Feb 23, 2015 · 22m · y-combinator
YC Panel at Female Founders Conference 2015 · Y Combinator
Jessica Livingston · 5m spoken Kat Manalac · 5m spoken Kirsty Nathoo · 3m spoken Kate Courteau · 2m spoken Carolynn Levy · 2m spoken Elizabeth Iorns · 1m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
At the Y Combinator Female Founders Conference 2015, a panel of YC partners provides actionable guidance on application best practices, co-founder dynamics, hardware and biotech funding, and overcoming self-doubt in entrepreneurship.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The partners as informed peer 3.3 Guest teaching 1.0 Guest disagreement 0.2 The partners pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is the partners, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 10:16 Jessica rejects premise on female founder problem spaces
Jessica bluntly answers 'I don't really' when asked whether women start different kinds of companies, dispelling the stereotype immediately.
Hardest push from the partners ▶ 10:51 Kat restates question on excitement for female foundersWhen Jessica asks for clarification, Kat quickly clarifies and restates the question to focus on the future impact of more women entering YC.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 9:37 Carolyn explains common founder misconceptions on equityCarolyn clearly breaks down why founders err by rewarding past contributions instead of focusing on the immense future work required.
The partners hold their own ▶ 13:30 Kat presents crunched demographic dataKat demonstrates clear command of the batch by citing specific calculated figures regarding the youngest, oldest, and average founder ages.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The partners as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The partners pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting a Successful YC Application and Interview | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Kat facilitates audience questions about what makes a compelling YC application and how non-profits fit into the model. The panelists offer advice on clarity and domain expertise in a fully collaborative setting. | |
| Navigating Hardware, Health, and Biotech Startups | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Kat brings up specific hardware portfolio examples like Bellabeat and mentions PlanGrid when discussing co-founding with spouses. Panelists agreeably share personal experiences about balancing marriage and startups. | |
| Determining Equity Splits Between Co-Founders | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Kirstie and Carolyn explain why early equity splits should be equal and forward-looking. Jessica gently rejects the premise of an audience question by noting that female founders apply across all the same industries as men. | |
| Advice and Realities for Solo Founders | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Kat shares precise, newly crunched batch statistics regarding founder age ranges. Jessica complements this with historic portfolio data while the panel discusses the unique hurdles of solo founders. | |
| Overcoming Self-Doubt and Owning Accomplishments | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Kat asks how founders can overcome reluctance around self-promotion. Jessica and Kirstie offer constructive advice on owning one's technical achievements and practicing pitches. | |
| Personal Motivations and What Makes YC Work Inspiring | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Kat and all panelists share closing reflections on what inspires them about working at YC, highlighting community mutual support and ambitious technical projects. |
Statements from this episode (13)
Courteau: The best YC applications articulate ideas concisely
“I think really, truly, the thing that makes a really good application is the ability to articulate your idea in a very concise manner.”
Livingston: YC seeks domain experts solving severely broken problems
“The other thing in terms of content that we get really excited about is if you're trying to solve a problem that's, like, hugely broken and has just a huge market opportunity, and you're a domain expert in that area.”
Courteau: YC Evaluates Nonprofits Exactly Like For-Profit Startups
“Really, truly, I think that we
Look for the exact same things in a non-profit team that we look for in a for-profit team”
Iorns: Biotech is one of the most exciting venture spaces right now
“I think one of the most exciting spaces at the moment is biotech and is the opportunity for young entrepreneurs who actually made those discoveries to actually be funded and be able to take those discoveries forward”
Livingston: Y Combinator funds many husband-and-wife co-founding teams
“So many of the people we fund are husbands and wives.”
Livingston: Separate functional domains help married co-founders avoid competition
“We didn't do the same things, so we weren't competitive, and I think that that was useful. We were always sort of trying to make YC better, but because we did different things, we, you know, had our own domains, and that was probably good for our marriage.”
Nathu: Startup co-founders should generally split equity more or less equally
“We generally say that equity should be split more or less equally between co-founders. That doesn't necessarily mean exactly equally, But we generally find that where there is an equity split that's very mismatched, you know, one founder has 90% and the other …”
Levy: Co-founder equity should default to equal rather than reward past work
“I think a mistake that founders make is that they come to the equity discussion, and they're only looking backwards. They're thinking about who had the idea, and who worked the longest on it at the beginning, and who has the MBA, and who's going to be CEO, and…”
Manalac: YC is seeing many women apply in biotech and hardware
“In the past, you know, batch reading through applications, we've, we saw a lot of women applying with biotech companies and hardware, and you're seeing a pretty diverse range of companies come through”
Nathu: YC accepts proportionally fewer solo founder applicants
“We don't accept that many proportionally to the numbers that apply because there's so much to do in a startup.”
Manalac: The average age of YC founders in this batch is 30
“I actually just crunched the numbers on this batch, and the average age of YC founders in this batch currently is around 30.”