Mux YC Application

Winter 2016Active

Mux went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2016 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 2016
Industry: B2BInfrastructure
Team size: 95
Status: Active
Launched: 2015

Founders

Jon DahlFounder/CEO
Adam BrownFounder
Steve HeffernanFounder/Head of Product
Matthew McClureFounder

What Mux does

Mux is an API-first video platform designed by experts to make world-class video streaming and analytics possible for every development team. Self-optimizing videos take the guesswork out of encodings, delivery, and renditions. Mux makes your video look beautiful on every device, every time. We offer two products, Mux Video and Mux Data. Mux Video is a simple API to advanced video streaming. Powered by data and designed by video experts, Mux Video makes beautiful video possible for every development team. Post a video or live stream with a single API call, and watch it within seconds. Mux Video handles the encoding, storage, and delivery. QoE and performance analytics provided by Mux Data is included by default for every Mux video stream.This real-time data is used to create the right renditions for every device and title, resulting in greater reliability and better viewer experiences. Mux Data is a Quality of Experience analytics platform that measures the performance metrics that actually matter to viewers: rebuffering, startup time, video quality, and errors. Our intuitive dashboard quickly gives users the insight to find issues and make improvements through features like A/B testing, industry-wide scores, alerts, and detailed information about every single video view. The product works out of the box on HTML5, iOS, Android, and major OTT platforms. All data is available via exports and APIs, making it easy to integrate Mux Data into other systems.

Mux's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Mux, Winter 2016 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Mux

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Video infrastructure for developers

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

We make Mux Video and Mux Data, an API-first video platform that handles video streaming and analytics for developers. Mux Video handles encoding, storage, and delivery via a simple API so developers can post videos or live streams with a single call. Mux Data provides real-time quality of experience metrics like rebuffering, startup time, and errors to improve video reliability and viewer experience.

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

We live in San Francisco, CA, and plan to base the company here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where we are already and where many developer tools and video technology companies operate. Being here keeps us close to our user base and talent pool.

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 Mux YC application?

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