We Just Thought, 'This Is How You Start a Company in America'
"We started in January 2012, and may still be the only Asian YC founders ever."<p>So that is not true. 9gag is from Hong Kong. Semantics3 is from Singapore. Strikingly is from China. Memebox is from Korea. Cleartax is from India. Those are just off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more.<p>That being said, I actually would love to see more Asian startups applying to Y Combinator. We should be funding one from each country EVERY batch, not just averaging one per batch. I've made several trips to Asia now talking with startups to try and better understand how YC can do a better job and what is it about their ecosystem that makes the Asian startup scene so different. For example, I did office hours with over 60 Japanese startups trying to understand why it feels different over there. What surprised me the most was how much we take for granted here in the US about our startup ecosystem and values.<p>My plan is to write this all down in depth soon and figure out what actionable things can be done by YC to help. Stories from companies like AnyPerk help, but so much more needs to be done by us to reach out to founders out there.