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Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

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Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#31

Post by faramarz »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #28
pg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably not an accident that this is phrased in such an odd way, with the subjects of the sentences missing. It should read " we got in the second time, but I dropped out a week later." What happened is that Siqi and a cofounder started YC, then a week in Siqi bailed and left his cofounder in the lurch because a side project of his had unexpectedly taken off. We suggested making the side project be the focus o…

Umm, hold on a second. So I have a cofounder and a startup, but I also do little side projects here and there on my own, mostly for fun / learning. Am I to understand that if one of them blows up and I elect to leave and pursue that instead of my current startup, I've committed "treachery" against my cofounder? If my cofounder had something like that happen to him, I'd be incredibly happy for him (and a little jealou…

You're wrong because;

A) pg was simply pointing out what the guy had failed to mention in his post.

B) The manner in which you leave a partner to pursue your own thing can vary. It wasn't that he left, from pg's comment I get a feeling the issue is HOW the founder ended his affairs with YC and co-founder.

So relax, keep your side projects. all though I highly recommend that you focus one at a time. put all you can in one idea before you leave and potentially put your team mates in jeopardy to pursue another.

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#32

Post by jasonwilk »

The guys from MyFit are doing well, (by well I mean raised a series A) and they were rejected from YC. But, In my opinion, if you get rejected by YC, it doesn't mean your idea is awful. From my experience, it seems PG likes ideas that with a ton of hard work in 3 months can go from concept to market. Some ideas, such as MyFit, were going to to take too long to get a proof of concept ready and thus it's not exemplary of the program.

If you are thinking about applying, or re-applying, keep your idea simple and concise. Let PG and all the amazing YC contacts help you figure out what the killer feature is of your app that will turn it into the multi-million dollar idea.

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#33

Post by devinj »

freshfunk wrote: post #21
pg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably not an accident that this is phrased in such an odd way, with the subjects of the sentences missing. It should read " we got in the second time, but I dropped out a week later." What happened is that Siqi and a cofounder started YC, then a week in Siqi bailed and left his cofounder in the lurch because a side project of his had unexpectedly taken off. We suggested making the side project be the focus o…

That sucks. Oddly enough I actually know (well, actually met) Siqi back in the day when he was at Powerset. It's interesting to hear this kind of story. Go figure. :\

It wouldn't be wise, or kind, to judge based on hearsay, even pg's hearsay.

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#34

Post by andyjdavis »

freshfunk wrote: post #11
jeromec wrote: post #4

AfterTheDeadline was rejected, and got acquired last year by Automattic (WordPress). http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/09/08/after-the-deadli... Edit: I should note that Paul Graham mentioned in his interview on Mixergy that picking companies is one area where they are weak. That may be true, but I'd wager the YC batting average would be higher than typical Angels/VCs.

Hmm don't know. With all due respect to PG and crew, VCs and angels seem to do their homework as well. Actually their initial filters are probably much more restrictive so I guess it would depend on how you calculate the batting avgs.

It depends whether you are more concerned with how often they pass on someone who then goes on to be successful or how often they pick someone who then fails.

I suspect for most investors passing on someone who goes on to be wildly successful hurts a lot more than investing in multiple failed ventures. Given that, having a longer more thorough process may not be beneficial. At best a long process can reduce the number of failures by refusing to invest in them but it will never increase the number of successes which is limited by the number of people who ask you funding.

I'm kind of surprised that no well funded VC funds have come up with the idea of just handing out 5-10k to every single not obviously doomed startup they come across in exchange for a few percent of each company. They could call it shotgun investing.

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#35

Post by andyjdavis »

freshfunk wrote: post #12

I definitely intend on continuing development on my projects. If you're a YC reject and want to join the community of rejects in moving forward, I'm putting together a group (in SF). http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1191553

It would be good/fun to see a little competition develop between YC funded companies and the YC rejects. The empire Vs the rebellion if you will. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which.

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#36

Post by [deleted] »

faramarz wrote: post #31
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, hold on a second. So I have a cofounder and a startup, but I also do little side projects here and there on my own, mostly for fun / learning. Am I to understand that if one of them blows up and I elect to leave and pursue that instead of my current startup, I've committed "treachery" against my cofounder? If my cofounder had something like that happen to him, I'd be incredibly happy for him (and a little jealou…

You're wrong because; A) pg was simply pointing out what the guy had failed to mention in his post. B) The manner in which you leave a partner to pursue your own thing can vary. It wasn't that he left, from pg's comment I get a feeling the issue is HOW the founder ended his affairs with YC and co-founder. So relax, keep your side projects. all though I highly recommend that you focus one at a time. put all you can in…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#37

Post by smanek »

pg wrote: post #25
smanek wrote: post #7

My company was rejected from YC W09, but raised $1.5M in VC 2 months later. We just buckled down, and launched anyways (ahead of schedule!). Once you get users and have some promising data, raising money is definitely doable.

We totally blew it that time. IIRC you did fix the thing we were most worried about when we were talking to you.

Well, I think it's still a little too early to tell if you blew it ;-) Raising capital != successful company, so we'll have to wait a few more years to see if I can make something of the opportunity.

There were some significant problems with the company/idea when we applied. Hopefully, we're fixing things quickly enough to win in the end (I think we are!) :-D And thanks to PG's advice, I have a new-found appreciation for some aspects of the business that I'd overlooked before.

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#38

Post by csomar »

pg wrote: post #26

We've definitely missed good startups. But one advantage of having so many competitors is that we're much more likely now to learn when we screw up. When a startup from one of the other YC-like organizations does well, I often check their YC application to see how we missed them. Usually it's because they were good guys but working on a terrible idea, which they later changed. So in response to that we now make a con…

But people change as the idea do, no?

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#39

Post by p6 »

smanek wrote: post #7

My company was rejected from YC W09, but raised $1.5M in VC 2 months later. We just buckled down, and launched anyways (ahead of schedule!). Once you get users and have some promising data, raising money is definitely doable.

I think the best advice Ive ever gotten was "dont be such a pg fanboy"

Re: Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway?

#40

Post by tomhoward »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #28
pg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably not an accident that this is phrased in such an odd way, with the subjects of the sentences missing. It should read " we got in the second time, but I dropped out a week later." What happened is that Siqi and a cofounder started YC, then a week in Siqi bailed and left his cofounder in the lurch because a side project of his had unexpectedly taken off. We suggested making the side project be the focus o…

Umm, hold on a second. So I have a cofounder and a startup, but I also do little side projects here and there on my own, mostly for fun / learning. Am I to understand that if one of them blows up and I elect to leave and pursue that instead of my current startup, I've committed "treachery" against my cofounder? If my cofounder had something like that happen to him, I'd be incredibly happy for him (and a little jealou…

It would depend how transparent you were to begin with. If you were honest with your co-founder in fully advising that you'd take off to pursue your own project if it started going well, then he could make an informed decision about whether to co-found with you to begin with.

Given the stakes involved, most co-founders would expect more of a solid commitment than that.

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