Rocketrip YC Application

Winter 2014Acquired

Rocketrip went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2014 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 2014
Industry: B2BFinance and Accounting
Team size: 68
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2013

Founders

Gillian Tee

What Rocketrip does

Rocketrip cuts a company’s travel costs by incentivizing employees to spend less on their trips. When employees get to keep a portion of the savings they generate, they start to treat the company’s money like it’s their own. Rocketrip’s software combines real-time travel prices, company policy, and a suite of patented algorithms to set customized budgets and predict what a trip should cost. Business travelers beat their budgets by making cost-conscious choices like booking in advance, selecting a cheaper hotel, or staying with friends. The company saves money, and the employee earns actual rewards. Rocketrip provides comprehensive reporting and seamlessly integrates into any existing corporate and expense technology stack. If you want to rein in business travel costs while improving corporate culture, visit rocketrip.com

Rocketrip's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Rocketrip, Winter 2014 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Rocketrip

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Incentivizing companies' employees to reduce travel costs

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

We built a platform that combines live travel prices, company policies, and algorithms to set personalized trip budgets. When employees pick cheaper travel options, they keep part of the savings as rewards. This aligns their incentives with the company's to reduce travel expenses.

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

We live in New York, NY and Rocketrip is based here as well.

Explain your decision regarding location.

New York is where we and our early customers are, and the city has a large concentration of companies with sizable travel programs, making it easier to develop and test the product.

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 Rocketrip YC application?

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