The YC Startup Launch Checklist

1. Find a real problem

Make sure you're solving a painful problem for a specific person.

1. Write the problem in one sentence, from the user's point of view: Keep it concrete. "Solo SaaS founders can't tell which feature requests matter" beats "founders struggle with product."
2. Name the first user segment narrowly: Not "founders" but "solo SaaS founders without a technical cofounder." You can widen later; you cannot start wide.
3. Test for urgency: Are people already hacking together workarounds, paying for imperfect tools, or complaining in public? If not, it may be a nice-to-have.
4. List how people solve it today: Spreadsheets, agencies, a competitor, doing nothing. Your real competition is the current workaround.
5. Write a one-line "why now": What changed - technology, cost, regulation, behavior - that makes this possible or urgent today?
6. Name your riskiest assumption: The one belief that kills the idea if it's wrong. Your first experiments should test it.

2. Talk to users

Replace guesses with real stories before you build.

1. Talk to 5-10 potential users in conversation, not surveys: You want stories about what they did last time the problem hit, not opinions about your idea.
2. Ask "How do you solve this today?" and "What did that cost you?": Workarounds and wasted time or money show the pain is real.
3. Don't pitch: Once you describe your solution, people get polite. Keep the conversation on their problem.
4. Probe willingness to pay: Ask what they pay for today and what they would stop using. Compliments are not commitments.
5. Write down 3 takeaways after every call: Look for patterns repeated across people, not one loud request.

3. Build the smallest MVP

Ship the smallest version that proves the core value.

1. Cut most of your feature list: Keep only what proves the core value. Every extra feature delays learning.
2. Define the one action a user must complete: Everything in the MVP should lead to it.
3. Ship in days, not months: No-code, spreadsheets, or doing it by hand behind the scenes are all fine. The goal is learning, not engineering.
4. Set a success bar before you launch: For example, "5 users complete the core action twice in a week." Decide in advance what counts as a pass.

4. Get your first users

Recruit by hand, then measure growth week over week.

1. Recruit your first 10 users one by one: DM people who described the problem, post in the communities where they gather, ask the people you interviewed.
2. Onboard early users personally: Watch them use the product. Every confusion is a bug in the product or the message.
3. Pick one metric and track it weekly: Revenue if you charge, active users if you do not. Paul Graham puts a good growth rate during YC at 5-7% a week.
4. Write down what you learned and what you changed each week: Insights are useless until they change what you build.

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

• Use clear, specific language that accurately describes your product or service. Avoid jargon and vague terms.
• Identify what sets your company apart and include that in the description. This helps quickly communicate your unique selling proposition.
• Ideally, it should be clear for whom and which problem your product solves.
• Count the characters: the limit is 50, including spaces.
• Use phrasing like "Airbnb for X" only if everyone would know the company you are referencing.

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Company url, if any:

• If you don't have a website you can build one in 1–2 days without coding using tools like Framer. There are many good templates available for free.
• Benefits of having a website: communicating your idea clearly, easier for readers to understand what you're building, and you can put a waitlist or booking form to start accumulating potential customers.

If you have a demo, attach it below.

• If you have an MVP, spend time to make a short 60–90 second demo video. It helps reviewers understand what your company does and shows you can build.

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

• Expand your 50-character description with more details.
• It should be clear who your customer is, what problem they have, and how exactly your product solves it.
• Share your long-term vision in a single sentence.
• Keep it under 5 sentences.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

• YC batches run in person in San Francisco. Say plainly where you will be; if the business needs a different location, explain why.

How far along are you?

• Provide a brief description of the company's current state using facts and numbers, ideally in a 3–5 bullet point list. Avoid fluff.
• If you have revenue or other strong indicators like users or LOIs, list them first.
• Be honest; don't present the company better than it is. Don't say 1000 users if it's 1000 installs. Don't claim LOIs if there are no signed papers. Don't state great retention without specifying it's only on paid customers.
• If you have made little progress, don't hide behind a wall of fluff or lots of research and customer interviews - it can look worse, not better.

How long have each of you been working on this? How much of that has been full-time? Please explain.

• Ideally all cofounders are working full-time. Having left a strong job to work on the startup is a green flag - it shows you are serious.

How many active users or customers do you have? How many are paying? Who is paying you the most, and how much do they pay you?

• Answer each part of the question. Each response should contain factual numbers.

Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you're making?

• Write one sentence on what inspired you to solve that problem.
• If you have experience in the domain, sell your team's expertise in 1–2 sentences.
• Use facts and numbers to support that people care: payments, product usage, LOIs, customer interviews, etc. (1–2 sentences).

Who are your competitors? What do you understand about your business that they don't?

• List a few of your most promising competitors. If there are no direct competitors, list companies whose products are currently used to solve the user's problem.
• Show how you are different and why it makes sense.

How do or will you make money? How much could you make?

• Briefly recap your business model and provide a Total Addressable Market (TAM) calculation.
• Two effective ways to show the idea is big: (a) calculate TAM, or (b) show what % of the market you need to capture to generate $100M annual revenue.
• Use a bottom-up approach: TAM = (number of potential customers) × (average cost of your service per customer per year).
• Ideally show a clear path to $100M ARR so the company can be considered a unicorn.

Please describe the breakdown of the equity ownership in percentages among the founders, employees and any other stockholders.

• Every founder should be essential. Giving a cofounder just 10% can signal they might not be motivated when things get tough. YC advice: aim for roughly equal equity splits.

If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them. One may be something we've been waiting for. Often when we fund people it's to do something they list here and not in the main application.

• YC sometimes prefers an alternative idea you list here. Add a few other promising ideas you have considered.
• Consider: 50-character description of the idea + 1 sentence behind that idea.