Cardpool YC Application

Winter 2010Acquired

Cardpool went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2010 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: Winter 2010
Industry: ConsumerHome and Personal
Team size: 251
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Tim WongFounder

What Cardpool does

Cardpool is a gift card exchange marketplace where anybody can buy, sell, or trade their new or pre-owned gift cards. Customers can buy gift cards up to 30% off their face value, sell their gift cards for up to 90% of their face value in cash, trade their gift cards for an Amazon.com Gift Card, or donate their gift card to charity. Cardpool provides free shipping for both buyers and sellers, a 100-day return policy, and policy of only selling gift cards that have no expiration date and no monthly fees.

Cardpool's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Cardpool, Winter 2010 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Cardpool

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Marketplace to buy, sell, trade gift cards

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

We're building a gift card exchange marketplace where users can buy gift cards at a discount, sell their unwanted cards for cash, or trade them for other cards like Amazon's. We handle shipping both ways and vet cards to ensure they have no expiration or fees.

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

We currently live in San Francisco and plan to keep the company based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco has a strong startup community and access to our initial users and partners, making it ideal for Cardpool's growth.

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 Cardpool YC application?

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