Y Combinator Is Boot Camp for Startups

Paul Graham calls for quiet. Like many in Silicon Valley, Graham affects a kind of studied informality; pretty much everyone calls him by his nickname, PG, and tonight he’s wearing his standard attire of shorts and a polo shirt. Graham calls everyone’s attention to the whiteboard, where a timeline labeled “The Process” depicts the steps that every entrepreneur must navigate on the way to building a successful startup. WhereBerry A site that two ex-Google product managers are building to help people answer the eternal question “What can my friends and I do this weekend?” The rest of the winter Y Combinator companies : AppHarbor Apportable Beetailer Bitplay Comprehend Systems Curebit Custora Earbits FitFu GiftRocket Grubwithus HelloFax Humble Bundle Hyperink Mailgun MemSQL MinoMonsters Noteleaf NowJS Sendoid SwipeGood TalkBin Taskforce TellFi TrustEgg Tumult Tutorspree Upverter Venuetastic YouGotListings The class’s schedule is similarly codified. “After that, anything you do will make you better—but it won’t make you better on Demo Day.” Graham had no such formalized plan when he started Y Combinator on a whim in March 2005.