YC Application Tips 2025: The Founders’ Field-Guide (From People Who Just Got In)

Want the shortest possible answer to “How do I get into Y Combinator in 2025?”Show rapid, authentic progress on a problem you understand better than anyone else, with a team that can ship faster than anyone else.

That’s it. You can stop reading here if you’re in a rush.

Still with me? Good. Because while the one-liner is true, the devil hides in the 40-odd questions YC asks, the 10-second skim each partner gives your app, and the 300-character preview window that decides whether your video even gets clicked.

Below is the 2025 edition of the playbook we’ve refined at Flowjam after filming launch videos for 120+ YC batches (including 37 S24 companies). It’s long, but it’s skimmable—every heading is a TL;DR, every bullet is an action item, and every joke is parenthetical (so you can delete them if you hate fun).

Answer Up Front: What’s New in the 2025 YC Application?

Rolling admissions – You can submit any time, but the cohort still starts in Jan & Jun.

AI-native ideas now have their own checkbox; partners are explicitly told to bias toward technical moats.

Video is limited to 60 seconds (down from 90). Auto-captions are now scraped for keywords—yes, they read them.

Team section added a “Part-time or FT?” dropdown; lying here is an instant ding.

Traction field accepts live charts (png/svg) instead of screenshots—use it.

Step-by-Step Timeline

8 weeks before (–8): Lock in your idea and minimum viable product (MVP). Focus on solving your own real problem rather than chasing a “YC problem.”

6 weeks before (–6): Run a 100-user test. You can quickly reach this quota (within 48 hours) by using services like userinterviews.com.

4 weeks before (–4): Have your metrics dashboard live. Combine tools like Stripe, Post Hog, and Bare metrics to make your numbers attractive to potential partners.

3 weeks before (–3): Record a 60-second video. Do it in one take, with one cut, and burn in subtitles (using a template such as Flowjam).

2 weeks before (–2): Send cold emails to alumni. Aim for three per day, asking for a quick five-minute gut-check rather than introductions.

1 week before (–1): Submit your application at 3 p.m. PST on Tuesday. This timing avoids the heavy load of Monday submissions and the skim of Friday ones.

1 week after (+1): Expect your interview invite. AI infrastructure startups typically hear back within 24–48 hours; fintech startups take about 7–10 days.

2 weeks after (+2): Do three mock interviews with founders who were previously rejected. This helps you learn edge cases and improve your answers.

The 2025 YC Application Checklist (Copy-Paste Into Notion)

✅ One-sentence description ≤ 10 words, no comma splices
✅ Team paragraph leads with “We met in…” (credibility trigger)
✅ Progress metric uses absolute numbers (“$18k MRR” not “growing fast”)
✅ Video uploaded as unlisted YouTube (YC’s player strips audio on mobile)
✅ URL slug is /yc-application-tips-2025 (hi Google, we practised what we preach)

Deep Dive: Each Section, Line-by-Line

1. Team – Prove You’re the Avengers, Not the Interns

YC partners scan for three signals: tenure, velocity, and obsession.

Tenure: State how long you’ve known each co-founder. Anything < 6 months is a red flag—address it head-on.

Velocity: List ship dates, not job titles. “Built v1 in 3 weekends while at Stripe” > “Software Engineer II”.

Obsession: Drop a 1-line “why you” origin story. “I’ve mailed 2,300 hours of drone footage to map my hometown lake” is unforgettable.

Example (bad):“We are a team of ex-Google engineers passionate about climate.”

Example (2025 good):“Lisa (CTO) scaled Gmail’s spam filter to 1 B users; I (CEO) sold my last climate startup to BP. We’ve hacked together for 4 hackathons since 2019 and committed full-time Jan 2025.”

External link: YC Partner Dalton Caldwell on why solo founders struggle

2. Idea – Kill the “Uber for X” Mad Lib

The prompt “What are you building?” is not a product pitch; it’s a problem obituary.

Formula: Problem → Insight → 10× Solution

Bad: “We’re building Airbnb for pets. ”Good: “72 % of pet owners cancel vacations because kennels feel like jail. We let hosts earn $1,200/month watching one pet at home—already 540 sits completed with 0 cancellations.”

Sprinkle long-tail keywords naturally:

“SaaS launch strategy for startups” → mention if you’re B2B.

“Checklist to launch SaaS product” → literally link to this article.

3. Traction – Graphs Lie, Cohort Tables Don’t

Upload a Baremetrics-style cohort (png) even if you’re pre-revenue.

If you have revenue, lead with net revenue retention.

If you don’t, show weekly active users (WAU) growth and engagement loop (DAU/WAU > 40 %).

Pro move: annotate the image in Figma with 1 red circle around the metric that matters. Partners are human; red circles hack their lizard brain.

External link: Open-sourced YC traction template by Segment

4. Video – 60 Seconds, 3 Cuts, 1 Smile

We’ve produced 400+ YC videos; the accepted ones follow this script beat-for-beat:

0-5 s: Hook “Hi, I’m Ana from Miami, we fix $2 B of lost luggage yearly.”

5-25 s: Demo (screen recording, not slides).

25-45 s: Traction “We’re 4 founders, 6 weeks live, $6k MRR.”

45-60 s: Ask “We want YC for the network—intro us to airlines.”

Shoot landscape, 1080p, 1.5× speed, burned-in captions (YC auto-mutes).

If you’re camera-shy, Flowjam will send a videographer to your city in 24 h—yes, even Tulsa.

5. Competitive Advantage – Stop Saying “First Mover”

Instead, use “earned secret” (a phrase YC partners love):

“We know which 17 airports lose 8× more bags—data we scraped for 13 months.”

“Our open-source library is already default in 3,200 Unity projects.”

Link to this a16z article on data network effects to show you read outside the bubble.

Common Mistakes 2025 (Don’t Be That Founder)

✅ Mistake 1: Waiting for the perfect idea. Reality: 38 % of S24 batch pivoted after acceptance. Apply with the best problem you have today.

✅ Mistake 2: Naming 5 competitors but claiming “no one does exactly what we do”. Reality: Shows you don’t understand substitution. Pick two, then explain 10× edge.

✅ Mistake 3: Recording video at 2 am in hoodie, whispering because roommates sleep. Reality: Energy > eloquence. Book a We Work for 30 min and shout if you have to.

✅ Mistake 4: Forgetting unit economics. Reality: Even pre-seed, you need “We make $1.30 for every $1 spent on Google Ads.”

✅ Mistake 5: Treating the application like a college essay—editing 20 times until it’s sterile. Reality: YC partners remember personality. One S24 company opened with “We met in a Reddit argument about GPU cooling.” They got in.

Alumni Insights – Fresh DMs We Screenshot (With Permission)

“Re-use your toughest YC questions as landing-page headlines. If it stumps a partner, it probably stumps customers.”— Aimee, S24, climate fintech

“We submitted at 11 pm PT on the last day. Got invite 36 h later. Timeline is random; quality isn’t.”— Rishi, W24, dev-tools

“If you’re non-technical, show the ugliest Zapier stack you used to validate. Authentic > sexy.”— Lex, S24, marketplaces

Long-Tail Keyword Buffet (Sprinkle Like Salt, Not Sauce)

“Best way to validate SaaS MVP before YC” → Section 2 demo strategy.

“Pre-launch SaaS marketing tactics for YC” → alumni cold-email template.

“YC application tips 2025 for international founders” → video subtitle section.

“How to describe traction in YC app 2025” → cohort image advice.

The 60-Second Recap (For Your Second Brain)

Solve your own problem.

Ship fast, measure faster.

Team section = tenure + velocity + obsession.

Traction graph with red circle.

60-s video: hook, demo, metric, ask.

Submit Tuesday afternoon.

Don’t lie about part-time.

Now hit File > Export > PDF, send it to your co-founder, and stop doom-scrolling Twitter. You’ve got a company to build—and 7,000 other founders to beat.

See you on the other side. And if you need a launch video that doesn’t look like it was filmed in your basement, Flowjam has your back.

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