Actually one of the surprising things I've noticed is how many good startups decided at the last moment to apply. I believe there have been some that only decided in the last couple hours.
Do you have any feeling for why good startups are applying at the last moment? Two possibilities which immediately come to mind are (a) these startups are founded by amazing people who have lots of different options, and they only decided at the last minute that doing a startup was something they wanted to do; and (b) these startups were going to happen and be successful with or without YC, and they only realized at the last minute that YC had something useful to offer them.
I'm not saying that the better a startup is, the later they apply. Just that the set of people who decide to apply at the last minute includes some who are good.
I think the reason for this is a mundane one: people in their early 20s have flexible lives.
I suspect of e.g. people who visit Finland, the ones who end up staying for a year or more include some proportion who only decided to go at the last minute.
I'm not saying that the better a startup is, the later they apply. Just that the set of people who decide to apply at the last minute includes some who are good.
Oh, I must have misunderstood what you meant. I interpreted "one of the surprising things I've noticed is how many good startups decided at the last moment to apply" to mean that there was a positive correlation between "good startups" and "decided at the last moment to apply".
How about (c) the founders of these startups were already really busy with their projects when they (barely) got around to applying? I don't know how far along YC startups typically are when they apply, but it seems plausible that the ones that are already moving have an advantage in explaining their idea and situation.
Me too:-) Although I've begun thinking about the feasibility of applying for next winter's cycle if I can round up someone suitable to work with. We've had it with Innsbruck, and going back to Italy may not be very feasible, so that leaves the US... and maybe a chance to apply for YC.
Interesting; I've only visited Innsbruck, never lived there long term but it seemed like a lovely city. What don't you like about it, if you don't mind me asking? (I'm in Vienna)
The weather, breathing other people's smoke, not many people to interact with, let alone other hackers - although this is exacerbated by my own lack of German language skills. If you actually had contact information in your profile, I'd write you to talk more about Austria:-)
Wow, I love the Austrian weather. Living in the UK for 5 years was terrible in that respect. It probably helps if you're into winter sports. I guess the "other hackers" issue is just as bad anywhere I've lived so far.
Smoking: yeah, that totally sucks. Well, if this government gets its ass into gear that won't be an issue for much longer. Fingers crossed.
Hah, yeah, good point. :) My friend's girlfriend is from Leipzig and when she first moved to Austria she was almost reduced to tears after completely failing to communicate to a shopkeeper what she wanted. Everyday words tend to be very different. And then of course there's Swiss German - I once tried watching Swiss TV and failed completely.
Swiss German is for all intents and purposes a different language -- it's nearly as far away from German as Dutch. It has different grammar. This is confusing at times because the Swiss write Hochdeutsch but that's not the language that they use to communicate in. Comparatively Austrian German is rather paletable. :-)
Out of curiosity, do you take into account when they started filling out the application (perhaps when a first draft is saved, or when new users signed up)? We started filling it out about a week before the deadline, and I'm pretty sure we didn't submit it until right before the deadline.
