As a recent alumnus (S16), I encourage everyone to apply.

Not as good as past companies? Apply.

Don't see any companies like you? Apply.

Don't see other founders that look like you? Apply.

You're not quite ready and just need a few more months to polish things up? Apply.

Too big for YC? Apply.

Your company is starting to maybe figure things out, but also secretly kind of fucked up, but you think maybe you can pull it together and apply when you're a well-oiled machine like No Startup Ever? Apply.

Even the application process itself is helpful to learn the metrics you should be tracking and to get used to talking about your company.

Would be interesting to see a histogram of % acceptance rate for YC applicants by number of weeks before deadline -- 0-1 week, 1-2 weeks, etc, up to when applications are opened.

I thought of this idea recently. Something to connect voters with people living in swing states. So that they could use the address of those people to go vote. For instance PA is very close to NY and Nevada is very close to CA, and so on. So people could vote in near by states where their vote would make a difference once they got the address of someone in a swing state. Because you can't register to vote using a po box or private mail box.

I came up with an idea yesterday, perhaps someone can do something with it as my life isn't at a place where I would do YC right now and applying today would be a bit short notice... but if you wanted to apply, and were looking for a strong idea, maybe this is it.

What is it?

- A tithe manager.

Tithes are a historical donation of a % of earnings to charity, many religions have this but many non-religious people donate to charity too on an equally regular basis. The monthly amount is fairly consistent but sometimes one may wish to vary the amount that goes to which causes.

What this company will do:

- Act as an intermediary between donors and charities

- Encourage people to give more to charity (help with accounting of donations and claiming of tax relief as applicable)

- Help charities to be discovered by donors

What the company's product would do:

- Receive the whole amount to be donated each period

- Pay each charity according to the donor preferences (this much here, that much there)

- Provide end-of-year reporting for government tax claims, and instructions on how to claim, or auto-filing if it makes sense (where govts allow this claim to be filed separately)

- Allow the donor to change these figures easily, i.e. during the Ebola crisis I put a higher % of my tithe towards Medicins Sans Frontiers.

- Provide alerts on crises

- Provide marketing services to charities (to help be discovered, but also to keep existing donors informed of what their donation is doing)

Size of market: In the UK alone, some GBP 14BN is donated by individuals annually.

Benefit to donor: In the UK, for every £100 donated via a Gift Aid registered charity, the charity will receive an extra £25 and if you are a higher rate taxpayer you are eligible for £25 in tax relief. The vast majority of these donors never claim their tax relief and do not realise how far their donations go nor that this would only really have been a £75 donation for a £125 gain for the charity.

Benefit to charity: Reduced marketing costs, know who your donors are, able to react at times of crises, increased revenue.

That's the idea, to handle payments and manage donor accounting such that donors can be encouraged to give more, and charities can do more.

Any stats on applicant apply date relative to the deadline and the acceptance rate?

I've heard that earlier applications give more time for alums (who review submissions) to check out the demos. On the flip side, spending more time on polishing the application could help as well.