[paul]

Please don't let the lack of a cofounder discourage you from applying. It's definitely a huge help to have a good cofounder, but we accept great founders regardless. There's a tendency for people to want to reduce the world to black-and-white rules like, "yc doesn't accept single founders", but it simply isn't true. We are specifically looking for outliers, so any such rule would be a huge mistake (because the big hits are, by definition, exceptions).

[vagab0ndk1ng]

Thank you for that! What makes you believe that someone or something is an outlier? How much of it is a gut feeling versus observable data, for example?

[paul]

No two are the same, but generally a good sign is if they have outlier behavior in their past. For example, if you won a gold medal in the Olympics, there's a good chance that you would at least get an interview -- the level of determination and persistence required to accomplish something like that would definitely be helpful in founding a startup. (that said, I don't know that we've ever actually funded an Olympian) A more common example would be creating a popular open source project (e.g. the creator of Sails.js is in the current batch).

[loceng]

Just read your Wiki page. The quote under "Other interests" really resonates with me. A few blog posts of mine you might like - http://mattamyers.tumblr.com/post/78764544562/profit-has-no-... and http://mattamyers.tumblr.com/post/72715425291/capitalism-and... - I'd love to hear your thoughts here or on the posts. Thank you.

[loceng]

Hi Paul. I applied last time with a video with the team, however with updated rules (they own less than 10% each) then they're not supposed to be in application video; I started my company many years ago and small team relatively recently joined as relating to the equity. I don't have time to redo an application video, and with a comment on HN from someone at YC during last application process - applying early increased chances of being selected, meaning once startups selected for interview that the application process still remains open - the odds feel negligible. Any thoughts?

[giftgaming]

Thanks for clarifying, Paul. I feel this is the one disadvantage I have in my YC application; being a sole founder.