I have a great deal of trust for startups that choose niche and vertical markets as an entry strategy (my article: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/6_startup_lessons_2007.php). As a company founder, it takes an incredible amount of discipline to resist the temptation of trying to build an "everybody" product. The best way to build a company is not by going after an existing category, but by creating a new category you can be first in. Startups must focus on creating new markets over serving existing ones.

Moreover, as an Electrical Engineering student, I understand that a Search Engine for electronic components is certainly a product in much demand. To top it off, they also managed to extract specifications of the parts in .gif/pdf formats which is absolutely essential when buying IC's or Transistors.

Congratulations to the founders and YCombinator. Great work guys!

Shouldn't "Do NOT read a worthless 5 page list of things you shouldn't be doing" be on that list?

I'm a current YC company founder and I'm 21. I see the points pg makes in that essay you quote but I can't say I've let them apply to me personally. I have someone working for our company at the moment who is 33, in fact I don't think I've ever worked with someone who is the same age or younger than me (my co founder is 23). I've never had a problem with it personally, in fact I probably prefer it as I can generally learn more from more older than I am.

To make that situation work I think you need to believe strongly in two things:

1) Being a good leader does not mean being the smartest/most knowledgeable person in your company. It means being able to spot the smartest people and make them work together and learn from each other. That's not as simple as it sounds

2) You MUST believe 110% that age is a completely irrelevant metric when determining the "smartness" of a person. I don't care if someone is 20 years older than I am - if they haven't done a start-up then that puts me ahead of them in respect to running a start up. They may be an infinitely better coder/designer/whatever than I am but not a better startup founder.

The second reason is why I ditched my career as an attorney to be a start up founder. I don't intend on letting my income be determined by the number of years I've been sitting behind a desk.

In my opinion, startup founders hit mid life crisis in their early 20s. Considering Paul's influence on YCombinator, I am guessing that is the age group most of us belong to. So go ahead and share with us your age.

I just turned 22 today :)

31.

For what it's worth, I feel more ready and able to do a startup now than I would have been when I was younger. Just for starters I was already in my mid-20s when I got my PhD.

A good friend of mine sold his startup last year to AOL for enough money that he'll never have to work again. He was 41 at the time and I believe his co-founder was around the same age. This gives me hope that I'm not quite over the hill yet ;-)

If this had existed a decade ago I might have ended up as an EE. As a kid I had just as much interest in electronics as I did in programming, but having no money and growing up in suburban hell with no decent electronics stores within driving distance, I couldn't pursue it. I think this is the most promising YC startup to date (based on what I know about them when they launch; obviously Reddit is successful with probability 1).

The average YC founder is about 25. The range so far has been from 19 to (I think) 33.

All through my early startups I had a lingering feeling deep down that maybe I was too young- in over my head. Then one day I wake up and I'm feeling like maybe I'm too old- what if I missed the sweet spot or something? So my recommendation to all, young and old- ignore it.

Every time I hear someone older say they are getting forgetful because of their age (unless they really have dementia) I laugh inside, because everyone forgets stuff all the time- it's just that when you're older you have an excuse to pin it on. If your boss is 50 and the company is sluggish and behind the culture and curve, then it's your boss's disposition that made it so, not his age. It's a kind of slow culture that anyone turning a profit can get stuck in.