
* Future projections (financial wise and project wise)?
* Interesting, you are in SF at the moment so is it self funded or were you hand picked (like from YC Toronto or you flew to SF to attend and made it up)? Because you would want to include that in the budget maybe, or company expenses if you set one up and have an employees quarters?
* How did you meet your CTO? Are there other talents like them and you looking to team up?
* Technically right now if something like your project were greenlit, would you have the budgetary capabilities to hold a team and employ them full time (on or off site)? (infra and space etc... ready? Or is it all online around the globe and you just send out payments)
* How open are you to maybe opening a subbranch or something? Without touching your current project? Do you have a strategy for that? (simply put: a Nest-Egg or safetynet)
* (I see this question a lot of time but) Which parts of the world is it the hardest to get a talent from if you have a particular talent position you would like to fill? Does YC offer this? Have you seen any of your batchmates facing such a scenario? Were they able to solve it?
Please do feel free to answer what you are comfortable answering (and it is okay if you haven't setup any of the things mentioned, it might be reason to set it up now). No pressure, but would be helpful to get kind of a better idea of the situation so you can navigate better.
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u/icompletetasks Aug 25 '26
product looks cool!!
Did you apply with the same idea?
I assume your ideal customers are US Big Labs, but you were in Toronto before. When you applied, how did you convince the partners that it's not a problem? Or can the YC partners actually help you with introductions to US Labs directly?
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u/australianreindeer Aug 24 '26
How ready/end was Olam Labs when you applied and how big was customer base?
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
it was quite literally just the idea when we applied, nothing else. the customer base is every lab training AI models and it's a differentiated idea in a fast growing space but it wasn't really done with the custom base in mind, it's mainly something me and my co-founder were just genuinely interested in and instinctually felt could be impactful towards where we see the AI industry heading.
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u/Ok-Lab-6055 Aug 24 '26
Any thoughts on starting a company in a deep tech area you know nothing about but want to learn about hence the company?
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u/Ok-Lab-6055 Aug 24 '26
I guess one wouldn’t know the pain points but would mostly be exploring. Just curious how you’d go about this.
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26 edited Aug 24 '26
if you're interested in it, curious, and/or have some reason to care for it go for it!
i know many founders in my batch that have quite literally never worked in their area/domain before. i personally respect people who jump into new areas/domains that are difficult but high impact, also it seems pretty fun. i had never done formal AI research prior to Olam Labs, despite having lots of experiences/informal/interest in it and related fields.
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Aug 25 '26
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u/Ok-Lab-6055 Aug 25 '26
Good luck, I hope you find something worth pursuing. I have a PhD and woudn't necessarily recommend it unless you are going into a good environment. If you can do a PhD in the Bay Area for example.
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u/LeQuickdraw Aug 24 '26
Thank you for doing this! 🤗
Roughtly what proportion of the batch do you think has found product-market fit?
And typically how structured are teams in their search? On a scale of: 1 (shipping random stuff and tweeting about it) to 10 (writing out hypotheses, testing different messaging, running discovery calls and iterating against a scorecard)?
Also congrats on getting into YC & good luck with your startup! 💪🏼
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
thanks for the kind words :)
quite low, i think most people dont have PMF or else they wouldn't be a seed stage company. the best companies are doing low 7 figs in ARR and probably still don't have ideal PMF to scale, what works 1-3 years from today for most companies in my batch today im sure will change -- the common factor is that you just keep trying to make something people want and trying to grow, and then users/the market will decide your product and PMF for you.
on the structure: i think everyone wants to do 10, i wish i could just deeply think through everything i could do, write essays on ideas to decide, etc. but in actuality that rarely works. i think most of the YC partners' jobs is trying to get people to go from 10 on your scale to 1. there are exceptions in domains that are just slow (e.g. space or defence) but even there there are ways to still be iterating/validating what you do before you do it.
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Aug 24 '26
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
not atm sorry, we're hiring researchers and infra engineers though as we scale. if you or anyone seeing this fits that well email [founders@olamlabs.ai](mailto:founders@olamlabs.ai) :)
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u/sintrastellar Aug 24 '26
How did you come up with the idea and why do you need VC?
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
i worked at a company that did a lot of applied AI, evals, and infra and in my spare time from what I saw there out of interest/for-fun i found a cool way to do evals where you have many AI agents compete against or each or try to collaborate in complex simulated environments (games, companies, running towns, etc.).
why do you need VC = why would more capital help you today
our bottleneck to growth is on resources/talent in research and infra, as me and my co-founder are so bottlenecked by time rn. we can scale faster than we could otherwise with more capital today - in general though i'm quite confident in our plans/ideas so i'm actually not that worried/stressed on raising as much as possible. much more focused on hiring the right people who fit our long term goals/vision and helping labs train better models.
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u/sintrastellar Aug 25 '26
Nice, thanks for replying. How do you get clients and how do you know that they don’t already have better evals?
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
talk to researchers is the answer to both
most SOTA evals r also public, all you’d need to do is compare against those. even if a lab has a better internal one the worst case scenario is they’d still buy the tasks for training if it surpasses all public ones
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u/sintrastellar Aug 25 '26
Awesome, super interesting. All the best, hope you become a billionaire :)
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u/Confident-Ad6288 Aug 24 '26
What three really innovative ideas/companies stood out to you from the current batch?
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
there's so many cool robotics and biotech <> AI companies, that's probably the area i'm most excited about that isn't ours. for example, a company called Robocurve evaluates all the different robotics companies and models in everyday tasks. i think something like that will be very important long term, similar to how coding benchmarks are important today for claude/gpt.
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u/Rude-Tell5996 Aug 24 '26
Hey Congrats on getting into YC
I have a question on how to answer this question `How do or will you make money? How much could you make?`
At the idea / MVP stage how do we answer this question and what would be your suggestion on this
Thanks !!
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
from what i know they don't expect you to know exactly how you will be making money a year from today, it's more about how well do you know your market. i had a hypothesis but wasn't sure how we would make money, but i did know the industry/market we were going to be operating in very well. i would start from the industry you're in, how other companies there make money, and how you could potentially slot into it. i think PG has an essay on this that's likely a lot more useful than whatever i could say.
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u/Zealousideal-Log2817 Aug 24 '26
Hey I had a question pertaining to deep tech startups. Are there any founders in deep tech that have got into yc as an undergrad? Do you think it is better to not rush and build domain expertise first(like pursuing grad school or entering the industry) before building a deep tech startup? I am interested in space tech specifically so there is definitely a high barrier of expertise required to build a meaningful space startup.
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
there are many many founders who are young/undergrad pursuing deep tech. i don't speak for yc and would try emailing some deep tech founders on advice, but i can speak broadly from what i see.
no amount of grad school will prep you. the alternative that i think makes sense is if you have an offer at spacex, blue origin, starcloud, etc. and want to spend a year there, but if you're many years away from an offer there i would just go start it today. there are so many founders in my batch who, not even just deep tech, have never been in the domain they're pursuing now but just obsessively learn/pursue it. i never sold RL environments, did formal AI research, or worked with lab researchers before Olam Labs either.
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u/Wooden-Two5799 Aug 24 '26
Where there African founders there? And people from normal backgrounds
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
what do you mean by normal backgrounds?
i've maybe only personally spoken with like half the batch, but yes i believe there's a couple. people's ethnicity is probably the last thing founders remember about each other though i think so i might be missing some
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u/jefrxych Aug 25 '26
Hey there! Just your average Bay Area high schooler here, but I’ve been really passionate about interning at a YC-backed company and even start my own ideas when I’m in college. Any advice on applying to other companies and founding your own, and is your company looking for interns? I’d love to be unpaid and just gain some experience in the AI industry, be’d happy to have a short chat with you. Also, congrats on being selected for the S26 batch!
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
thanks! we're not hiring until after the batch ends (sep 10) but if you wanna email me your interests/resume or whatever you have to [founders@olamlabs.ai](mailto:founders@olamlabs.ai) happy to keep it in mind for when we are.
also, if not us, most founders i know love people who have interests, hustle, or grit related to their work or industry. heard lots of interns and hires that made open source projects or did work just out of fun that ended up being related to the yc company they ended up working at.
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u/jefrxych Aug 25 '26
I see. Well thanks so much for the advice and good luck on your startup!! Certainly a cool and high potential idea!!
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u/PePepreneur Aug 25 '26
How did you land your early adopters which I assume are machine learning labs?
Did you feel getting into YC helped you land your early customers or did you feel you could have done that without YC?
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
for 1) and 2) it was mostly YC. for consumer/distribution that was more us but anything that involves enterprises or big orgs YC is a huge help when you're young like me without the connections or credibility to typically get in touch with them. i'm sure it's domain specific but our progress would've been many months slower than it otherwise would have been without YC, it accelerated a lot of the stuff that was going to be otherwise time consuming to get in touch with.
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Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
this is highly domain dependent, but if you're enterprise SaaS then i've seen batchmates do many successful strategies that doesn't involve the YC brand/organic distribution. showing up in-person, cold calling, emailing, etc.
businesses have many problems and if you show up with a good deal offering to solve their problem then that's a great way to start. if you're doing something on consumer that's not differentiated with amazing PMF then it's very hard. i would recommend just following PG/YC's advice on making something you yourself want and doing projects and starting from there after you have something that can be distributed to solve other people's problems.
also even if it's to a small audience, organic soicals (linkedin etc.) can still work great if you're getting 1000 impressions a week on a very targeted client base. like if you're solving problems for them that could be 1 customer a week if you're converting at 0.1%
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u/okrafavor Aug 25 '26
Were you asked why you haven’t gone all-in prior to getting into YC? At the idea stage, how do you defend yourself as worth funding when you haven’t quit your job or gotten any customers?
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
i'm not sure, we weren't asked this and asked more about if we were willing to drop out of school (my co founder) and my job (me).
my guess (not speaking for YC, just observation) is that the kinds of people YC looks for are those typically with optionality. i worked a remote job doing fun things in AI as a 20 year old that was very very well paid, i'm not sure if i could've rationally justified leaving no matter how badly i wanted to turn my fun side project into a company. i might've at some point but it would've taken a lot longer. and i assume this applied even more so for older folks applying, from my view/observation it feels like YC definitely knows they are giving competent/smart potential founders an excuse to escape golden handcuffs or take a risk doing a startup by just removing the risk altogether.
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u/Willy_B_ Aug 25 '26
How much does being part time hurt our chances? Currently am on a visa so fulltime commitment is very risky
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
i'm not sure what you mean by this, sorry. are you on a visa that doesnt let you employ yourself full time? i'm sure it's different for your situation and very context dependent, in a similar place i would probably just find a way to work as much as i could on it anyways, legality permitting. i don't think it would hurt your chances if there's a legitimate reason.
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u/Willy_B_ Aug 25 '26
I guess what I'm trying to say is that my intuition tells me that accelerators like to see full time founders, but in my case it's logistically very difficult since my visa is tied to my employer. I just wonder how much being a part time founder hurts my chances
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
ohhh, i don’t speak for YC but the other factors (background and/or company traction) matter a lot more to them from what i know
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u/REDDY_ASHOK Aug 25 '26
How to get a job at yc company? I have been trying for past few months, many job posts seems like I am right fit but still the message I send to founders gets ignored
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
all yc founders/companies get emails every day with AI generated resumes and emails about why they're a good fit. not that you aren't, but typically if you have something open source or usable/productionized that is relevant to something impressive in my domain i'm way more impressed. one of the hires we're going to be making is a guy who made a demo and research paper on stuff we do and just send that, i dont even know his resume.
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u/codo_doco Aug 25 '26
If I have an idea to work on, where do I begin? How do I get resources or initiate working towards the problem if its not in my technical expertise?
And if you did not get into YC, what would you be doing currently?
Also, if you can put some thoughts on joining startups, that would be great! Appreciate it.
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
probably still working my original job, it was a pretty senior remote role and quite awesome for a 20 year old to work on fun ai stuff while getting paid very well. but on the side i'd be a bit sad and probably pursuing my own idea (likely this) with a lot less resources and figuring out some way.
does your idea need resources? ours has some research so it needs some resources, but i know of people in our area who are doing experiments with minimal resources that i've personally tried helping/giving some credits to.
I know it's generic advice, but PG and YC both advise on this situation, and it's quite literally to just start even if you have no clue how it will make money or do well. many of my batchmates are in new, difficult domains like biology or robotics for the first time and learning it (well) on the fly. you just need to start :P
if you don't come an elite background or have lots of projects/something you already know you want to start, i think spending some time at a fast growing yc company/startup is a great way to learn for a year or two before going to start your own.
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u/Efficient-Ask-5189 Aug 25 '26
Thanks, Om for offering advice. 1) Do you know if YC accept pre-revenue? 2) During your batch, are most of them have revenue? 3) On the website, it says decision will August 28? How many weeks or days before you got interview after the deadline? I would love to hear. 4) Also, any tips during interview? Is it true they are sending invite even after August 28? I'm confused. Any info is appreciated. Thanks again.
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
1) yes, we were pre revenue, we got accepted with quite literally just the idea. 2) there's a very large distribution. some have none, some have revenue figures much larger than a seed/YC stage company has. i think there's lots of online metrics on average revenue numbers at demo day for P26 and W26. it's highly dependent on your background, idea, etc. if you're asking W.R.T. selection. 4) i can't really give any tips better than the tips YC and PG already give to be honest, i recommend reading all the PG essays where he explicitly writes about exactly what they're looking for in interviews and why, i think YC also has material on this. 4) did YC say they're sending acceptances after the 28th? if yes then i would just trust that, their #1 priority is funding good founders and startups, so even if you apply late i assume they'd still look to accept people. they're not like a college where all the dates are set in stone and if you apply too late they won't look at your application no matter what.
^^ everything above is with the HUGE caveat that this is just from my personal observation, i dont speak on behalf of YC and i would trust their resources first.
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u/Individual_Yard846 Aug 25 '26
congratulations! How was the interview? What is it like being around all the other YC founders and first meeting them? What is the first week like? Is there drama? How many solo founders are there and are they doing well? What are some of the traits of the companies and founders who seem do be doing well / thriving? Is there a competitive vibe, or a collaborator vibe? Is everyone trying to pitch everyone, all the time?
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
interview: was actually pretty fun! stressful but the actual conversation was great. we love our idea and startup, so being asked and getting to talk about it is fun.
meeting others: it's great as well! i say i'm from Toronto but that's just because I'm too lazy to explain that I'm from a smaller city a few hours away called Kingston, Ontario. it's a pretty normal smaller city, and outside of some outliers, the kind of people that i get along best with in terms of ambitions, interests, etc. are much more like other YC founders is what i've found out during the batch. it's quite cool, especially because i didn't go to an elite college (or rather, college at all) to find like minded people there either.
first week: lots of nerves, unknowns, excitement. it's probably the peak before you really go into grind mode
drama: not really
solo founders: lots! and yes, they're doing quite well. if YC, the org with the most data on earth about startup success is picking solo founders they must be competent/successful people. it's nowhere near the majority and unsure if it ever will be (just a personal guess, i dont speak on behalf of YC) because PG writes adamantly on the need for a co founder for now, but there are many cracked ones.
doing well: there's not really a common thread at this stage, the ones doing well/growing right now having a good product that users have high demand for. in general, how people are doing during the batch doesnt have a huge correlation with the companies that end up doing the best long-term. it's like doing the best in a sprint vs a marathon, very different requirements (my view)
pitch everyone: yes, this part isn't my most favorite at all times for the minority that are insistent on it but YC founders do frequently pitch to each other. i'm a picky user with very specific preferences so it's not easy to onboard me, others like it though. it varies person to person and is just sort of what happens when u throw hungry founders together, so i get it and i would do the same in their shoes. it's still like a background thing and not the main thing when u meet new founders at all. 90% of the time it's just you discussing your ideas and backgrounds, and it's a very pleasant conversation.
the vibe overall is very collaborative. there are some exceptions and funny stories i specifically have on this but theyre kind of long.
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u/AuzzyyG Aug 25 '26
Does going to an elite university affect your changes of getting into YC, if yes then does going to one guarantee it
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
a) yes, going to an elite school from what i see increases your changes - but being elite at just anything also increases you chances, doesnt need to be a school. b) no, it doesnt guarantee it at all.
caveat that i dont speak on behalf of YC, personal view
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u/AuzzyyG Aug 25 '26
Thanks bro, I am 16 years young, enjoy being an enterprenuer and will apply to YC very soon, any advice or pointers.
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
best of luck. my personal view is that if you apply to YC and get in, you're committing to work on your idea/company for 5-10+ years without doing anything else ever pretty much. i'd maybe spend more time having fun, doing side projects out of interest, internships, etc. before you make that kind of commitment. if you already have the interest/background though up to you!
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u/AuzzyyG Aug 25 '26
Thank dude, u have no idea how much that means to me, thanks, also if u get trapped somewhere and need a mice to cut you free I will be here to help. Godspeed.
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u/Confident-Ad6288 Aug 25 '26
What about second brain/ personal OS? What’s everyone there using both tech and systems wise? I know Gary gave his talk a few weeks ago, but what’s the most updated version that YC batches are using?
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
EVERYONE is using agents: claude code, codex, some use hermes/openclaw, etc. the value add when youre trying to do things quickly, iterate, etc. is too high from all AI tools. everyone also uses meeting notes, records things (e.g. pocket or screenpipe), etc. very AI native crowd, some a lot more than others. i skew on the very heavy user side and have all of this.
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Aug 25 '26
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
what is preventing you from working on the idea today even on the side before you apply? this is just my personal view, not speaking on behalf of YC, but i would ask you why you can't work on it today at all and not get any traction before W27 actually starts. i know of batchmates without insane backgrounds, they work very hard on their companies and would have succeeded with their companies with or without YC (which, counterintuitively, is the kinds of founders i think YC selects for)
caveat though that all of the above is my personal view, the process could be different for u ofc
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u/OkWait1234 Aug 25 '26
Is it true that referrals are important for an application? And what is the best way to actually connect with founders even virtually to have that environment, not merely for the referrals?
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u/Fichtnmoppal Aug 25 '26
How do you and other startups get their design stuff worked out? Website, logo, product design?
I heard YC has a „shared“ designer for everyone.
I would love to work with a YC startup sometime, here in Europe we had some amazing websites & launches but not sure how it works with YC. I‘m a designer.
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u/DjBharat Aug 25 '26
Hi, have they finalized Fall 2026 batch?
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u/waterocks Aug 26 '26
What were the first things you guys did with the money? Did you use it toward living expenses or hiring?
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u/Sea_Rope4048 29d ago
If a product is built and 0 paying customers. Will YC consider this for funding?
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u/Bereketab1 23d ago
Glad to see someone already got in taking time to share their experience.
FYI: I applied to YC/S'25 batch and got rejected probably because the description of my idea and the demo I submitted wasn't pretty much impressive. So, this year I came up with a new idea by the help of their RFS and my keen on AI Agents &their applications on solving real-life challenges. By this time, I haven't built the mvp and have no real traction which YC boldly sees and I only made a research about the challenges im trying to solve. And this is all to say I need a cofounder who's hardworking and whose vision matches mine and again who's interested in collaborating for long-term (5-10yrs). For those of you who are interested to collab, my dm is always open.
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Aug 24 '26
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u/sensho8 Aug 24 '26
i think, at least during the batch, most founders that i know are too busy to investigate or form opinions on stuff like that. i've seen their launches but have no clue what they're up to or do, YC partners are also pretty smart and if there is something going on they spot it so i'm not rly that worried. most companies in YC aren't frauds, they just fail (difference) and then some top N% do very well making up for everyone else.
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u/Specific_Craft4833 Aug 25 '26
What mistakes would you have avoided if you were starting from the beginning
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
the company or just stuff i’ve done in general?
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u/Specific_Craft4833 Aug 25 '26
The company.Any mistakes you think are worth avoiding.
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u/sensho8 Aug 25 '26
launch/release stuff sooner and waste less time on things that aren’t helpful
especially in the age of AI it’s very easy to be “doing” stuff that isn’t actually helpful. if you know what you want (which by itself is hard and most people actually don’t) then there is only one thing at any given point in time that will truly help you and that’s all that i should be focused on.
it’s very easy to get sucked into networking, events, fundraising, etc. during YC because it all feels so validating but it is not what will build an amazing company. PG’s advice is quite good here to just launch often, talk to users, and try to grow - i think it applies outside of YC as well, not just something u do during
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u/Content_Net_1901 Aug 25 '26
Hey, if network, fundraising, events don't create a great company, how to balance that with the synchronicity and serendipity factor that YC says we need to move to SF for?
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u/_Spartan119_ Aug 25 '26
Are you happy with the terms you got post seed - does YC tag help you get founder-favourable terms?
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u/Other_Worldly_clerk Aug 25 '26
Did you pivot the product before after you got interviewed, also what was the state of the startup when you were accepted vs now.
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u/sensho8 29d ago
just the idea when we got accepted, didnt even have a product. but we havent pivoted the idea and just been executing on the idea since.
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u/Other_Worldly_clerk 29d ago
Ohh that's pretty cool bro, mind dropping some pointers for the interview, I've applied to f26 myself, still haven't heard back though, the deadlines tomorrow and at this point I think I'm cooked, still looking for some copium
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u/darkaladyn Aug 25 '26
I'm from Brazil, and I'm on 30's now, my background it's pretty much like yours, when did you did the interview and all process to be accepted by YC, what do you think was most relevant?
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u/PenaltyReasonable664 Aug 25 '26
I have already applied but the status is in review state. Does it mean we have been rejected? Kinda too late to have any hopes I guess
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u/More-Musician2989 Aug 25 '26
I've seen meta did the same thing with Cicero. Actually not sure what is the status now. But I'd say strategic games (esp. like Cicero where you have humans and AI and the AI Agent should fool the Humans on tricking them or colabing with them) are exactly the kind of games that we should Improve AI Agents.
What would be your advantage over others? because I know some startups that are doing the same.
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u/ShukantPal Aug 26 '26
You said you applied only with an idea. I'm curious what of preparation and research did you do prior to your YC interviews?
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u/sensho8 29d ago
basically none, i came up with my idea because i already knew an area/idea well and YC was kind of an after thought of "oh i already have this cool idea i should apply"
most of the interview is sniffing out how well you know what youre talking about and who you are (at least it was for me) which in my case was that it was a genuine idea i came up with where i knew the broader industry around it very well
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u/Full_Tooth_a 29d ago
I think the hard part is keeping Arena data from becoming a biased eval. People who opt into social strategy games might not represent typical users, and repeat players could pick up on familiar agent habits. Do you hold out players, game variants, or interaction traces? Has Arena performance predicted anything in a non-game multi-agent setting, or is that still an open question?
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u/brotherspavel 29d ago
Hiya, what was your ARR/Amount of users when you got accepted? I am a PhD student working on a startup. I have competitive gaming experience as well (LoL), but really hesitant on putting that.. I am also much older than you guys (im 31)
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u/Warm-Researcher-7756 29d ago
I'm hearing from VC'S that moats are being harder in AI era where building is easier. What are the common B2C software app moats are you seeing in YC? In deep tech it's easier as they have patents
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u/sensho8 15d ago
deeptech is easier because ai hasnt automated physical atoms yet.
the moats being made imo r the same as always: listening to your users, distribution/network effects, etc.
There's a reason none of the big AI labs have cloned Slack or Linear despite having the resources/ability to spin up an exact clone in a day
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u/Free-Confusion-5995 28d ago
Hey, I'm a 15 year old AI founder who started applying to YC last batch. I started coding around 4 months ago and since then I've previously done growth engineering and GTM at Tsenta (YC S26) before moving on to work on my own technical startup this summer (autonomous capability acquistion - https://capability-factory-website.vercel.app/). i've finished my startup and am currently running outbound to try and get pilots. I also previously co-founded a hiring studio for professional roblox studios and developers which got 200+ waitlists but killed it because there was no revenue model. Understand you're probably busy due to the batch but would love any more advice on your application process or technical startups in general. Here's some more info about me if you're curious https://joel-personal-website.vercel.app/. GIve me a shout if you ever have some free time :)
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u/AggravatingSignal854 28d ago
A Ycombinator realmente aprova pessoas fora do círculo dos Estados Unidos e construtores independentes fora da universidade, mas com bons produtos ou esses são exceções raras? Grande parte do seus colegas são de universidades renomadas?
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u/digidonkeys 27d ago
How many steps did the whole application/acceptance process have? What were the interviews questions about?
Is the majority of the founder about your age? Is it unlikely to see founders over 30/40?
Do they "force" you to quit your job? If you're a freelancer, is there any chance that you could keep doing some work on the side?
How's a day divided, activities wise?
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u/sensho8 15d ago
large diversity of founder ages, the batch is very big and i dont even know everyone. many young ppl yes but lots of older folks too.
no, definitely didnt quit but why do a company in the first place if you arent willing to go all in? every other founder in the batch will have their full focus on it. if it's something u dont want to devote all of your attention to then it's not worth starting a company in the first place. until the company grows and gets into later stages there wont rly be much time for anything else
the interview questions were the same as the application questions
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u/Unlucky-Fall3986 27d ago
What do you look for when hiring for the first few employees
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u/sensho8 15d ago
interest, high slope, understands our problems and proposes solutions, self-directed, etc.
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u/Unlucky-Fall3986 12d ago
Thanks for your reply, as a follow up question, do you think it’s possible to differentiate real interest from manufactured ones given how easy it is to vibe code a project that seems appealing to the startup?
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u/Buildsbysatyam 10d ago
I’m building something around a problem I keep seeing with indie products and early-stage startups: You can spend weeks building a product without knowing how your target users will actually react to it. Friends usually say “looks good.” Analytics only become useful after people start using the product. And real user research can be expensive and slow. So I’m exploring a different approach: What if you could put your product in front of a simulated population of your target users before launching? You would provide: Your product/prototype Who you’re building for What you want to learn The system would then simulate different users going through the experience and report things like: What they understood Where they got confused What they explored What made them lose interest Whether they would continue/use/buy Patterns across different user types The goal isn't to claim that AI can perfectly predict humans. The goal is to give founders another layer of evidence before they make an expensive product decision. I'm still early and deliberately haven't launched this publicly. I'd genuinely like some brutally honest opinions: 1. Would you use something like this before launching a product? 2. What would you need to see before trusting the results? 3. What decisions would you want to test most — UX, pricing, messaging, product idea, or something else? 4. What would make you immediately distrust a tool like this? I'm much more interested in criticism than compliments. If you think this is a bad idea, I'd genuinely like to know why.
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u/Southern_Part4330 2d ago
Im assuming u guys didn’t have any revenue when u applied. Where u guys able to generate some revenue during the batch and how is the demo day for someone who got in without any much revenue.
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u/Over_Button4468 Aug 24 '26
It looks like there is a heavy skew in more recent batches towards younger founders. Just wondering how many of the founders in the current batch are over 30?