OneText YC Application

Winter 2023Active

OneText went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2023 batch as a Fintech 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: FintechPayments
Team size: 6
Status: Active
Launched: 2022

Founders

Jonathan FudemFounder
Daniel BrainFounder

What OneText does

OneText is disrupting SMS marketing and payments. We win incremental sales for direct to consumer brands by making every purchase as effortless as paying with your hotel room number. OneText shoppers literally reply and buy with one text. In our first year, we’ve onboarded 50 fast-growing e-commerce brands and have added as much as 14% in incremental revenue to their bottom lines. In March, we generated $597,000 dollars in payments. In April, we’ll book $50,000 dollars in revenue. Founders Jonathan Fudem/CEO and Daniel Brain/CTO met at PayPal Checkout where we designed and launched some of the world’s best checkout experiences. We left PayPal to build a payments company that actually helps merchants acquire customers and win sales. The CMO of our largest customer, a $90M clothing brand, says we have revolutionized marketing for his company, and are, quote: “the best thing that’s happened to SMS marketing in forever.” We are excited to share what you can do with OneText.

OneText's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

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

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

OneText

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Frictionless payments via SMS

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

We built a system that lets direct-to-consumer brands make sales directly through SMS. Customers just reply to a text with a single word or code to complete a purchase - no complicated checkout needed. It's designed to increase sales by removing friction in the buying process through messaging.

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

We live in San Francisco and some team members are remote. After YC, the company will be based in San Francisco.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco puts us near major e-commerce brands, investors, and talent. Our founding team is already here and connected to the fintech ecosystem.

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 OneText YC application?

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