Getting into the renowned Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator is tough, with only around 1.5 per cent of applicants offered spots in the biannual programmes.
Launched in 2005, Y Combinator has helped thousands of companies in their earliest stages, including the likes of Stripe, Airbnb and Dropbox.
All selected companies receive US$150,000 in seed investment, and take part in a three-month programme during which they worked intensively with Y Combinator to get the company into the best possible shape and refine their pitches to investors.
More and more African tech startups are getting accepted into the programme, with 13 companies from the continent taking part in the latest batch, but more can now do their research on what the accelerator is looking for thanks to a new online resource.
Developed by Asish Gupta, formerly an engineer at Google AdWords in New York and now founder of AI startup Polymer, YCadvice aggregates all the content Y Combinator has ever published and makes it available in an accessible format so founders can access hints and tips from the company and gain insights on what it takes to become a participant.
“Knowing how difficult startups can be, especially in our current environment, I wanted to create the go-to resource for everything Y Combinator has ever published on what it takes to build a successful startup,” Gupta told Disrupt Africa.
Carefully sorted by topic and fully searchable, YCAdvice has collected more than 700 time-tested articles and videos produced by Y Combinator on everything from fundraising and decision making, to user acquisition and risk management.
“The motivation behind YCAdvice is something I’ve felt very personally: not everyone can get into prestigious accelerators like Y Combinator but startups around the world can still benefit from their comprehensive advice on every subject, especially during these trying times,” Gupta said.
“The problem is that their resources are completely scattered and hard to make sense of and most founders can’t benefit. YCadvice’s goal is to collect the entire domain of Y Combinator advice in one place and provide a highly functional search and micro-discovery platform on top of it. I think of it as “the world’s best business advice at your fingertips” and can help boost startup and founder IQ dramatically.”
