Actually it was slightly lower this year. 1108 vs around 1200 last year. We hate rejecting people, and since we always have more applicants than there are seats for, we deliberately made little effort to promote it. We didn't ask Techcrunch to write about it, and I even took the links off my site several days before the deadline.
Because there was so little marketing, the quality of the average applicant was extremely high. 90% were pretty solid hackers.
Speaking from experience @ Startup School '07, we all know the speakers and their projects, but we don't know much about fellow attendees. Let's help change that.
Suggestion: Make a simple web app to support the "attendee directory" -- This way you can do sorting, etc. later when/if the list gets huge. There appear to be some sort of 15-minute or longer lock times for modifications on the doku wiki page for attendees. Message me if you'd like help building it.
It sounds like this year's Startup School is going to be active beyond the main event (the speakers) and going to be more of a Startup School Weekend. Excellent!
Thanks, Trevor for getting through those applications. I can only imagine what that must have been like. Thanks, pg and the rest of the people who are making this possible. I know you must get a lot of virtual "thank yous"; I want to add my explicit thank you. What you are doing is a wonderful thing. Imagine, being able to change the lives of other people in one day. I plan to be one of them. Can't wait!
And, for those unlucky ones that, for reasons well beyond the scope of this comment, won't be able to attend, would it be possible to have the presentations and any other materials recorded and published TED-style?
General Advice Needed: This will be my first startupschool and I am quite excited. I'm flying in the night before, but how long after the 5:30 event end do people hang out? I'm trying to figure out when I should book my return flight (what time that night or the next day). I don't want to miss out on any networking and meet-up opportunities.
From previous year's blog coverage, everyone brings their laptop, but is there anything else I should definitely bring/have/not have/etc...?
I'm curious - has YC ever thought about doing startup school in other locations? I'd love to do startup school (just like I'd love to apply to YC), but a startup school here in Dallas would be more beneficial to me because it would attract others like me from my area. Maybe YC could incubate an incubator for DFW :-)
