GraffitiGeo YC Application

Summer 2009Acquired

GraffitiGeo 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: ConsumerContent
Team size: 2
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Nikhil PanditFounder
Jared TameFounder

What GraffitiGeo does

At its core GraffitiGeo allows users to leave brief reviews of restaurants, or for those too lazy to do that, to simply leave a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" - it's like a highly condensed version of Yelp, or a "Digg for the world". These reviews and votes can be cast from the site's iPhone app or from the service's homepage. The homepage also features a stream of the latest comments to come in from other users, as well as a profile for each restaurant in the system that includes all of its votes and comments. There's also a nifty feature that lets you view a heatmap of your current region, so you can quickly figure out the hot spots in town. The gameplay in GraffitiGeo gives you points for checking into certain locations, similar to FourSquare, but doesn't really let you do anything with them. With GraffitiGeo, you earn points for every action you take, be it voting on a restaurant or leaving a brief comment. Once you've reached a certain point threshold, you can use those points to start a "mob", which you can invite your friends to join. Mobs allow friends to pool their points, which can then be used to acquire territory, which corresponds to actual city blocks. Whenever someone votes on one of the restaurants on the block, the mob gets some street cred too. It's definitely going to be confusing at first, but it also brings a team element to gameplay.

GraffitiGeo's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

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

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

GraffitiGeo

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

We tell you where to go and what to get once you get there.

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

We built a location-based app and website where users can quickly vote up or down and leave brief reviews of restaurants. Users see a live stream of nearby comments and a heatmap highlighting hot spots. We add a game layer with points for actions and let groups of friends form mobs that pool points to claim city blocks. This combines real recommendations with social gameplay around places.

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

We live in Palo Alto, CA, and the company would be based here after YC as well.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We live and work here already. Palo Alto is close to where we built the product and early users, making it easy to iterate fast.

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 GraffitiGeo YC application?

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