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Comment by adora | Hacker News Reader

Hi, I'm Adora, a YC partner, and will be helping out with the course. Very excited to meet and work with everyone. Happy to answer any questions.

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Hi Adora, I am quitting my fulltime job to found my own startup in the fall, and I am working almost a fulltime per week on my own time to prepare the product for the future startup.

1. Can I still apply if I have a fulltime job in addition to working on my startup?

2. Must the company be established before the program starts, or can it be established a few weeks later?

3. Do you expect the product to be launched during the program, or can it be launched later this year?

Thanks

That's exciting to hear!

1. Yes, definitely.

2. No, it doesn't have to be established yet. In fact, we're working with Stripe Atlas, who will help you incorporate and set up your company bank account.

3. Depending on your idea, we'd likely encourage you to launch _something_ during the program. But if you're auditing, you're on your own timeline.

If I can give you one hot tip it is not to quit your fulltime job until you have something in terms of traction to ensure you're not killing your runway waiting through the 'valley of despair'.

Some employment contracts have IP clauses that make the claim that anything you create before, during or after hours while employed is theirs, so maybe it makes sense in that regards.

Read the parent comment again, GP is long past that stage. If it worked so far it will work a little bit longer.

Hi Adora, congrats and thank you (and YC) for putting this in the world!

I have a doubt about the target audience for this initiative.

Is it the same target of YC, i.e., companies/teams with the potential to become a company worth hundreds of millions of dollars or more?

Or there is a chance for companies of more humble ambitions, a "indiehackers/bootstrapping/microconf style" company to be accepted?

Thanks!

Startup School is targeting a much wider audience. We really want to help every entrepreneur that wants help with this online course.

Great to know! Add another "thank you" on top of the last one for taking this approach! :)

What parts of this would you expect to be of interest for startups outside of digital, specifically biotech?

All the course material is relevant to any founder thinking about or currently working on any early-stage startup, including biotech. We'll also group similar startups together so that you can help each other out with industry-specifics as well.

Hi Adora,

Can you explain if every startup is accepted or not? In the link it states "Last year, over 13,000 companies applied to participate in Startup School, and 95 YC alumni volunteered their time to advise over 2,800 of those companies participating across 141 countries." How many companies will be accepted this year? Or do all applications get accepted?

Thank you!

Thanks Adora. Just a suggestion: I took the 2017 course and it was great, now I think an aditional growing startup course will be complementary for companies that need to solve growing challenges.

Depending on what stage of growth you’re at, your Startup School mentor should still be able to be helpful.

Most companies in the program are in the 0-1 phase, but there were a few in my group that were 1-N. The program format is flexible, so it’s fairly easy to tailor content to your audience.

YC core has a similar dynamic, and individual companies in a batch fall along a fairly wide range in terms of stage / progress. They only break out a formal growth track once companies have >50 employees.

YMMV depending on your mentor of course.

Hi Adora, thanks for your help.

Sorry to ask a rather trivial question but I can't seem to reset my password from last year's account; when I type a new password (on the form one gets to, from the reset email), the system says "Please review the problems below:" but the problems aren't shown...

Is it important to keep the same account as last year or should I create a new account?

You should create a new account.

Can you send us an email at software@yconbinator.com with the details? I can look up your old account.

Hi Adora, I have applied for my team. I noticed that there was a field for timezone. We are a highly distributed team (SE Asia & North Africa). I will also be changing timezones significantly during the course (SE Asia & Europe). What impact will this have on how we engage with the course, mentors and our peers?

You should choose the timezone you'll be in the majority of the time. If traveling way outside it, you may have group office hours sessions at a wacky time. It won't impact the lectures since you can just watch on your own schedule, or most engagement with peers since it'll be a forum-like experience.

Thanks. Have updated our application accordingly.

Hi Adora, the program looks great.

A question — how does setting up the group office hours timeslot work? Is there a selection or a way to mark preferred times? If it's standardized, roughly what time ranges are the hours held? (My cofounder and I will be in Asia during the program.)

Thank you!

Your advisor will set the times. We'll try to match you with someone who can work with your timezone. (We had people from over 140 countries last time participate.)

I see that the course begins on August 27th. What is the deadline for applying to Startup School?

August 13.

This looks really great!

We're really eager to apply, but we're just curious what it means to "complete" the course - would we need to be in Mountain View during those 10 weeks to attend the lectures in-person?

Nope, you can do it all on-line. Completing = watching all the lectures, participating in group office hours and submitting minimal updates on your company.

Hi Adora,

Do you need to already have a cofounder to be accepted into the online startup school?

Thanks

Nope, we will accept solo founders.

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Hi Adora. I signed up and got a 500 Internal Server Error after registering. I didn't get a confirmation email, and when I requested a resend, I receive the same error.

Sorry about this. Can you send us an email to software@ycombinator.com with the details?

The email confirmation resending seems to be working now. Thanks!

Hello!

I’m extremely interested in founding and launching a startup, but don’t necessarily have one established yet. Is there any way to audit the online course’s content?

Yep, there's an option for that on the registration flow: https://www.startupschool.org/register

Hi Adora, can two members of the same company each sign-up or should all members of the company go under one account? Thank you!

Only one member needs to sign up the company, and at the end of the sign up process, s/he is asked to provide their co-founders emails to invite.

Great, thank you for the help!

Hi Adora, we audited the course last year and thought it was great. How similar will the content itself be?

Jumping in for Adora :) --

The content will revolve around similar topics, but we'll do deep-dives into content that we did not get a chance to last year (sales for B2C and B2B, building and managing technical teams, and design principles for example). We're looking to build upon all of the past pieces as you can see with the new Startup Library.

We'll announce the final curriculum soon!

Awesome! Submitting our info.

When applying is the login the same as the regular YC login or do I need to create a new account?

Not tied to Hacker News id at the moment. Need to create a new account.

Thanks! Will do.

Can you make last year's lectures available for everyone?

https://www.startupschool.org/library

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