How Y Combinator got its users

YC did not post in a forum, it built one. In Feb 2007 Paul Graham shipped news.ycombinator.com as 'Startup News', a dogfood app for his Arc language, so future applicants could become known to YC before ever applying. The room sits on the accelerator's own domain. Honest caveat if you have no audience: you cannot copy this cold. It only starts if you already publish something your target reads. If you don't, run step 5 inside someone else's room first.

done whenYou already publish something your target audience reads without being nudged. If not, you are renting rooms, not building one, and step 5 is your real starting point.

Stock the room with what others charge for. ycombinator.com/documents gives away the post-money safe templates, US plus Canada, Cayman and Singapore versions, the side letters, and a Safe User Guide PDF with the conversion math worked out. Same logic for the Startup Library, Startup School and Co-Founder Matching. No application, no funding, no gate. That is why reading YC's own site does not feel like reading an ad.

done whenTake the one asset you currently gate behind a demo call. Would a stranger still bookmark it with your logo removed? If no, it is not a gift, it is a lead form.

Publish the norms as fixed URLs and aim the strictest one at yourself. newsguidelines.html: 'Please don't use HN primarily for promotion.' showhn.html: a Show HN must be 'something you've made that other people can play with', no signup wall, and 'Please don't ask friends to upvote.' The FAQ states the owner's handicap in writing: 'We moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the topic', and calls the HN team editorially independent of YC.

done whenYou can name one rule of your community that costs you money. If every rule constrains members and none constrains you, members read the room as a funnel and leave.

Take few privileges and print the list. The FAQ names exactly three: a reserved front page job slot for YC startups, Launch HN threads for funded companies (title format 'Launch HN: Company (YC W25)' plus a one line pitch, archived at news.ycombinator.com/launches), and orange usernames for YC alumni. Ranking and comment scores are not on the list. Founders then spend the whole launch day in their own thread answering objections under their real name.

done whenWrite down every advantage you would take in your own community, then cut it to the three you could publish on a rules page without flinching. Anything you would hide is the one that kills the room.

Give the room one dated ritual and one named human. 'Ask HN: Who is hiring?' lands on the first weekday of every month and only the whoishiring account may submit it, so the slot cannot be hijacked. Daniel Gackle moderates in public as dang, replies inside threads under that handle, and answers hn@ycombinator.com for bans, renames and appeals. Not a support alias. A person members argue with by name.

done whenYou can name the person whose handle answers complaints, and the calendar date the ritual repeats. If the answers are 'the team' and 'whenever', there is no room yet.