Defer YC Application

Winter 2023Inactive

Defer 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: B2BEngineering, Product and Design
Team size: 2
Status: Inactive
Launched: 2023

Founders

Charly PolyFounder
Bryan FriminFounder

What Defer does

Defer enables Node.js developers to move slow code out of the user's journey. Its simple and well-documented API enables developers to improve web applications' performance in a few minutes instead of days. Bryan and Charly noticed that all companies end up building similar abstractions and dashboards over the existing open-source (BullMQ) or commercial solutions (AWS SQS + Lambdas) to support background jobs, CRONs, and workflows. Defer brings a full-featured and managed platform with a Vercel-like developer experience that comes with an operational dashboard, enabling developers to focus on product work. After building the self-serve version of Defer in 8 weeks and onboarding 5 paying customers, their recent HN launch brought 250+ users and a warm welcome from the Node.js community with the 2 biggest newsletters featuring Defer and tech influencers spreading the word. Defer is now available as a Node.js solution but aims to become a cross-language reference.

Defer's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Defer, Winter 2023 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Defer

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Zero infrastructure background processing

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

We built Defer, a managed background processing platform for Node.js developers. It moves slow code off the main user journey through a simple API, letting developers improve app performance in minutes instead of days. Our platform includes an operational dashboard similar to Vercel's experience and handles background jobs, CRONs, and workflows so developers don't have to build their own tooling over open source or AWS solutions.

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

We're based in Paris, Île-de-France, France and plan to continue here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We built our initial product here and built traction among Node.js developers locally and online. Staying in Paris keeps us close to our team and early 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 Defer YC application?

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