Bump YC Application

Summer 2009Acquired

Bump went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2009 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 2009
Industry: ConsumerSocial
Team size: 30
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

David LiebFounder/CEO
Andy HuibersFounder

What Bump does

Bump was acquired by Google in 2013. The Bump and Flock apps were shut down, but our unreleased Photoroll app went on to become the basis for Google Photos, which we led from inception to more than 1B users. Bump let you exchange contact info and photos by bumping phones together. Bump was one of the all-time top mobile apps, amassing more than 150M installs by 2013. Flock was a semi-automated photo sharing app that figured out which photos you took with which friends and created private shared albums. Bump was co-founded in 2009 and received funding from Y Combinator, Sequoia, and Andreessen-Horowitz. We were based in Mountain View, CA.

Bump's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Bump, Summer 2009 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Bump

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Instantly share info and photos by bumping phones

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

We built Bump, a mobile app that lets people exchange contact info and photos by physically bumping their phones. We also developed Flock, an app that semi-automatically shares photos with the friends you took them with. Our unreleased app Photoroll organizes and shares photos and eventually evolved into Google Photos.

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

We live in Mountain View, CA and plan to keep the company based there after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We're based in Mountain View because it's close to where we all live and near the core mobile and tech community we rely on.

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 Bump YC application?

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