87 Edits and Counting On My Y Combinator Application

When I presented my first public speech at Denver startUp week, I rewrote it and edited it probably thirty times. Then I rehearsed the speech for five days repeating it out loud most likely around six or seven hundred times. The reason I did this was, I didn't want to screw up in front of two hundred people. I also had a big fear, that once on the stage I would freeze and no words would come out of my mouth. If I had the words memorized and the speech rehearsed so many times, surely if I did freeze I could snap myself out of it and carry on. The speech turned out to be a success! Jared the owner of Name.com said "You were the Insight Night inspirational speaker of the year" WOW, what a awesome complament. I would not have received that if I had not done the intense editing and rehearsing of the speech.

I really have no idea how many times I have edited my teams Y Combinator application. It could be eighty seven or thirty two. I'm not really sure. The one thing I think about is, Does YC have an editing counter on their site? Are they going to get analytics on how many times a team edits the application? Why I wonder this, I have no idea.

Took this on the disc golf course in Dillon, Colorado. It pretty much sums up my teams application. Edits, twisting our fate with beauty.

Having others edit your writing is also a very good practice. I did have my lawyer read it and he made some edits. Lawyers are great editors. I also wanted him to see it so he could catch any legal issue if there was one. Watching your legal back in everything you do is a good practice for a startup, I have found. And lastly my legal team will know who they are representing and exactly what Passdown is doing.

I hesitate to have too many people edit it, as this can also lead to people messing things up, interjecting their idea and not actually editing the grammar. Making attempts to get you to behave in the way they think is proper or professional. People tried to get me to not say certain things in my speech, but I ignored them and presented my speech the way I saw was the true me, and the best way to present my speech. If I had caved in and followed these suggestions my speech would have failed. 

Our Y Combinator application is ready to submit I'm just waiting for my cofounder to make his part of the video. Wael does not have the time to do it until Friday, as he is very busy in an internship program in Paris. So, I have time to keep reading the application and making sure I have all the blabber out and only the matter of fact in. 

Someday I might get the hang of this grammar,writing and editing thing. I hope I have done my job on this application as I did on my speech.