Reddit YC Application

Summer 2005Acquired

Reddit went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2005 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 2005
Industry: ConsumerContent
Team size: 2000
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Steve HuffmanFounder

What Reddit does

Founded by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005, Reddit is an online community where users submit, vote, and comment on content, news, and discussions. Nicknamed "the front page of the internet," Reddit is one of the top ten sites in the United States (source: Alexa), with hundreds of millions of users each month on desktop, mobile web, and our official Android/iOS apps. Interested in joining our growing team? Check out about.reddit.com/careers

Reddit's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Reddit, Summer 2005 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

The frontpage of the internet.

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

We built an online community where people submit links, vote on them, and comment. It surfaces the best content and discussions every day, creating a constantly updated front page for the internet.

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

We live in San Francisco now, and the company would be based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where tech talent and early adopters cluster. Being here makes recruiting and connecting with other startups easier.

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 Reddit YC application?

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