Y Combinator
Showing 496–510 of 854 transcripts.
- 6 min
Tim Brady - How do you calculate burn rate, runway and growth rate?
The presentation clarifies critical financial metrics for startups, defining burn rate as a strict weekly cash flow measure and runway as the resulting duration of available capital. It further details how founders must calculate Compound Monthly Growth Rates to avoid misleading investors and distinguish between predictable recurring revenue and less stable non-recurring income. Accurately applying these concepts allows entrepreneurs to demonstrate sophisticated financial management and improve their prospects for securing venture capital.
- 5 min
Tim Brady - How Much Equity Should I Give My First Employees?
Startups typically allocate 10% to 20% of their equity to an employee pool, where early hires receive substantially larger grants ranging from 1% to 2% to compensate for high risk and chaotic working conditions. Founders must strategically balance cash and equity offers based on individual risk tolerance, ensuring that critical roles like an outside CEO or CTO do not prematurely deplete resources needed for future talent. Decades of Silicon Valley precedent suggest that granting generous ownership stakes to these early team members is essential for long-term engagement and maximizing the venture's chances of massive financial success.
- 5 min
2021 YC Top Companies on Their Startup Journey
Nikki Goulimas, Olube Ngagbora, Amir Nathoo
Co-founders from Nova Credit, Flutterwave, and Outskool emphasize that sustainable entrepreneurship demands a decade-long commitment driven by authentic personal connection rather than fleeting excitement. Successful execution relies on strict focus on one or two critical metrics through phased milestones, avoiding distractions like premature AI integration while prioritizing cultural alignment from day one. The session concludes with active global recruitment drives for Ironclad and five other startups, specifically highlighting opportunities in India to impact hundreds of millions of users.
- 19 min
Essential Startup Advice During a Pandemic
Geoff Ralston, Alex Wilhelm, Jeff
Following a brief market slowdown, Y Combinator has observed a return to risk-on sentiment with application rates matching pre-pandemic levels while maintaining seamless remote operations. The accelerator now prioritizes a "default alive" strategy that urges founders to conserve cash, hire with discipline, and focus on revenue generation rather than aggressive growth. Despite vaccine optimism, YC advises startups to ignore long-term pandemic timelines in favor of immediate execution, positioning them to capitalize on the permanent digital shift and emerging opportunities in fintech and global market expansion.
- 1 min
DoorDash's Application Video for YC S13
Stanley, Andy, Evan, and Tony, a team of former Facebook and Square professionals, launched Palo Alto Delivery to address the supply-demand mismatch where local restaurants face high delivery demand but lack affordable logistics. By utilizing routing algorithms to optimize a labor pool of drivers with spare time, the founders validated their solution within a month, securing over 150 paying customers and generating more than $10,000 in revenue. The operation scaled from the co-founders acting as initial drivers to a managed system that automatically transmits orders to restaurants, effectively bridging the gap between consumer demand and underserved small business needs.
- 3 min
DoorDash at YC Summer 2013 Demo Day
DoorDash differentiates itself in the food delivery market by integrating proprietary logistics with merchant partnerships, a model that addresses the delivery gap for over 70% of the U.S. population. The company's operational strategy, which utilizes in-restaurant iPads and proprietary software, successfully delivered an average of 44 minutes in challenging suburban pilots while generating over $1.5 million in annualized sales for partners. Building on this verified efficiency and a 30% weekly order growth, DoorDash is now expanding its network to solve last-mile logistics challenges beyond food into a broader on-demand package delivery sector.
- 10 min
Designing Characters with Deep Learning: Spellbrush (W18) - YC Gaming Tech Talks 2020
SpellRush, a Y Combinator-backed studio, has developed an on-premises deep learning system using Generative Adversarial Networks to generate AAA-quality character art in seconds, effectively replacing hundreds of hours of manual labor. The company engineered its models to correct demographic biases found in training data, specifically increasing the representation of male characters and diverse skin tones, while reducing model training costs to approximately $4,000 per iteration through custom hardware. Now operating a team of five, SpellRush is applying these tools to produce the world's first AI-illustrated game and is actively recruiting additional animators and research interns to expand its capabilities.
- 6 min
MMOs in the Instagram Era: Highrise (S18) - YC Gaming Tech Talks 2020
Pocket Worlds, a fully remote developer, launched HiRISE, a social-first MMO that has surpassed five million downloads and generates over one million dollars in monthly revenue following recent Series A funding. The platform reverses traditional design hierarchies by prioritizing community infrastructure through a hybrid architecture that splits functionality between native Swift and Kotlin for UI and shared C++ for game logic and avatars. This modular framework enables the company to rapidly deploy diverse experiences like fashion contests and hero-collector games within a single persistent social ecosystem while actively recruiting talent for expansion.
- 9 min
Synthetic Media: Virtual Influencers & Live Animation: Figments (S19) - YC Gaming Tech Talks 2020
YC-backed startup Figments, led by CEO Jay Rosenkranz, is building a virtual production platform that merges motion capture with live streaming to create fictional esports characters like Noralis competing in *Super Smash Brothers Ultimate*. The company successfully pivoted to a fully remote model during the pandemic, utilizing Unreal Engine and ARKit to drive viral growth and secure commercial partnerships with brands such as Reebok and Guayaquil Yerba Mate. As Figments expands its storytelling across Twitch and YouTube, it is actively recruiting talent to further develop its proprietary technology for digital product placement and character creation.
- 10 min
Desining from Day One: Artists as Founders: Multiverse (S20) - YC Gaming Tech Talks 2020
Multiverse, a Y Combinator-backed platform founded by two MIT engineers and illustrator Sara, is developing a hybrid of Dungeons & Dragons and Roblox to digitize tabletop RPGs into a visual, streamable online experience. The company differentiates itself by prioritizing high-fidelity narrative art as a core business asset, recruiting top-tier indie creators from platforms like ArtStation and Twitch rather than traditional AAA studios to drive user engagement and market validation. By granting equity to its artistic co-founders and leveraging visual assets for fundraising, Multiverse aims to bridge the gap between scrappy entertainment storytelling and scalable platform economics.
- 2 min
Ramen VR (S19) - YC Tech Talks: Gaming 2020 (November 9th, 2020)
Co-founders Andy and Lauren are scaling Raman VR to develop Zenith, a massively multiplayer VR world that fuses action-adventure mechanics with an infinitely scalable backend. The company recently secured a major funding and marketing partnership with Oculus following a historic $280,000 Kickstarter, capitalizing on a year where the VR market grew from $300 million to over $1 billion. To support the transition from individual gameplay to a user-generated metaverse platform, Raman VR is actively recruiting environment artists, tech artists, and graphics engineers.
- 1 min
Dreamcraft (S18) - YC Tech Talks: Gaming 2020 (November 9th, 2020)
Founded by Tianyin and backed by Y Combinator's Summer 2018 batch, the stealth-mode platform DreamCraft allows non-programmers to build and monetize complex games without writing code. Since its 2018 launch, the service has facilitated the creation of games reaching over two million players by simplifying the development workflow to resemble map-making. Despite maintaining a low public profile, the company's founder is actively seeking in-person connections to discuss potential collaborations with interested parties.
- 2 min
Volley (W18) - YC Tech Talks: Gaming 2020 (November 9th, 2020)
Volley, a San Francisco-based voice-control-first gaming studio co-founded by Max, has secured the number one spot on Alexa and Google Home for its "Song Quiz" trivia game and recently raised a Series A round to support a team of 25. The company is currently developing a proprietary "Unreal Engine for voice" and an unreleased RPG-style title while actively recruiting engineering, data science, and design talent to pioneer touch-free gaming interfaces. By expanding its portfolio to include interactive storytelling and multi-device accessibility, Volley positions itself as a market leader driving the evolution of voice-centric entertainment.
- 1 min
Athlane (S19) - YC Tech Talks, Gaming 2020 (November 9, 2020)
Founded by Ryan Jay, Athlane positions itself as a professional infrastructure platform connecting game streamers with major brands like Reebok and Herman Miller to facilitate full-time creator careers. Backed by endorsements from high-profile investors such as Ninja, the company reports strong market validation through hundreds of daily campaigns and positive reception from both content creators and enterprise clients. As Athlane actively expands its team by hiring engineers and operations specialists, it invites industry professionals to connect regarding its growing opportunities within the creator economy.
- 56 min
YC SUS: Eric Migicovsky & Dalton Caldwell discuss pivoting & pitching
Eric Migicovsky, Dalton Caldwell, Eric Majerjkowski, Rick Viscomi
This discussion outlines critical strategies for startup founders, emphasizing that pivots should be driven by a complete lack of traction and validated through concrete customer payments rather than theoretical debates. It further details how to effectively apply to Y Combinator by prioritizing clarity, avoid common pitfalls like over-relying on patents, and ensure sustainable unit economics by focusing on retention and revenue. Ultimately, the guidance stresses that success relies on building genuine product-market fit and maintaining financial flexibility to adapt quickly to external shocks.