Heysan YC Application

Winter 2007Acquired

Heysan went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2007 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 2007
Industry: ConsumerSocial
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Gustaf AlstromerFounder/CEO
Marie BrattbergFounder/Product Manager
Pär LindheFounder/Product Development / UX lead
Parham Michael OssarehFounder/developer, tech dude

What Heysan does

Heysan was a free mobile messaging and community based in San Francisco, California. Initially Heysan provided free messaging between phones and computers, bridging IM with SMS. The service expanded into launching a mobile community and has over 1 million users doing tens of million of monthly messages. In the summer of 2007 Heysan raised a seed round from Khosla Ventures and Atomico, the venture funds of Vinod Khosla and Niklas Zennstrom. Heysan was acquired by Good Technology in May 2009.

Heysan's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Heysan, Winter 2007 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Heysan

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Free messaging on mobile phones

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

We built Heysan to connect phones and computers with free messaging. Our product lets people send messages between SMS and IM, bridging those platforms and building a mobile community that supports millions of messages monthly.

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

We live in San Francisco, CA, and plan to keep the company based there after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is the center of mobile and social technology. It keeps us close to our users and potential partners, and it's where we live and work now.

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 Heysan YC application?

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