Ashby YC Application

Winter 2019Active

Ashby went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2019 batch as a B2B company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Winter 2019
Industry: B2BRecruiting and Talent
Team size: 110
Status: Active
Launched: 2022

Founders

Benjamin EnczFounder
Abhik PramanikCo-Founder & VP of Engineering

What Ashby does

At Ashby, we're improving the productivity of working professionals with intelligent and powerful software. We put a lot of effort into designing products that are approachable to beginners but mastered & extended by power users. In many ways, spreadsheets set the bar here. Our first products provide talent teams with clever automation, powerful analytics tools, and customizable workflows packaged in great UX. We have many paying customers who love us and use us every day like Opendoor, Airtable, Duolingo, and Notion. Notion's Head of Talent said Ashby is "probably the tool we are in the most and rely on the most, as a recruiting team." Our culture is motivated by Abhik's (my co-founder and Head of Engineering) and my belief that a small talented team, given the right environment, can build a great product and service fast (and work regular hours!). We hire exceptional, kind, thoughtful people and provide an environment where we can be happy, feel challenged, and do our best work. We are well funded and backed by great investors, including Y Combinator, Elad Gil, and Lachy Groom. We'll share more once we meet!

Ashby's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Ashby, Winter 2019 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Ashby

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

All-in-one recruiting platform

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We're building an all-in-one recruiting platform that helps talent teams with automation, analytics, and customizable workflows. Our first products are designed to be easy for beginners but powerful enough for expert users. Recruiting teams use our tools daily to track candidates, streamline hiring processes, and make better decisions.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

Abhik and Benjamin live in San Francisco, and the company is based there with a remote-friendly approach.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We're in San Francisco because it's where both of us live and where the recruiting tech community is active. We also support remote team members so we can hire the best people no matter where they are.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Ashby YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Ashby's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Ashby would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.