by Jessica Livingston11/15/2015

We are in the midst of YC interviews right now and I had a few bits of advicefor interviewees that I thought I’d publish while they are still top of mind (inno particular order):1. Don’t use buzzwords. Speak in plain language.2. Have a conversation with us. Don’t deliver a prewritten “pitch.”3. Sometimes we’ll want to see a demo, but most often we just want to talk aboutwhat you’re doing. If you rely on a demonstration to explain what you’re doing,that’s a bad sign.

by Jessica Livingston11/24/2014

We’re excited to launch Female Founder Stories, a collection of interviews with 40 of YCombinator’s female alumnae.  We asked them about things like how they gotstarted, their experience at Y Combinator, their experience as female founders,and what they wish they’d known when they were younger.  As you’ll see, theiranswers are fascinating, both individually and in their variety.

by Jessica Livingston8/12/2014

Sam wrote about this in his recent blog post, but I’ve found thatimportant and seemingly obvious things often bear repeating. So with Demo Dayapproaching, I’d like to make the following point explicit:Y Combinator has a zero tolerance policy for inappropriate sexual or romanticbehavior from investors toward founders.Don’t even think about doing it. I will find out. Y Combinator will not continueto work with you.

by Jessica Livingston8/5/2014

See the fill infographic here.

by Jessica Livingston7/25/2014

> Most people would much rather donate money to help others than they would donatetheir time and energy. Getting people to volunteer can be one of the mostdifficult challenges a community builder can face. How about getting 17,000people to volunteer? Think you can take that on?That’s exactly what 7 Cups of Tea did. And as a community of “active listeners,”they did much more than get people to volunteer.

by Jessica Livingston1/21/2014

I’m delighted to announce that Kat Manalac, Kirsty Nathoo, Carolynn Levy and Iare hosting Y Combinator’s first Female Founders Conferenceon Saturday, March 1. We’re going to gathertogether female founders at all stages to share stories, give advice, and makeconnections. The original idea was to make this an event where female YC alumni shared theirexperiences.