Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?

Not very strict demands. If it's still growing and does exciting stuff, I'm interested in hearing about it. (Though that probably is an insane amount of companies)

Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?

#7

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Sat, Mar 05, 2016, 5:18 PM UTC

mkagenius wrote: post #5

quadrature wrote: post #4

How do you define successful ?.

Success is a journey that starts with a "?" (question mark) and end with "." (fullstop)

Can you give some examples of successful startups, funded by YC or not, that ended with a "." ?

Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?

#8

Post by mhluongo » Sat, Mar 05, 2016, 5:21 PM UTC

BlockCypher[1] has written about this. I think SnapCard did something similar, though the closest I can find is an article about the laundry service they started[2].

[1] - https://blog.blockcypher.com/what-adam-saw-that-sam-didnt-a0...

[2] - https://pando.com/2013/10/11/superhero-laundry-founders-laun...

EDIT - Citations

Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?

#9

Post by justplay » Sat, Mar 05, 2016, 5:21 PM UTC

Buffer is very popular. https://open.buffer.com/buffers-y-combinator-application/

Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?

#10

Post by ig1 » Sat, Mar 05, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

Companies which have publicly disclosed that were rejected by YC and have since raised >$20m:

* Chartboost

* Sendgrid

* LightSail

I've seen it claimed that Couchbase should be on this list, but I've never seen a primary source which verifies that they were rejected from YC.