Simon Willison’s Weblog

Help with next steps for a startup

4th September 2016

My answer to Help with next steps for a startup on Ask MetaFilter

Have you thought about applying to Y Combinator? The reason I ask is that “I have lots of expertise in language learning and basically zero expertise in startups, market research, business, fundraising, app pricing, etc” is pretty much YC’s sweet spot: they know that it’s much easier teaching those things to engineers and makers than it is to teach engineering to business people (I’m assuming you have product and engineering skills based on your description of your progress so far).

I went through YC a few years ago from a similar starting point (engineering and product experience but no business skills) and found it to be an excellent decision.

Then at 13:53:

Also worth mentioning: YC accept less than a hundred out of many thousands of applications, but your description of your progress so far should be enough to help your application stand out. It’s very competitive but I think you would be in with a better chance than many.