Bop.fm YC Application

Summer 2013Acquired

Bop.fm went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2013 batch as a Consumer 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: Summer 2013
Industry: ConsumerContent
Team size: 2
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2013

Founders

Shehzad DarediaFounder
Stefan GomezFounder/CTO

What Bop.fm does

bop.fm is a YCombinator-backed music technology company that creates a home for every song on the internet. The company aggregates several popular music services (Spotify, Rdio, iTunes, YouTube, SoundCloud, Deezer, etc.) into one interface. Users can then search for any song, play it using any service, and share/discover with any friend (even if they use a different service than you). bop.fm powers this same aggregation and service-agnostic music playback for Rap Genius, as well as music content publishers, messaging clients, social networks, artists/labels, and other partners.

Bop.fm's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Bop.fm, Summer 2013 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Bop.fm

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Canonical permalinks for songs.

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

We built bop.fm to create a single link that works for any song across multiple music services like Spotify, Rdio, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud. Users can search for any song, play it through their preferred service, and share it with friends regardless of which music platform they use. Beyond consumers, we provide the same aggregation and service-agnostic playback to partners like Rap Genius, content publishers, social networks, and messaging clients.

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

We are based in San Francisco, CA, and the company will remain here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where we live and work. It's also the center of tech and music startups, which fits our focus and makes it easier to meet partners and users.

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 Bop.fm YC application?

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