Booktrope YC Application

Winter 2015Inactive

Booktrope went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2015 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 2015
Industry: B2BMarketing
Team size: 51
Status: Inactive
Launched: 2014

Founders

Kenneth ShearFounder/CEO
Andy RobertsFounder/CTO
Katherine SearsFounder/CMO

What Booktrope does

** NO LONGER IN BUSINESS ** Booktrope is reinventing the way books are published. We are not a self-publishing operation. What does that mean? At Booktrope we do not charge authors to publish nor do we accept all submissions. We have pioneered a concept called “Team Publishing” which addresses the way books are actually developed, not just the way they are distributed and read. We offer print, ebook, and web versions of all our books, in other words, we are format agnostic. We don’t want to debate the death of print books, or the birth of ebooks, we love and support them all. A typical Publishing Team consists of an author, editor, designer and business/marketing manager for the book. You don’t get assigned projects in our system; you choose the people you work with. We work much more quickly than traditional publishers, taking advantage of new technologies to streamline the process of getting books into the hands of readers. Lastly, we use that same technology to keep overhead low, and we think that the bulk of the revenue from book sales should go back to the creative team that makes them happen.

Booktrope's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Booktrope, Winter 2015 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Booktrope

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Software platform for collaborative book publishing

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

We built a platform that makes it easy for authors, editors, designers, and marketing managers to form teams and publish books together. Our software coordinates the entire book development process from manuscript editing to design and marketing, supporting print, ebook, and web formats without charging authors upfront.

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

We live and work primarily in Seattle, WA, with a remote team. After YC, the company would remain based in Seattle with continued remote collaboration.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Seattle is where the founding team is located and where we have built most of the product and team. The tech talent and creative community here support our work well. We also have established remote contributors, which fits our model.

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 Booktrope YC application?

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