Application deadline: 8 pm PST on October 21, 2013.

Transcription

1 Y Combinator Funding Application Winter 2014 Application deadline: 8 pm PST on October 21, Please try to answer each question in less than 120 words. We look at online demos only for the most promising applications, so don't skimp on the application because you're relying on a good demo. Though we don't make any formal promise about secrecy, we will try to avoid disclosing your plans to potential competitors. If you're about to answer a question by saying you can't tell us because the answer is classified or controversial, please tell us instead about an instance that isn't. We recommend you save regularly by clicking on the update button at the bottom of this page. Otherwise you may lose work if we restart the server. Your YC username: henrikzillmer Company name: AirHelp Company url, if any: Phone number(s): Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube video introducing the founders. (Instructions.) CNJA YC usernames of all founders, including you, henrikzillmer, separated by spaces. (That's usernames, not given names: "bksmith," not "Bob Smith." If there are 3 founders, there should be 3 tokens in this answer.) YC usernames of all founders, including you, henrikzillmer, who will live in the Bay Area January through March if we fund you. (Again, that's usernames, not given names.) What is your company going to make? A flight DB of delayed, cancelled and overbooked flights that combined with a customer DB and SMS/ gateway notifies all air passengers about their

2 passenger rights in case their flight is delayed, cancelled or overbooked. We offer to process the claim against the airline on behalf of the passenger and if successful charge a fee of 25% to cover our expenses. If this application is a response to a YC RFS, which one? For each founder, please list: YC username; name; age; year of graduation, school, degree and subject for each degree; address; personal url, github url, facebook id, twitter id; employer and title (if any) at last job before this startup. Put unfinished degrees in parens. List the main contact first. Separate founders with blank lines. Put an asterisk before the name of anyone not able to move to the Bay Area. Please tell us about the time you, henrikzillmer, most successfully hacked some (non- computer) system to your advantage. Because we can't afford to pay for expensive flight status data, I created a decoy entity that scrapes the flight data from multiple websites and shares that data with AirHelp in the background :) Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together. Include urls if possible. Greg and I arranged and co- host Project Getaway Thailand ( A month long entrepreneurial co- working event for programmers and people with online businesses from all over the world. How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person? Greg and I know each other from Project Getaway where we both participated before co- hosting our own event. Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you're making? Because millions of air passengers every year are entitled to compensation from the airlines, but less than 0,01% of the eligible passengers get it because they don't know the air passenger rights or don't want the hassle of claiming it. Domain expertise: - I am from a family of pilots and aviation fanatics - Chairman Morten Lund (former Skype founder) has been working in the online travel industry the last 10 years - We believe the key to unlock this business model lies in tech and automation What's new about what you're making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn't exist yet (or they don't know about it)? We are going to build a system that automatically detects if your flight is eligible for compensation and notify you via , SMS or push notification. That product does not exist today! Substitutes is that they memorize the air passenger rights and claim the compensation themselves.

3 Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most? 1. Refund.me 2. Flightdelay.co.uk 3. FlightRight.de 4. Greenclaim.nl What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get? Understanding the tech opportunities: Aggregating the right data and provide access seamlessly through multiple platforms so air passengers never have to miss out on compensation again. Huge potential in up selling other products once AirHelp is associated with air passenger help in case of delay, cancellation or overbooking. How do or will you make money? How much could you make? (We realize you can't know precisely, but give your best estimate.) 25% of the compensation we get for our customers on a non win, no fee deal. If we don't get anything, the customer doesn't pay anything. - > Approx. $3 billion out of a $12+ billion market. - > 1%- 5% penetration is $30- $150 mio. On top of that we are considering subscription models, business solutions, partnerships with OTAs, delayed and connecting flight insurance products etc. If you've already started working on it, how long have you been working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written? Launched in April/May How far along are you? Do you have a beta yet? If not, when will you? Are you launched? If so, how many users do you have? Do you have revenue? If so, how much? If you're launched, what is your monthly growth rate (in users or revenue or both)? Website launched, ios app launched. Webform with the air passenger rights integrated in the form and linked to our claim management system Zendesk. Passed 5000 passenger users, about new users per month. Growing with 20%- 30% in users and revenue per month. If you have an online demo, what's the url? (Please don't password protect it; just use an obscure url.) or or How will you get users? If your idea is the type that faces a chicken- and- egg problem in the sense that it won't be attractive to users till it has a lot of users (e.g. a marketplace, a dating site, an ad network), how will you overcome that? 1. PR - consumer rights are interesting 2. Online marketing - Social media, SEM, affiliate marketing 3. Partnerships with OTA's and other travel/consumer rights organizations 4. Boots on the ground - AirHelp agents in the airport helping air passengers

4 If you're already incorporated, when were you? Who are the shareholders and what percent does each own? If you've had funding, how much, who from, and at what valuation or valuation cap? If you're not incorporated yet, please list the percent of the company you plan to give each founder, and anyone else you plan to give stock to. (This question is as much for you as us.) If you have already participated or committed to participate in an incubator, "accelerator" or "pre- accelerator" program, please tell us about it. If we fund you, which of the founders will commit to working exclusively (no school, no other jobs) on this project for the next year? For founders who can't, why not? What level of commitment are they willing to make? Do any founders have other commitments between January through March 2014 inclusive? Do any founders have commitments in the future (e.g. finishing college, going to grad school), and if so what? Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC? Are any of the founders covered by noncompetes or intellectual property agreements that overlap with your project? Will any be working as employees or consultants for anyone else? Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your founders? If so, how can you safely use it? (Open source is ok of course.) Are any of the following true? (a) You are the only founder. (b) You are a student who may return to school when the next term starts. (c) Half or more of your group can't move to the Bay Area. (d) One or more founders will keep their current jobs. (e) None of the founders are programmers. (Answering yes doesn't disqualify you. It's just to remind us to check.) If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them. One may be something we've been waiting for. Often when we fund people it's to do something they list here and not in the main application.

5 P2P parking system that tells drivers the likelihood of finding parking in green, yellow, red color coded streets as a layover on google maps based on users parking behavior (at that time, in that weather, with this road construction etc.) all aggregated via a smartphone app running in the background (in car app when possible). Theft prevention via ibeacon transmitters on a reward system. Bikes are equipped with a low power bluetooth transmitter that can be found by new generation bluetooth devices. If reported stolen, the beacon can be detected by others with the app installed and a reward is triggered (finders fee determined by owner). Like Waze, put in a rank system where you can become Star Detective. Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered. (The answer need not be related to your project.) Due to air passenger rights on compensation, Ryanair in Europe has introduced a 2 fee on every ticket sold, however they pay out compensation to less than 1% of their eligible passengers. Each year that generates a $200 mio. profit for Ryanair! Just because people don't know their rights and the airlines are the last to inform them.