co-founder matching platform</a> about 3 months ago. There are now 16,000 co-founder profiles on the platform. Potential co-founders have sent 130,000 matching invites through the platform, and, with a 25% acceptance rate, we’ve seen a total of 33,000 matches.</p><p>We now have enough data to identify some interesting trends among our co-founder profiles and matches.</p><h1 id=\"who-are-the-founders-on-our-platform\"><strong>Who are the founders on our platform?</strong></h1><ul><li>40% of profiles are from the U.S., with 60% representing another 145<br>countries.</li><li>42% identify as technical (i.e. “a programmer, scientist, or engineer<br>who can build the product without outside assistance”).</li><li>43% are working full-time (40+ hours/week) on their startup, 22% are<br>part-time (20-40 hours/week), and the remaining spend <20<br>hours/week on their startup.</li><li>Of the founders who are not currently working on a startup, 47% plan<br>to start in the next 3 months, and another 21% plan to start in the<br>next 6 months.</li><li>13% identify as a woman.</li></ul><h1 id=\"what-do-founders-care-about\"><strong>What do founders care about?</strong></h1><p>We give founders the option to mark their preferences for a co-founder across several attributes, including:</p><ul><li>Whether they are technical</li><li>Areas of skill (<em><em>Product, Design, Engineering, Sales and Marketing,</em></em><br><em><em>Operations</em></em>)</li><li>Their level of time commitment over the next few weeks (40+<br>hours/week, 20-40 hours/week, or less)</li><li>Their location</li><li>Whether they have shared interests (e.g. <em><em>B2B/Enterprise, Biotech,</em></em><br>etc.)</li></ul><p>Founders also indicate how important each attribute is: whether it’s a must-have, whether they have a preference but are flexible, or whether they don’t care at all.</p><p>The two most important attributes: <strong><strong>79% of founders care that their co-founder can commit a certain number of hours over the next few weeks</strong></strong>, and <strong><strong>74% of founders prefer to have shared interests with their co-founder</strong></strong>. However, only 15% and 13% see these attributes as must-haves, respectively.</p><p>The least important attribute? <strong><strong>50% of founders don’t care where their co-founder is located, perhaps a sign of the (newly remote) times</strong></strong>.</p><h1 id=\"what-industries-are-founders-interested-in\"><strong>What industries are founders interested in?</strong></h1><p>Each founder can select interests from the following list: <em><em>Agriculture/Agtech, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (ARVR), B2B/Enterprise, Biomedical/Biotech, Blockchain, Consumer, E-Commerce, Education/Edtech, Energy, Entertainment, Financial/Fintech, Government, Hardware, Hard Tech, Healthcare, Marketplace, Non-Profit.</em></em></p><p>The top 6 most popular interests:</p><ul><li><em><em>B2B/Enterprise</em></em> (36% of founders indicate interest)</li><li><em><em>Consumer</em></em> (34%)</li><li><em><em>AI</em></em> (34%)</li><li><em><em>Marketplace</em></em> (32%)</li><li><em><em>Fintech</em></em> (29%)</li><li><em><em>E-Commerce</em></em> (29%)</li></ul><p>Most founders select several interests; the median number of interests selected is 3. Interestingly, the most popular interests among founders who pick only 1 interest look different:</p><ul><li><em><em>B2B/Enterprise</em></em> (17%)</li><li><em><em>Fintech</em></em> (13%)</li><li><em><em>Edtech</em></em> (12%)</li><li><em><em>Consumer</em></em> (11%)</li><li><em><em>Healthcare</em></em> (7%)</li><li><em><em>AI</em></em> (7%)</li></ul><h1 id=\"what-skills-are-founders-interested-in\"><strong>What skills are founders interested in?</strong></h1><p>Founders on the co-founder matching platform can claim responsibility in five areas of skill: <em><em>Product, Design, Engineering, Sales and Marketing, Operations.</em></em></p><ul><li>65% of founders do <em><em>Product</em></em></li><li>57% of founders do <em><em>Operations</em></em></li><li>52% of founders do <em><em>Sales and Marketing</em></em></li><li>37% of founders do <em><em>Design</em></em></li><li>31% of founders do <em><em>Engineering</em></em></li></ul><p>Here’s what founders want from their co-founder:</p><ul><li>62% of founders prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Engineering</em></em></li><li>42% of founders prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Product</em></em></li><li>39% of founders prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Design</em></em></li><li>37% of founders prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Sales and Marketing</em></em></li><li>28% of founders prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Operations</em></em></li></ul><p>Engineers seem to be in high demand. Among founders who do not do <em><em>Engineering</em></em>, <strong><strong>80% prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Engineering</em></em></strong></strong>. Even engineers themselves are looking for more engineers: <strong><strong>44% of <em><em>Engineering</em></em> founders prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Engineering</em></em></strong></strong>.</p><p>Engineers are also looking for complementary skills though: <strong><strong>74% of <em><em>Engineering</em></em> founders prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Sales and Marketing</em></em></strong></strong>, and <strong><strong>53% of <em><em>Engineering</em></em> founders prefer a co-founder who does <em><em>Operations</em></em></strong></strong>.</p><h1 id=\"who%E2%80%99s-actually-matching\"><strong>Who’s actually matching?</strong></h1><ul><li><strong><strong>Founders</strong></strong> on the platform have an average of <strong><strong>3.6 matches per person.</strong></strong></li><li><strong><strong>Engineers</strong></strong> on the platform have an average of <strong><strong>4.8 matches per person.</strong></strong></li><li><strong><strong>Founders who aren’t married to an idea</strong></strong> have an average of <strong><strong>5.1 matches</strong></strong><br><strong><strong>per person.</strong></strong></li></ul><p>The majority of matches (68%) are made up of a technical founder paired with a non-technical founder. A bigger majority of matches (72%) are made up of founders with at least one shared interest. An even greater portion of matches (73%) are made up of a founder with an idea they’re working on paired with a founder not glued to an idea.</p><p>55% of matches comprise founders located in the same country. 69% of matches are between founders in the same continent, and 61% of matches are composed of founders located within 3 time zones of each other. The rest, apparently, are from all over the world.</p><p>73% of matches contain at least one full-time founder, and 92% of matches contain at least one founder who is “active” (working on a startup idea now) rather than “aspiring” (plan to work on a startup later).</p><p>Finally, it seems that founders on the site are extremely active: 75% of all matches are accepted within 4.5 days of the initial invitation, and <strong><strong>50% of matches are accepted within 22 hours</strong></strong>. Of the matches where founders indicate having met up either online or in person, <strong><strong>50% met within 6.2 days</strong></strong>.</p><p><strong><strong>If you are looking for a co-founder, come check out the co-founder matching platform! Sign up at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching.","comment_id":"6172e54bcf1ec1000121a4f6","feature_image":"https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1522202176988-66273c2fd55f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI4fHxzdGFydHVwfGVufDB8fHx8MTYzNDkyMDcxMw&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000%22,%22featured%22:false,%22visibility%22:%22public%22,%22email_recipient_filter%22:%22none%22,%22created_at%22:%222021-10-22T09:22:35.000-07:00%22,%22updated_at%22:%222021-10-22T13:07:58.000-07:00%22,%22published_at%22:%222021-10-21T09:22:00.000-07:00%22,%22custom_excerpt%22:%22YC launched a co-founder matching platform about 3 months ago. There are now 16,000 co-founder profiles on the platform. Potential co-founders have sent 130,000 matching invites through the platform, and, with a 25% acceptance rate, we’ve seen a total of 33,000 matches.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/catheryn/"},{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710d6","name":"Katherine Bernstein","slug":"katherine-bernstein","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Katherine-1.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Katherine is a Product Engineer at Y Combinator, working on the Startup School team. Prior to YC, she was a co-founder and software engineer at OpenLattice.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/katherine-bernstein/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71180","name":"#startup-school","slug":"hash-startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/catheryn/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/what-do-people-want-in-a-co-founder/","excerpt":"YC launched a co-founder matching platform about 3 months ago. There are now 16,000 co-founder profiles on the platform. Potential co-founders have sent 130,000 matching invites through the platform, and, with a 25% acceptance rate, we’ve seen a total of 33,000 matches.","reading_time":4,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":"Photo by <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://unsplash.com/@brookecagle?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit\%22>Brooke Cagle</a> / <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=ghost&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=api-credit\%22>Unsplash%22},%22mentions%22:[],%22related_posts%22:[{%22id%22:%22646fa41cbd93340001aed3be%22,%22uuid%22:%22980713b3-dc9f-481b-a067-4bbc9d803572%22,%22title%22:%22The latest Startup School talks are now available to all","slug":"startup-school-videos","html":"<p>When you’re building a startup, you’ve got a lot to figure out.</p><p>How do you know if an idea is a good one? Do you need a co-founder? How do you get your first customers? How much should you charge? How (and when) do you launch?</p><p>All of these are questions that every founder asks at some point, and they’re the kinds of questions that Y Combinator’s Group Partners have helped to answer <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/">thousands of times</a>. That’s why we built <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org//">Startup School</a>, a free online course where YC Group Partners help you answer these questions and many more while teaching you to build the foundation of a billion dollar company.</p><p>Throughout the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/announcing-startup-school-2022/">latest Startup School session</a>, YC’s Group Partners hosted live talks for 10,000+ students tuned in over Zoom. Each talk focused on one of those topics that the Group Partners were asked about again and again— from how to evaluate an idea, to finding the right co-founder, to getting your MVP out into the world.</p><p>The recordings of these talks were initially available only to Startup School students. After those students told us how helpful the videos were for them, we decided to make them available to everyone. We’ve been gradually releasing the talks over the last few months, and we’ve now released the final video from that set: <em><strong>How to Apply And Succeed at Y Combinator</strong></em> featuring Dalton Caldwell.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-embed-card\"><iframe width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/embed/B5tU2447OK8?feature=oembed\%22 frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen title=\"How to Apply And Succeed at Y Combinator | Startup School\"></iframe></figure><p>When it comes to applying and interviewing for Y Combinator, there aren’t many people on the planet with more insight than Dalton. As a Group Partner and a Managing Director at YC, he’s been at the core of that process for over ten years now — reviewing applications, interviewing teams, and advising YC companies like <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/brex/">Brex, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/whatnot/">Whatnot, and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/retool/">Retool on how to succeed once they got in.</p><p>Dalton packs a ton of information into just 24 minutes, like why you should apply, the weird reasons that people talk themselves out of applying (like “I'm too early”), his tips on how to improve your application, and — because founders tend to be the type of people who like to know how things work — key insights on how YC actually reads applications. He somehow sneaks some good life advice (on “creating luck”) in there while he’s at it.</p><p>If you're considering applying — or, crucially, if you keep talking yourself out of it — Dalton's talk is absolutely worth the watch. (And while you're here, I'll share a little kinda-sorta-secret: though applications for the Summer 2023 batch technically closed a few weeks ago, YC reviews <em>all</em> applications — even those that come in late. Plenty of great companies have been accepted with late applications. But don't tell anyone I told you that. <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">Apply here</a>.)</p><hr><h2 id=\"startup-school-2022-videos\">Startup School 2022 Videos</h2><p></p><p>You can find the rest of the recently released Startup School videos below, or bookmark <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB\%22>the entire playlist here</a>. Each video is 15-30 minutes long, and each was designed to pack as much info and insight into that time as possible.</p><ul><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE-icVYRFU&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=2\%22>Should You Start A Startup?</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Harj Taggar</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBUhQPPS9AY&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=10\%22>How Startup Fundraising Works</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Brad Flora</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th8JoIan4dg&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=4\%22>How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Jared Friedman</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4SLDQDXdp0&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=3\%22>Keys To Successful Co-Founder Relationships</strong></a> with Catheryn Li and Divya Bhat</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1iF1c8w5Lg&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=4\%22>How To Talk To Users</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Gustaf Alströmer</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWZbWzAyHAE&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=5\%22>Startup Business Models and Pricing</strong></a> with Aaron Epstein</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyYCn_kAngI&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=6\%22>How to Get Your First Customers</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Gustaf Alströmer</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRZ_l7cVzzU&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=7\%22>How to Build a \"Minimum Viable Product\"</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Michael Seibel</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u36A-YTxiOw&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=8\%22>The Best Way To Launch Your Startup</strong></a><strong> </strong>with Kat Mañalac</li><li><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP7bpYsfa6Q&list=PLQ-uHSnFig5M9fW16o2l35jrfdsxGknNB&index=9\%22>Tips For Technical Startup Founders</strong></a> with Diana Hu </li></ul>","comment_id":"646fa41cbd93340001aed3be","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/Startup-School-title-card-2.png","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-05-25T11:08:28.000-07:00","updated_at":"2023-07-21T10:37:06.000-07:00","published_at":"2023-05-30T11:10:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"The recordings of these talks were initially available only to Startup School students. After those students told us how helpful the videos were for them, we decided to make them available to everyone.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"645000ebb09be6000165fbad","name":"Greg Kumparak","slug":"greg","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2023/05/greg.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Greg oversees editorial content at Y Combinator. He was previously an editor at TechCrunch for nearly 15 years.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/greg/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71172","name":"Video","slug":"video","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/video/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71180","name":"#startup-school","slug":"hash-startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"645000ebb09be6000165fbad","name":"Greg Kumparak","slug":"greg","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2023/05/greg.jpeg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Greg oversees editorial content at Y Combinator. He was previously an editor at TechCrunch for nearly 15 years.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/greg/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/startup-school-videos/","excerpt":"When you’re building a startup, you’ve got a lot to figure out.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"An orange and white title card reading \"Startup School\"","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"63484a5f2184dc0001eebf38","uuid":"003fb0ef-7ac0-41e4-93fc-a91eca0f7bc1","title":"YC ClimateTech Co-Founder Meetup","slug":"yc-climatetech-co-founder-meetup","html":"<p>We’re excited to announce the first <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://startupschool.org/climatetech-cofounder-meetup/">YC ClimateTech Co-Founder Meetup</a>! It will take place at <strong>11am PT on Saturday, October 29, 2022</strong>. This event is for anyone interested in meeting a potential co-founder in the ClimateTech space.</p><!--kg-card-begin: html--><center>\n<a class=\"ycdc-retro-btn ycdc-retro-btn-gold mt-[-10px] ml-[13px]\" href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://startupschool.org/climatetech-cofounder-meetup/" style=\"text-decoration: none;\" title=\"YC ClimateTech Co-Founder Meetup\" target=\"_blank\">Register to Attend</a>\n</center><!--kg-card-end: html--><p>The 2-hour virtual program will feature a 30-minute conversation by YC Group Partner Gustaf Alstromer and YC ClimateTech founders on how to find a good startup idea, and how to make progress in ClimateTech. This will be followed by a speed-dating session on the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">YC co-founder matching platform</a>, in which founders are matched for 5-minute 1:1 conversations.</p><p><strong>Speakers</strong></p><p><strong>Gustaf Alstromer</strong>, YC Group Partner<br><strong>Paul Gross</strong>, Co-Founder & CEO of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://remoracarbon.com//">Remora (W21)<br><strong>Jose Ignacio</strong>, Co-Founder of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.waterplan.com//">Waterplan (S21)<br><strong>Caroline McKeon & Daria Balatsky,</strong> Co-Founders of <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.alga.bio//">Alga Biosciences</a> (W22)</p><p>If you’re interested in starting a ClimateTech startup and want to meet other potential co-founders in the space, we hope you join us!</p><p><strong>Registration is limited and closes on Tuesday, October 25th. </strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://startupschool.org/climatetech-cofounder-meetup/">Sign up to attend here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>","comment_id":"63484a5f2184dc0001eebf38","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/climatetech2.jpeg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-10-13T10:26:55.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-10-14T09:27:35.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-10-14T09:00:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"We’re excited to announce the first YC ClimateTech Co-Founder Meetup. If you’re interested in starting a ClimateTech startup and want to meet other potential co-founders in the space, register to attend by October 25th.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. 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Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/catheryn/"},"primary_tag":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/yc-climatetech-co-founder-meetup/","excerpt":"We’re excited to announce the first YC ClimateTech Co-Founder Meetup! It will take place at 11am PT on Saturday, October 29, 2022. This event is for anyone interested in meeting a potential co-founder in the ClimateTech space.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"6282cc8054a948000183a58e","uuid":"34904064-518e-49c6-b5e0-49012f5b2104","title":"Announcing Startup School 2022","slug":"announcing-startup-school-2022","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><p>Today, we’re opening up registration for <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://startupschool.org/">Startup School 2022</a>, a live, online course where YC Group Partners and successful YC founders teach you how to build a billion dollar company. It will be the first Startup School course to feature in-person meetups and talks in over a hundred cities around the world.</p>\n<p>The 7 week course will begin June 27, 2022. It’s free and open to everyone. You don’t need to have a startup or a startup idea yet; Startup School is the perfect place to find one. Register at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://startupschool.org/">startupschool.org./n
The last time we ran a live Startup School course was three years ago, in the summer of 2019 before covid. In the years since, operating YC remotely through the pandemic taught us a ton about running great remote events and connecting a distributed community.</p>\n<p>We’re now applying everything we’ve learned to the next Startup School. It’s a reimagined experience designed for a global community of founders, combining the best of online and in-person. This is how it will work:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p>We’ll have speakers covering everything founders need to know to go from idea to startup. Most of these will be taught by current YC group partners. We’ll also have talks from some of YC’s most successful founders, including Amjad and Haya Masad from <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/replit/">Replit and Blake Scholl from <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/boom/">Boom who will give us a live walk-through of his supersonic jet hangar.</p>\n<p>For the first time, these talks will be hosted live on Zoom, so participants can ask questions and interact with the speakers. <br /></p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>We’ve launched a new track for founders who don’t have an idea yet and are just exploring doing a startup. Our last course was designed for founders who already had an idea and were actively working on a startup. But this time, we’ve split the course into two tracks: an “active founders” track and an “aspiring founders” track. We expect most of the participants to be in the aspiring founders track. Startup School is the perfect fit for that stage. <br /></p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>We’ve tightly integrated our <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">co-founder matching site</a> into the course. YC runs the world’s largest co-founder matching site, with over 30,000 founders and 70,000 matches made. If you’re looking for a co-founder, it’s the best place to go.</p>\n<p>During the course, we’ll also host many meetups and speed-dating events for people looking to meet potential cofounders. <br /></p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>For the first time, we’ll facilitate hundreds of in-person meetups and talks in dozens of cities around the world.</p>\n<p>Some of our most successful YC alumni will host large-scale, 100+ person meetups at their offices. Each meetup will include a talk by the founders on how they built the company, followed by a networking session where you can meet the company founders and each other.</p>\n<p>We’ll also be facilitating smaller self-organized meetups in cities where we don’t have an official YC alum talk.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<p>Here are the confirmed talks at YC alumni offices in 30 cities; we’re still adding more. Please note that access to these meetups is subject to capacity limits and dependent on local covid conditions:</p>\n<!--kg-card-end: markdown--><p>Amsterdam - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/messagebird/">Messagebird Atlanta - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety/">Flock Safety</a><br>Austin - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gecko-robotics/">Gecko Robotics</a><br>Austin - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/jasper-ai-inc/">Jasper AI</a><br>Bangalore - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/razorpay/">Razorpay Bogota - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/frubana-inc/">Frubana Boston - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/centaur-labs/">Centaur Labs</a><br>Cairo - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/instabug/">Instabug Cambridge (UK) - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stem-sugar/">The Supplant Company</a><br>Chicago - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tovala/">Tovala Washington D.C. - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/numero/">Numero Dubai - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/baraka/">Baraka Jakarta - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/xendit/">Xendit Lagos - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/paystack/">Paystack London - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/humanloop/">Humanloop London - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://monzo.com/us//">Monzo / <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gocardless/">GoCardless Los Angeles - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/upkeep/">UpKeep Los Angeles - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/embrace/">Embrace Los Angeles - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/inversion-space/">Inversion Space</a><br>Mexico City - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/beek/">Beek Mexico City - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/nuvocargo/">Nuvocargo Miami - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/wayup/">WayUp Mumbai - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zepto/">Zepto New York City - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/c16-biosciences/">C16 Biosciences</a><br>Paris - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/algolia/">Algolia Pittsburgh - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gecko-robotics/">Gecko Robotics</a><br>San Francisco - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/embark-trucks/">Embark São Paulo - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/chatpay/">Hubla Singapore - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/spenmo/">Spenmo Tel Aviv - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/guesty/">Guesty Toronto - <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/rose-rocket/">Rose Rocket</a><br><br>If you’re interested in joining these meetups, <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://startupschool.org/">register for the course.\t</p><!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ngv14GwaMSg/" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen></iframe><!--kg-card-end: markdown-->","comment_id":"6282cc8054a948000183a58e","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/05/V02_Thumbnail.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-05-16T15:13:20.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-05-17T11:56:59.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-05-17T09:01:22.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Today, we’re opening up registration for Startup School 2022, a live, online course where YC Group Partners and successful YC founders teach you how to build a billion dollar company.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71097","name":"Jared Friedman","slug":"jared-friedman","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Jared.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Jared is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. 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YC launched a co-founder matching platform about 3 months ago. There are now 16,000 co-founder profiles on the platform. Potential co-founders have sent 130,000 matching invites through the platform, and, with a 25% acceptance rate, we’ve seen a total of 33,000 matches.
We now have enough data to identify some interesting trends among our co-founder profiles and matches.
Who are the founders on our platform?
40% of profiles are from the U.S., with 60% representing another 145 countries.
42% identify as technical (i.e. “a programmer, scientist, or engineer who can build the product without outside assistance”).
43% are working full-time (40+ hours/week) on their startup, 22% are part-time (20-40 hours/week), and the remaining spend <20 hours/week on their startup.
Of the founders who are not currently working on a startup, 47% plan to start in the next 3 months, and another 21% plan to start in the next 6 months.
13% identify as a woman.
What do founders care about?
We give founders the option to mark their preferences for a co-founder across several attributes, including:
Whether they are technical
Areas of skill (Product, Design, Engineering, Sales and Marketing, Operations)
Their level of time commitment over the next few weeks (40+ hours/week, 20-40 hours/week, or less)
Their location
Whether they have shared interests (e.g. B2B/Enterprise, Biotech, etc.)
Founders also indicate how important each attribute is: whether it’s a must-have, whether they have a preference but are flexible, or whether they don’t care at all.
The two most important attributes: 79% of founders care that their co-founder can commit a certain number of hours over the next few weeks, and 74% of founders prefer to have shared interests with their co-founder. However, only 15% and 13% see these attributes as must-haves, respectively.
The least important attribute? 50% of founders don’t care where their co-founder is located, perhaps a sign of the (newly remote) times.
What industries are founders interested in?
Each founder can select interests from the following list: Agriculture/Agtech, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (ARVR), B2B/Enterprise, Biomedical/Biotech, Blockchain, Consumer, E-Commerce, Education/Edtech, Energy, Entertainment, Financial/Fintech, Government, Hardware, Hard Tech, Healthcare, Marketplace, Non-Profit.
The top 6 most popular interests:
B2B/Enterprise (36% of founders indicate interest)
Consumer (34%)
AI (34%)
Marketplace (32%)
Fintech (29%)
E-Commerce (29%)
Most founders select several interests; the median number of interests selected is 3. Interestingly, the most popular interests among founders who pick only 1 interest look different:
B2B/Enterprise (17%)
Fintech (13%)
Edtech (12%)
Consumer (11%)
Healthcare (7%)
AI (7%)
What skills are founders interested in?
Founders on the co-founder matching platform can claim responsibility in five areas of skill: Product, Design, Engineering, Sales and Marketing, Operations.
65% of founders do Product
57% of founders do Operations
52% of founders do Sales and Marketing
37% of founders do Design
31% of founders do Engineering
Here’s what founders want from their co-founder:
62% of founders prefer a co-founder who does Engineering
42% of founders prefer a co-founder who does Product
39% of founders prefer a co-founder who does Design
37% of founders prefer a co-founder who does Sales and Marketing
28% of founders prefer a co-founder who does Operations
Engineers seem to be in high demand. Among founders who do not do Engineering, 80% prefer a co-founder who does Engineering. Even engineers themselves are looking for more engineers: 44% of Engineering founders prefer a co-founder who does Engineering.
Engineers are also looking for complementary skills though: 74% of Engineering founders prefer a co-founder who does Sales and Marketing, and 53% of Engineering founders prefer a co-founder who does Operations.
Who’s actually matching?
Founders on the platform have an average of 3.6 matches per person.
Engineers on the platform have an average of 4.8 matches per person.
Founders who aren’t married to an idea have an average of 5.1 matches per person.
The majority of matches (68%) are made up of a technical founder paired with a non-technical founder. A bigger majority of matches (72%) are made up of founders with at least one shared interest. An even greater portion of matches (73%) are made up of a founder with an idea they’re working on paired with a founder not glued to an idea.
55% of matches comprise founders located in the same country. 69% of matches are between founders in the same continent, and 61% of matches are composed of founders located within 3 time zones of each other. The rest, apparently, are from all over the world.
73% of matches contain at least one full-time founder, and 92% of matches contain at least one founder who is “active” (working on a startup idea now) rather than “aspiring” (plan to work on a startup later).
Finally, it seems that founders on the site are extremely active: 75% of all matches are accepted within 4.5 days of the initial invitation, and 50% of matches are accepted within 22 hours. Of the matches where founders indicate having met up either online or in person, 50% met within 6.2 days.
Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.
Katherine Bernstein
Katherine is a Product Engineer at Y Combinator, working on the Startup School team. Prior to YC, she was a co-founder and software engineer at OpenLattice.
