The YC Stack for Starting a Startup

Starting a company? Take the YC stack challenge.

Runs Your Company on the Blood of YC Founders

First stage

Wake up and make it to your desk with WakeMate (S09).

Open up your soul and record the struggles with OhLife (S10), or Everday.me (S12).

Don't let your files get destroyed with Dropbox (S07).

Reduce your time reading Hacker News with RescueTime (W08).

Write your world domination outlines on Workflowy (S10).

Save your short notes with Simplenote (S10).

Or host your notes on Hackpad (W12).

Work out what customers want with Wufoo (W06).

Search for more answers on what to build with Survata (S12).

Whip up a site with Weebly (W07).

Alternatively, easily create a site with Easel (S12).

Too few animations on your site? Try Tumult Hype (W11).

Or just make your site in Photoshop with the help of Markupwand (S12).

Or simply create a single page site with Strikingly (W13).

Coding? What's that? Become a CTO in no time on Codecademy (S11).

Write your code in Light Table (S12).

And then make an interactive Javascript app with Meteor.js (S11).

Include a file picker with Ink File Picker (S12).

Host your own with Heroku (W08).

And manage your MongoDB with MongoHQ (S11).

Or deploy anything on dotCloud (S10).

Or forget the backend, and just use Firebase (S11).

Research your contacts with Rapportive (S10).

Compare code and text with Kaleidoscope (W11).

Have your struggle published for all to read, or just find some readings to pass the time with Hyperink (W11).

Make someone else do your work with MobileWorks (S11).

Learn to be lean with the Lean Startup Machine (S12).

Instantly receive your groceries, so you really never have to leave the house. Thanks to Instacart (S12).

We launched.

Discover who dislikes you with Disqus (S07).

Produce real time polls with Poll Everywher (S08).

Create a contest with ContestMachine (S08).

Welcome your customers dollars with WePay (S09).

Open your ears to customers with Olark (S09).

Magically discover insights from your site with Mixpanel (S09).

Deal out recommendations with DirectedEdge (S09).

Find loyal customers with 500friends (W10).

Start selling with Stripe (S10).

Telephones are still used for calling. Get a phone system with TellFi (W11) or SendHub (W12).

Manage mail servers for your company with Mailgun (W11).

Put your mobile app backend on Parse (S11).

Monitor the competitions marketing with MixRank (S11).

B2B SaaS company? Find customers with Zillabyte (W12).

Collect credit cards now and charge later with Celery (S12).

Serious business

Seek out seriously skilled hackers with Startuply (S08).

Arrange your offsites with Airbnb (W09).

Optimize your site with Optimizely (W10).

Instantly track your accounting with inDinero (S10).

Get to the top of Google with GinzaMetrics (S10).

Manage meetings online with Meetings.io (W11).

Capture your customers for life with Custora (W11).

Coerce your customers into becoming your marketing team with Curebit (W11).

Build a Facebook store with Beetailer (W11).

Scare your customers with your knowledge of them, thanks to Zenbox (S11).

Synchronize your team with Siasto (S11).

Produce an awesome video with Videopixie (S11).

Be privy to client-side Javascript errors with Proxino (S11).

Interview intelligently with Interviewstreet (S11).

Involve users in the future of your product with Interstate (S11).

Find office space with 42floors (W12).

Simplify paying your staff with ZenPayroll (W12).

Add sweet search to your site with Swiftype (W12).

Hire marketers, busdev people, customer service reps and more with HireArt (W12).

Explore business automation possibilities with Zapier (S12).

Make your video viral with Virool (S12).

Receive and manage submissions of content (e.g. applications, blog posts, compeition entries) with Submittable (S12).

Start analyzing data like a pro with Statwing (S12) or Fivetran (W13).

Plug voice and SMS into your apps with Plivio (S12).

Start insuring your employees with SimplyInsured (W13).

Manage logins to all of your business apps and tools with Meldium (W13).

Laws suck, so talk to a lawyer with Lawdingo (W13).

Go analytics-happy and record every data point with Heap (W13).

Begin downloading apps and tools for your server. No, they don't have Angry Birds. BitNami (W13).

Now I'm a big boy.

Scale your SQL databases with Clustrix (W06).

Distribute your databases with Cloudant (S07).

Re-engineer your databases with RethinkDB (S09).

And then arrange a vacation with your new found welath with Adioso (W09).

Or how about Hipmunk (S10)?

Find out if you have a delay with FlightCaster (S09).

Protect your servers with PagerDuty (S10).

Learn from the data to make decisions with Leftronic (S10).

Find out where to invest your money with FutureAdvisor (S10).

Control and optimize your social media marketing with Crowdbooster (S10).

Chart your big numbers with Chartio (S10).

Simplify feeding your employees with ZeroCater (W11).

Start managing your team with Siasto (W11).

Manage huge databases for analytics with MemSQL (W11).

Learn about conferences where you can start spending your accumulated cash with Lanyrd (W11).

Have clients in the old ages? Fax with HelloFax (W11).

Achieve enterprise agility (oxymoronic?) with Acunote (W11).

Videos are cool, but video analytics make you money. With Vidyard (S11).

Procure smart data on your social media marketing with PageLever (S11).

Monitor press releases, SEC filings, patents and trademarks with MarketBrief (S11).

Find all the conversions possible with Freshplum (S11).

Easily get your errands done with Exec (W12).

Create a job posting that attracts engineers with coderwall (W12).

Appeal to your employees wishes with AnyPerk (W12).

Perfect your Facebook marketing strategy and retarget with Perfect Audience (S12).

Manage mobile advertising with mth sense (S12).

Add two factor authentication with Authy (S12).

Outsouce benefits, payroll and HR with Zenefits (W13).

Time to make some swag with Teespring (W13).

Easily record errors and performance with Errplane (W13).

Lastly.

Building a startup is hard. I was amazed how many of Y Combinators companies were dead.

So, in lieu of that: Generate a resume, and find a job with JobSpice (S09).

Don't have any skills after all of that? Hack for a few months at Hacker School (S10).

Did you work too hard and ignore your partner? Wed again in no time after you go through Wevorce (W13).

On the chance everything went well, put your new cash to use in other companies with Wefunder (W13).

What did I learn building this.

YC has funded a lot of companies.

Companies targeting consumers (as opposed to businesses) definitely had a lower chance of still being alive. Why is everyone still attacking the consumer web?

I'm going to take this and expand it.

Firstly - I wasn't in a very serious mood when I built this, hence some of the taglines. These are all awesome companies.

My next steps.

Learn from the dead startups

Interview the failed. Sign up to tell me that you want to get these emails at some point in the future. (if you want to read the emails, you should sign up - I won't put them online straight away)

I'm going to build this out.

Make a better listing

• A proper, easier to navigate directory of services relevant to starting companies (not just YC)

Interview YC companies for super-short insights

• Interviews with the companies on extremely short and actionable insights at a few different stages of startups (e.g. naming, incorporating, promoting via word of mouth, promoting on twitter, etc). No long form BS. Just actions and to-do items.

If either of those sound appealing, be the first to learn when this cool stuff comes into existence.