CleverTap - integrates app analytics and marketing. We were known as WizRocket back then. We now have 1500+ customers, and raised $9.6 M from Accel and Sequoia.
Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
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Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#22CleverTap - integrates app analytics and marketing. We were known as WizRocket back then. We now have 1500+ customers, and raised $9.6 M from Accel and Sequoia.
What reason did YC give for your rejection (if you don't mind sharing)? And did you heed their advice or ignore it in order to get to where you are now?
Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#23CleverTap - integrates app analytics and marketing. We were known as WizRocket back then. We now have 1500+ customers, and raised $9.6 M from Accel and Sequoia.
> 1500+ customers
How many of them are paying?
Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#24BlockCypher[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
> We didn’t get into YC: Sam Altman told us they did not think we could ever inspire Bitcoin developers to build on top of us.
Don't ever let anyone tell you what you can and can't do. Which is to say, make your own way in this world.
Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Success is a journey that starts with a "?" (question mark) and end with "." (fullstop)
So in Python, success is a regular expression that matches zero or one occurrences any character except newline? I've been doing it wrong!
Success is when one remains true to self & others. If we must use Python, then - Any of these is considered False: None, '', [], (), {} and False itself. So, one is bound to achieve success by being truthful to self and others, always create value and make no empty promises and know when to "raise" an exception. Never giving up but knowing when to abandon a bad venture can also be seen as success.
There must be some +ve energy between a startup & an investor. Timing is also everything. Investors can only invest in so many pet food startups. While a pet food startup is making money and is considered a success, that doesn't mean investors have to invest.
Investors sometimes walk away from a B-team founders of a startup no matter how successful the startup really is. A-team with B-plan is always prefered over B-team with A-plan.
Sometimes, Founders decide not take money from investors, if they believe that the investor may only bring money and without any intellect and/or networking.
With that said, the final transaction is not everything.
Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#26CleverTap - integrates app analytics and marketing. We were known as WizRocket back then. We now have 1500+ customers, and raised $9.6 M from Accel and Sequoia.
What reason did YC give for your rejection (if you don't mind sharing)? And did you heed their advice or ignore it in order to get to where you are now?
Firstly, the interview process was very good. They asked us some very sharp questions. YC said, the reason for our rejection was that our product would only work for large enterprises having many repeat users (think Amazon etc.). So we went back, thought about it hard, and then rebuilt the solution to make it work for small businesses, startups and even large enterprises. Today our customers spans all three segments.
I even wrote a blog post about our rejection - https://blog.clevertap.com/the-future-looks-bright/
Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#27BlockCypher[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
> We didn’t get into YC: Sam Altman told us they did not think we could ever inspire Bitcoin developers to build on top of us. Don't ever let anyone tell you what you can and can't do. Which is to say, make your own way in this world.
What's the use of mentoring then?
Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#28CleverTap - integrates app analytics and marketing. We were known as WizRocket back then. We now have 1500+ customers, and raised $9.6 M from Accel and Sequoia.
> 1500+ customers How many of them are paying?
we don't disclose that publicly, but here a link to our pricing page - https://clevertap.com/pricing/
Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#29Friends with a handful of founders that have been rejected by YC - their companies are all doing incredibly well today.
Re: Ask HN: Which successful startups were rejected by YC?
#30Buffer is very popular. https://open.buffer.com/buffers-y-combinator-application/
For context Buffer later got into AngelPad and this was instrumental in the early survival of the company