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Open-Sourcing My YC Application (Athens Research, W21)

111 points| tangjeff0 | 2 years ago |hardpivot.substack.com

17 comments

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[+] syrusakbary|2 years ago|reply
Oh, that application sounds familiar.

A mention for those who helped a bit on the application as a token of appreciation would had been nice...

[+] tangjeff0|2 years ago|reply
Updated the end of post:

> Shout out to Syrus Akbury (W19), Ian Tien (S12), and Taariq Lewis (S15) for encouraging me to apply and helping me with my application way back when :)

But seriously, thank you so much Syrus! I was thinking about you 3 the whole time while I wrote the post, hoping it would help someone else like how you helped me!

[+] leonhard|2 years ago|reply
Given that you helped on it, what do you think made it stand out? From just reading through it, to me personally it doesn’t sound super in-depth or convincing, but I’d like to learn what I’m missing.
[+] IceWreck|2 years ago|reply
If you dont mind me asking, what happened to Athens ? Why did it shut down ?
[+] Veen|2 years ago|reply
There's an explanation here:

https://twitter.com/AthensResearch/status/159113849137912217...

Basically, looks like they wasted a lot of time building collaborative knowledge graph features, and then realized no one really wanted them. By that point there were mature single-user alternatives and they were no longer competitive.

[+] auggierose|2 years ago|reply
Did you also apply in the batch before your successful application?
[+] tangjeff0|2 years ago|reply
This was my first application to YC.
[+] plinkplonk|2 years ago|reply
wow! the YC application has changed quite a bit since the early days. Employment history and "Should you be selected for interview, we may ask for references"!
[+] b20000|2 years ago|reply
who at YC did you talk to and get help from before applying?