YC Group Partner Dalton Caldwell shares his strategies for how to think about applying to YC. This talk goes beyond the information on YC's website, and reflects Dalton's latest advice on the topic. (Fun Fact: An earlier version of this talk is frequently mentioned by YC founders as instrumental in their decision to apply to YC and to getting in!)

Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/SUS-apply
Work at a startup: https://yc.link/SUS-jobs

Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Intro
00:17 - Why It's Worth Applying to YC
01:11 - Creating Luck
02:16 - Weird Reasons Not to Apply to YC
02:27 - I Am Too Early
03:36 - Being a YC founder is different than watching YC YouTube videos
04:42 - How to Stop Being Discouraged From Applying to YC
06:21 - Other Reasons Why People Don't Apply to YC
07:16 - Don't Overthink
09:05 - YC's Application Tips
10:37 - YC Application Reviewing: The Basics
15:59 - What Are Your Odds of Getting an Interview at YC?
18:12 - How to Prepare for Your YC Interview
22:22 - What Makes a Successful Interview at YC?
23:38 - Post Interview Feedback
24:38 - Outro

Kat Mañalac is the head of YC's Outreach team and advises early stage founders on their launches during the YC batch. She shares the multitude of ways to launch a product and how to get attention for them. Her talk provides tangible strategies and examples of startup launches and will change the way you think about launching.

Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/SUS-apply
Work at a startup: https://yc.link/SUS-jobs

Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Launching Your Startup
01:28 - When Should I Launch My Startup?
03:42 - One Sentence Pitch
05:19 - How to Create a Short Memorable Description
09:17 - When is the X for Y Construction Not Too Cliche?
12:05 - Types of Launches
20:43 - Summary

At the start of the S23 batch we interviewed 50 founders about how they managed to get their very first customers. It's a snapshot in time that highlights the different tactics YC founders employ in the early stages to get their companies up and running. Hopefully their experience will offer some insights for anyone wondering about how exactly to go after that first customer.

Thank you to all the companies who volunteered to be interviewed for this episode: Artie, CandorIQ, Accend, Mantlebio, Fleet Works, Sweetspot, Shasta Health, Kapa, Ohmic Biosciences, Kino AI, Osium AI, Gleam, Paylane, Fortuna Health, Roame, Mano AI, Certainly Health, Strada, Envelope Money, Greenlite, Spine AI, RightPage, Movley, Octo, Craftwork, Letter AI, Flair Health, Helios

Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/FounderFAQ-apply
Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/FounderFAQ-jobs

Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Intro: How did you find your first customer?
00:20 - Sweetspot
00:31 - Shasta Health
00:45 - Kapa.ai
01:01 - Platform we got our first customer?
01:15 - Envelope Money
01:36 - Reworkd AI
01:53 - Greenlite
02:12 - Ohmic Biosciences
02:23 - Kino AI
02:34 - MantleBio
02:49 - Accend
02:57 - Craftwork
03:11 - Helios
03:25 - Letter AI
03:52 - Outro

Michael Truell on June 17th, 2025 at AI Startup School in San Francisco.

At 24, Michael Truell has already built Cursor into one of the fastest-growing companies in AI coding, hitting $100M ARR in just a year.

In this fireside chat with YC General Partner Diana Hu, he shares the lessons that came from years of failed projects with his co-founders, why he believes programming is still essential even as AI changes how we code, and how Cursor is taking on GitHub Copilot with the conviction that all of software development will flow through models.

Chapters:
00:38 – PG essays & first code
02:36 – Games, robots, and hacking ML as a teenager
06:54 – From Hemisphere to Cursor: first startup attempts
09:54 – Pivoting hard when nothing was working
12:04 – Taking on GitHub Copilot
13:10 – Shipping the first Cursor editor
15:24 – Early lessons: features, feedback, and VS Code shift
16:26 – Codex, custom models, and pragmatic bets
17:58 – Wandering in 2023
20:00 – Breakthrough: $1M → $100M in a year
22:46 – Word of mouth and wildfire growth
25:24 – The future of coding and advice for students

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