NewsBlur YC Application

Summer 2012Active

NewsBlur went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2012 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 2012
Industry: ConsumerContent
Team size: 1
Status: Active
Launched: 2012

Founders

Samuel ClayFounder

What NewsBlur does

NewsBlur is a personalized news reader that brings people together to talk about the world. A new sound of an old instrument.

NewsBlur's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

NewsBlur, Summer 2012 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

NewsBlur

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

NewsBlur is a personalized news reader

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

We built NewsBlur to be a news reader that surfaces personalized stories and helps people talk about the news. It aggregates RSS feeds and allows users to train it to highlight what they care about and comment on stories in a shared community. It's for people tired of sprawling, noisy news and want something smarter and social.

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

We live in San Francisco and the company is based here, though our work is partially remote. After YC, we plan to keep the company in San Francisco.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is the center of tech and our network; being here gives us access to resources, potential users, and collaborators. Also, both founders already live here, so it's the natural base for the company.

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 NewsBlur YC application?

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