Firstly - congratulations on your company's success and fundraising round.

As for the AMA, I'm curious of the differences you see in YC between now and 7 years ago.

There are some obvious ones, like larger class sizes, more partners, different funding amounts.

But YC is way more popular now, some of its earlier companies have had tremendous success, and I'm sure YC partners have learned a lot in 7 years of what works well and what doesn't. So I'm quite interested in how their strategy has changed in 7 years from the point of view of a startup founder. Eg, is there a different relative focus on building customer base vs product development, or a different view on accepting VC funding, etc? Are the office hours more intense, and does YC expect more progress faster throughout the program?

Cheers and thanks for offering the AMA!

The other day they had a YC Alumni party and Jessica Livingston, my wife (+Tipjoy Cofounder), and I were chatting. The general sentiment is "OMG 7 Years!"

Yes, the obvious things are obvious: much bigger and more advanced. The reputation has improved. The process is more solidified.

Much of the advice is part of my DNA now when it comes to how to build companies. So when I hear it, the ideas are reinforcing rather than new. I can easily predict how a VC might answer a question, for example, about their process, what they look for, etc.

So the big difference is what I'm looking for out of YC. I want more anecdotes and operational details to enrich my understanding of how to build a great company.

Beyond that, one difference is how they need to treat the batchmates. They have warnings about what not to do that sound like they are talking to children. I think "why would anyone do that?!" when hearing the warning of what not to do. It turns out that at scale you see a lot, so they warn against things they've seen. Surprising, but true.

Another difference is that a lot of the speakers are YC alumni. I think they can commiserate and tell more interesting stories than people that have been very established and rich for a very long time.

Another difference, related to size, is that I don't know everyone. This is a pretty big difference but I end up talking to a few people repeatedly, making a closer connection.

I could go on, but I think this should probably be a blog post :)

Interesting, thanks for that!

I for one would be interested in reading a more detailed blog post if you are able to get to it.

Cheers!

[Disclosure - I work at YesGraph] What are some lessons learned from Tipjoy (YC W08) that you're applying here or doing differently with running YesGraph?

I got into growth because my first startup didn't grow. I became obsessed. So there is that.

Overall the core advice is the same. I just listen to it and apply it better. This post gets it right: http://blog.samaltman.com/startup-advice-briefly

I also find myself giving this advice to others, including YC batchmates. The hard part is being diligent in applying it.

The first TechCrunch launch for Tipjoy was when we turned the product on. And were were traveling, so we were fixing bugs in the airport. Don't couple your press launch with your product launch, kids

So, yeah, not making that mistake this time :)

What other applications do you see your user referral recommendations applying to?

I think of YesGraph applying whenever a user takes an operation over their contacts. Invites, sharing, referrals etc.

For B2B that can be a collaborative software for companies like Slack, Yammer, or a tool a team uses like CRM. For consumer, invite flows to add friends on an app have a lot of room for optimization.

The idea is based on what pioneering social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn have done with tools like People You May Know (PYMK). They drove an incredibly amount of performance improvements.

We want to bring that kind of insight everywhere.