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How to Handle YC and AI grant Program Applications (Archived)

How to Handle YC and AI Grant Inquiries

We have two specific startup programs that Support manages and maintains. These two programs are only available to members of specific incubator programs: YCombinator and AI Grant. This playbook will cover how to handle these programs as well as how to onboard customers who qualify for them.

Note if startups outside of these two incubator programs ask about startup discounts or plans, handle them like any other sales opportunity and do some basic discovery and then surface as a sales lead.

Program Overview

You can learn more about the 2024 edition of our Startup Program, which is specific to YC and AI Grant companies, in this document. The specifics of the program are determined by other teams like Sales and CX but Support handles managing the program and onboarding customers who qualify.

When you receive an inquiry into the program here are the steps you should take:

  1. Verify that the customer is a part of one of these incubator programs.

    a. You can find a list of YC companies here. You can find a list of AI Grant batches at the bottom of this page.

    b. Note: Sometimes customers will reach out before they are officially in Batch so you won’t find their company in the list of YC companies. In this case, you can ask for a screenshot of them logged into Bookface and a screenshot of their company profile page.

  2. Share the details of the program with the customer if they do not already have that information.

    a. You can use the verbiage from the “Program Overview” template in the “Messaging” section at the end of this document.

  3. Confirm with the customer that they want to take advantage of this offer and confirm the email address associated with their AssemblyAI account.

    a. If they haven’t created an account yet, ask them to create and upgrade their account and share the email address with you afterward.

  4. For customers who will be getting free credits, confirm whether they would like their credits to be added immediately or if they would prefer waiting until the first of the month to have the monthly credits start.

    a. See the “Adding Credits” section for more information on adding the monthly credits.

  5. Confirm if the customer would like to have a shared Slack channel with us and collect email addresses for anyone they would like added.

  6. Let the customer know you will set their accounts up according to the above conversations and take the necessary action.

**Set Up Their Plan and Add Credits**

  1. Create Slack Channel

    a. When creating Slack channels, the naming convention should be “customer-<company name>-yc” or “customer-<company name>-aig

    b. Once the channel has been created add @supportteam and @Ryan Seams to the channel along with Unthread. If there is an AE or CSM assigned to the customer’s account in SalesForce add those team members as well.

  2. Once everything is completed follow up with the customer via email to let them know. Once the customer has joined Slack, send the “Slack Welcome” message from the “Messaging” section to them.

Setting Up Their Plan and Adding Credits

Setting Up Their Plan

If the customer is in the current YC batch and qualifies for free usage, go into Metronome and change their price plan from “Default PAYG” to the “YC In-Batch” plan with an expiration date set to the last day of the last month of their batch. See here on how to change a customer plan. If there are no credits in their account, add $25 in credits to their account.

a. Even though this pricing plan has rates set at $0 for free usage an account must have a positive balance to use the API, which is why we add the $25 in credits.

b. After adding the “YC In-Batch” plan, add the ” Default PAYG plan” but with a start date set to the first day of the first month after their YC In-Batch plan ends. Leave the expiration date empty.

Adding Credits

Currently, recurring credits have to be granted by adding the credits directly in Metronome.

When using the Retool workflow, there is no way to set an expiration date or start date.

Check out this video to learn how to do that.

Messaging

Program Overview (YC)

Hi <name>!

[We appreciate your interest in our API. It is always great to work with another YC company!]{.mark}

[Here are the details of our current YC program.]{.mark}

[While companies are actively in batch we offer them free usage of the API. Once a company is out of batch or for companies that were in batches from previous years we offer $1500 in monthly credits for three months. After those three months, we can work with you on potential discounts based on your usage at that time. We can also create a channel for you in our AssemblyAI Slack so that you can easily connect with our Support team on any questions or issues.]{.mark}

[Let me know if you would like to officially join the program and the email address associated with your AssemblyAI account and I can work on setting things up for you.]{.mark}

[All the best!]{.mark}

Program Overview (AI Grant)

Hi <name>!

[We appreciate your interest in our API. It is always great to work with another AI Grant company!]{.mark}

[Here are the details of our current AI Grant program.]{.mark}

[We offer $3500 in monthly credits for three months. After those three months, we can work with you on potential discounts based on your usage at that time. We can also create a channel for you in our AssemblyAI Slack so that you can easily connect with our Support team on any questions or issues.]{.mark}

[Let me know if you would like to officially join the program and the email address associated with your account and I can work on setting things up for you.]{.mark}

[All the best!]{.mark}

Post YC Grant Plan Set Up

Hey <name>!

Thanks for upgrading! I’m excited to share we’ve enabled your account to have free pricing until <end of batch date> when your batch period ends. After <end of batch date>, you’ll get $1500 in credits for the following 3 months while on our default PAYG plan.

You should be all set to use our API but I also want to extend an invitation to join our Slack workspace so that you can have easy access to our team. This way should anything come up regarding troubleshooting, or other topics we can help with, any one of our available team members can help you ASAP!

Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in.

Slack Welcome

Welcome to our shared Slack channel <names>!

Our support team is located around the world so if you ever have questions or issues feel free to reach out anytime in the channel and we will quickly follow back up with you.

You may have already seen some of these resources but here are some links that might be helpful as you get starting with the API: