TextPayMe YC Application

Summer 2005Acquired

TextPayMe went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2005 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: Summer 2005
Industry: FintechConsumer Finance
Team size: 11
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Phil YuenFounder/CEO

What TextPayMe does

Founded in 2005, TextPayMe is an SMS payment service that lets you send money to other people using cell phone text messaging. TextPayMe lets you send money to anyone else in the US with an SMS-capable cell phone, and while phone carriers may charge for the actual text message sent/received, sending and receiving money is free while TextPayMe remains in Beta. In July 2006, the TextPayMe team started working for Amazon and, as of 2011, the site redirects to an Amazon's mobile payment website. There was no press release related to this event but it's assumed the company was acquired. Sending and receiving payments through TextPayMe is easy: simply write a text message to with "pay amount phonenumber" in the body (i.e. to send $5 to, text "pay "). The service is secure as well, as each payment needs to be confirmed by a user-created PIN. To fund your transactions, TextPayMe lets you add money directly from your bank account and now also lets you link your credit card as well. Currently, the maximum amount that can be sent or received per month is $500.

TextPayMe's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

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

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

TextPayMe

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Send money using text messages via SMS

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

We built an SMS payment service that lets anyone with an SMS-capable phone in the US send and receive money simply by texting commands like "pay " to. Users fund transactions via linked bank accounts or credit cards. Every payment requires a PIN for security. The service is free while in beta and limits monthly transactions to $500.

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

We live and work in Redmond, WA, and plan to base the company here after YC as well.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We are based in Redmond because we are local and close to financial and mobile infrastructure partners. Staying here lets us move quickly and coordinate easily as a small team.

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 TextPayMe YC application?

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