Common Paper YC Application
Common Paper went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2023 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 2023
- Industry
- B2BSales
- Team size
- 8
- Status
- Active
- Launched
- 2022
Founders
Benjamin GarveyFounder
Jake SteinFounder
What Common Paper does
Common Paper is a contracting platform that helps startups close deals with their customers faster and with less risk. We create standard, open-source contracts for commercial transactions, including NDAs, DPAs, and sales agreements. These are analogous to the SAFE, but are between customers and vendors rather than investors and startups. The standardized format means that data within contracts is structured from inception. We build software for managing standard contracts, accelerating sales cycles, and making the data within the contracts programmatically accessible to other business systems. Tens of thousands of people have downloaded our standard contracts, and 63% of the contracts on our system close within 24 hours.
Common Paper's YC application, reconstructed
Y Combinator application
Common Paper, Winter 2023 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.
- Founders2
- Company7
- Progress7
- Idea4
- Equity3
- Curious2
- Batch Preference1
Company
Common Paper
The SAFE for commercial contracts
We make a contracting platform that standardizes commercial contracts like NDAs, DPAs, and sales agreements. Our product structures contract data from the start and helps startups close deals faster with less risk by managing these contracts and connecting their data to business systems.
We live in Philadelphia, PA, and the company will be based there and remote after YC.
Philadelphia is convenient for the founding team and has a good tech talent pool. We operate remotely to stay flexible.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the real Common Paper YC application?
No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Common Paper's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Common Paper would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.
What YC batch was Common Paper in?
Common Paper was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2023 batch.
Who founded Common Paper?
Common Paper was founded by Benjamin Garvey, Jake Stein.
What does Common Paper do?
The SAFE for commercial contracts
How do I read the full reconstructed application?
Create a free Round Funded account. The full 26-answer version of Common Paper's application, and every other YC batch, is in YC Insights.
