Request to review Exceptional Promise Application from a YC founder

Stage 1
1

Greetings, I am the founder and CEO of a digital health startup serving the UK market.

Reference Letters:

  1. My mentor, the COO of a $5B Indian tech startup.
  2. An investor/mentor from a leading VC in digital tech, an HBS graduate, and a digital tech pioneer.
  3. A renowned Indian cardiologist with whom I’ve collaborated on digital health projects; he has worked with Google and Microsoft tech teams.

Evidence:

Mandatory:

  1. Grew my company’s revenue to $500k within 12 months. Evidence includes Stripe dashboard data and company incorporation details, showing me as a majority shareholder.
  2. YCombinator accelerator program acceptance letter, which has a 1.5% acceptance rate.
  3. Acceptance letter for the Entrepreneurship Fellowship at IIMC, India’s premier management institute.
  4. Graduation certificate from IIT Madras, featuring a BTech in Engineering Physics and a minor in Robotics, with a majority of courses completed in the CS department at India’s premier engineering institute.

OC1:

  1. Before my current venture, I founded a company that helped Indian hospitals treat patients via WhatsApp during the pandemic. This innovative approach drew the attention of leading Indian publications, which I will provide as evidence.
  2. We achieved significant growth, serving over 200 hospitals in India and generating $60k in ARR with a team of just three. A notable digital health player in the market acquired our company. Tax filing data will be presented to verify revenue.

OC3:

  1. Secured $1.5M in funding for our startup from distinguished Silicon Valley investors. Evidence will include term sheets/SAFE notes and bank statements.
2

Do you have news clippings about your work? It could be useful for MC in place of evidence 4.

you could add evidence of high. salary in OC3 or MC

get an addition evidence for OC3

3

Thanks a lot for the feedback @Francisca_Chiedu

We are in stealth mode for this venture and haven’t done much PR until now, but I have news clippings for my previous startup, which I’ll be using in OC1. But we have a lot of customer testimonials and trust pilot/google review ratings from our customers in the UK.

I draw below industry-standard salary as we are in the seed stage. So not sure if I can add that, but in terms of equity, it’d be worth upwards of $10M. Can I use that in OC3/MC?

For OC3, what evidence would you suggest other than the term sheets and bank account statements?

1 Like
4

You could get letter from your co-founder or customer reference letters

5

@Francisca_Chiedu , thanks for your quick response. I have a few points to clarify:

  1. Can I include the 4th point, mentioning IIT’s 1% acceptance rate and its status as India’s top engineering college?

  2. I’ll add a reference letter from my co-founder for OC3, emphasizing my crucial role in business growth and fundraising efforts.

  3. Since the individuals providing my recommendations are quite busy, would it be acceptable for these letters to be just one page in length?

  4. Should I incorporate the CV of the author within the recommendation letter itself (starting from page 2) or submit it as a separate supporting document among the 10 evidences?

Additionally, do I need to mention anything about equity for OC3?