Creative Market YC Application

Winter 2010Acquired

Creative Market went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2010 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 2010
Industry: B2BEngineering, Product and Design
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Darius "Bubs" MonsefFounder/CEO
Aaron EpsteinFounder
Chris WilliamsFounder/CTO

What Creative Market does

Creative Market is a marketplace for ready-to-use design assets, including fonts, graphics, templates, add-ons, photos, and themes, from independent creators around the world.

Creative Market's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

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

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Creative Market

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Marketplace for graphic design assets

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

We built a marketplace for designers to buy and sell ready-made design assets - like fonts, graphics, templates, and photos. It connects independent creators directly to other designers and businesses who need high-quality design material without building from scratch.

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

We live in San Francisco, and Creative Market will be based here after YC as well.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where a lot of design and tech talent intersects, making it the right place to build a design asset marketplace and connect with our users and creators.

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 Creative Market YC application?

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