--- name: application-answer-writer description: Draft, tighten or review startup accelerator and investor application answers with the MrAdib ten-answer framework by John Adib. Use when a founder applies to Y Combinator, Antler, Techstars or any programme with a written form. --- # Application Answer Writer (the MrAdib framework) You help a founder answer an application form so every box says something specific, true and consistent with the rest. Follow the framework below. ## Workflow 1. Ask for the form's questions and the facts: what the company makes, the insight, customers and evidence, progress with dates, competitors, the model, the founders and how they met, commitment, and the video links. Never invent any of them. 2. Draft one answer at a time, in order: three to five sentences, the first answering the question asked. 3. Check every answer against its pass test and rewrite until it passes. 4. Apply a case rule only when its condition is true. 5. Finish with a consistency check: every number, name and date appears the same way in every answer, the deck and the one-pager. ## Answers ### 01. One line Question: What do you do, in one line? What it is: The shortest answer on the form and the one read most. Y Combinator gives you fifty characters. Say what you make and for whom, in the words a customer would use. Say: - What you make, for whom, in plain nouns - Under fifty characters, so it fits every form - The same line as your deck cover and your one-pager Leave out: - Category words: platform, ecosystem, solution, AI-powered - A slogan - Two ideas in one line Pass test: A stranger reads it and can guess what your product looks like. Example: Payroll for restaurants with hourly staff. Asked by: Y Combinator, Techstars ### 02. What you make Question: What are you making? What it is: The product as it exists or will exist, described so the reviewer can picture using it. What the user does, what they get, and what is built today. Say: - What the user does with it, in three lines - What they get at the end - What exists today, and what is next - A link to the product or the demo Leave out: - The vision before the product - Features nobody asked about - Adjectives: seamless, powerful, intuitive Pass test: The reviewer could sketch the main screen from your description. Asked by: Y Combinator, Antler, Techstars ### 03. Why this idea Question: Why this idea, and what do you know that others miss? What it is: The reason you, of all people, are building this. Time spent in the problem, a pain you had, a system you built before. Then the one thing you understand that competitors do not. Say: - How you found the problem: the job, the pain, the moment - The insight in one sentence - Domain experience, with years and roles - How you know people need it: interviews, waitlists, usage Leave out: - We are passionate about - Market size as the reason - An insight anyone could have read in a report Pass test: The reviewer learns something about the market they did not know. Asked by: Y Combinator, Antler ### 04. Who needs it Question: Who needs it, and how do you know? What it is: Your first customer, described so precisely the reviewer could find ten of them, and the evidence that they want what you make. Say: - The first customer: role, company size, situation - How many you have spoken to, and what they said - Who pays and who uses, when they differ - The evidence: interviews, pilots, waitlist, usage Leave out: - Everyone, or SMEs - Demographics with no job to be done - Survey percentages with no sample size Pass test: You can name ten real people or companies that fit. Asked by: Y Combinator, Techstars ### 05. How far along Question: How far along are you? What it is: What exists, who uses it, and how long you have worked on it, all with dates. Reviewers weigh speed: how much you did in the time you had. Say: - What is built and live, with the launch date - Users, customers, revenue, with the date - How long you have worked on it, and how much of that full-time - What changed since you last applied, if you did Leave out: - Projections - Rounded-up numbers - Traction words with no number: momentum, interest, buzz Pass test: Every claim carries a number or a date. Example: Live since March. 140 restaurants, 31 paying, £4.2K MRR at 20 September. Two of us full-time since January. Asked by: Y Combinator, Techstars Case rule: Nothing is live yet. Answer progress with evidence of demand and speed: interviews with dates, a waitlist with numbers, a prototype with a link, and what you shipped each week since you started. ### 06. Who else Question: Who else does this, and why will you win? What it is: The alternatives your customer has today, including doing nothing, and what you understand about the business that they do not. Say: - Direct competitors, named - The indirect alternative: the spreadsheet, the agency, doing nothing - What you understand that they do not - Who you fear most, and why Leave out: - We have no competitors - Trashing the competition - A feature comparison table Pass test: The reviewer can say why a customer would switch. Asked by: Y Combinator, Techstars ### 07. How you earn Question: How do you make money, and how big can it get? What it is: Who pays, what they pay, and the bottom-up maths of how large that gets: customers times price. Hypotheses labelled as hypotheses. Say: - Who pays and what they pay for - Pricing and the model, with the current price - Bottom-up size: customers you could reach times price per year - What is proven and what is still a guess Leave out: - Three revenue models - A share of a market-size number - Hiding that pricing is untested Pass test: The reviewer can compute your revenue from one customer and from a thousand. Asked by: Y Combinator, Techstars ### 08. Why you Question: Who are you, and how did you meet? What it is: Each founder in two lines: the thing they built or achieved that matters here, and their role. Then how you met and how long you have worked together. Say: - Each founder: role, and the most impressive thing they built or did - How you met, and how long you have worked together - Who writes the code, or does the technical work - What each of you owns: product, engineering, sales Leave out: - Full CVs - Titles with no achievement behind them - Claiming a technical founder you do not have Pass test: The reviewer can say who builds and who sells, and one impressive thing about each. Asked by: Y Combinator, Antler, Techstars Case rule: You are applying alone. Say so in the founders answer, then cover it: why you can build and sell this alone for now, and what you are doing about a co-founder. Antler exists to match co-founders; Y Combinator funds solo founders and asks anyway. ### 09. How committed Question: How committed are you? What it is: Full-time or not, where you live and where the company will be, how equity is split, and whether you will relocate for the programme. Straight answers; hedges here end applications. Say: - Who is full-time, since when, and when the rest will be - Where you are based, and where the company will be - The equity split, and whether it is agreed - Whether you will relocate or attend in person, if asked Leave out: - Full-time once we are funded, with no date - Skipping the equity question - Different answers in different boxes Pass test: Every founder would give the same answer in an interview. Asked by: Y Combinator, Antler, Techstars ### 10. The video Question: Where is the video? What it is: Most programmes ask for a short founder video, and some accept a product demo too. Y Combinator asks for one minute of the founders and up to three minutes of demo. Link them here, unlisted, and make sure they match every answer above. Say: - An unlisted link that plays without a login - The founder video: sixty seconds, every founder on camera - The demo video: under three minutes, one flow - The same facts and numbers as the written answers Leave out: - A private link the reviewer cannot open - Slides read aloud - A five-minute video where one minute was asked Pass test: Both links open on a phone and say nothing the form does not. Asked by: Y Combinator, Techstars ## Pre-product, solo, reapplying, themed - Pre-product. When: Nothing is live yet. Change: Answer progress with evidence of demand and speed: interviews with dates, a waitlist with numbers, a prototype with a link, and what you shipped each week since you started. - Solo founder. When: You are applying alone. Change: Say so in the founders answer, then cover it: why you can build and sell this alone for now, and what you are doing about a co-founder. Antler exists to match co-founders; Y Combinator funds solo founders and asks anyway. - Reapplying or pivoted. When: You applied before, or the idea changed. Change: Say what changed, with dates and numbers, in the first line of the progress answer. Reviewers see your previous application; pretending it did not exist costs more than the pivot. - A themed programme. When: The programme has a location, an industry or a stage in its name. Change: Answer why this programme in one specific line: the city you will move to, the vertical you sell into, the stage you are at. Never paste the same answer into a different programme. ## Optional answers - The hack story: The form asks for a time you hacked a system to your advantage. Tell a true story with a result, in four lines. - Other ideas you considered: The form asks. One line each, and why you did not pick them. - How you heard about them: Name the person or the event. A referral from an alum carries weight. - Anything else: There is a fact the boxes did not ask for that changes the picture. Otherwise leave it empty. Source and full guide: https://mradib.com/application-answers