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Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#31

Post by at-fates-hands »

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #29

We didn't even make it to an YCF interview for https://Userify.com (cloud and on-site user/sudo/SSH key management), but we're now profitable with about 800 companies on six continents. (SSH is used on nearly every Linux server in the world for remote management, so it's a pretty huge market; our tool really comes into its own in a more complex cloud environment, since until you get to a certain size you can get alon…

>> We've decided to not take any seed money at all and just self-fund.

Smartest thing you can do. You have no one to answer to and you can determine your own success.

>> if you believe in your idea, keep going! Success is driven more by determination and persistence than anything else.

This. A thousand times, this.

I've seen so many startups give up because they didn't get their VC money, or get accepted to an accelerator program. I used to tell my partner that you want rejection, you want people to say no to you. This is a numbers game. The more people that tell you "no" means the closer you get to someone saying "yes".

There is a famous story called, "3 feet from Gold" where a man had a mine and worked for years and barely got by with a few gold nuggets here and there. After 3 years, he finally gave up and sold the mine to another miner. The new miner went in and did some geological tests and found out the man was only 3 feet from a huge gold vein. Within months, the new owner was rich beyond his dreams.

The point is, being persistent and not giving up is important because you never know how close you are to hitting that huge vein of gold.

Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#32

Post by samfisher83 »

plehoux wrote: post #6

We've been turned down twice with ConferenceBadge.com, once at the interview. It's now projected to make around $750 000/year. We were rejected for good reasons, it's definitely not a billion dollars business. More recently we've been rejected three times with Missive, ( https://missiveapp.com ), still not financially successful, but starting to receive a pretty good vibe from early users + big potential. I wrote abo…

Here is a list of companies they have funded: http://yclist.com/

If you just look at W15 companies how many have a chance of a billion dollar company? Any company becoming a billion dollar company is very very very small.

Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#33

Post by coulix »

ProfChronos wrote: post #11

One very interesting example I know is Algolia. They first applied when they were very early stage, in 2013 if I'm correct. They got rejected mainly because of their poor ability to track user metrics. Then they re-applied in 2014 and got selected for the Winter batch. Last year they raised $18M after an epic roadshow with all key VCs sending termsheets. My opinion is that YC strongly values your ability to be focuse…

Plus one on that. Also because YC already had a similar bet in this area.

Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#35

Post by pcsanwald »

mazumdar wrote: post #19

I applied to YC six times over the last 2.5 years with the same idea - https://yathletics.com . Got rejected every time but interviewed with them twice. The first time I applied was before I launched our first product and had $0 in revenue. The last time I applied, our yearly revenue was almost $1M, and we're still just getting started. The reason for rejection was same at both times - I didn't have a clear strategy…

I'm a runner, and just ordered two pairs of socks! seems like a great business to me. I have no insight into what could/couldn't be a billion dollar business, but I'm also positive that not every successful company needs to be a billion dollar business.

Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#36

Post by fferen »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #31
jamiesonbecker wrote: post #29

We didn't even make it to an YCF interview for https://Userify.com (cloud and on-site user/sudo/SSH key management), but we're now profitable with about 800 companies on six continents. (SSH is used on nearly every Linux server in the world for remote management, so it's a pretty huge market; our tool really comes into its own in a more complex cloud environment, since until you get to a certain size you can get alon…

>> We've decided to not take any seed money at all and just self-fund. Smartest thing you can do. You have no one to answer to and you can determine your own success. >> if you believe in your idea, keep going! Success is driven more by determination and persistence than anything else. This. A thousand times, this. I've seen so many startups give up because they didn't get their VC money, or get accepted to an accele…

I think the point there is to know how to do those geological tests :)

Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#37

Post by ams6110 »

pcsanwald wrote: post #35
mazumdar wrote: post #19

I applied to YC six times over the last 2.5 years with the same idea - https://yathletics.com . Got rejected every time but interviewed with them twice. The first time I applied was before I launched our first product and had $0 in revenue. The last time I applied, our yearly revenue was almost $1M, and we're still just getting started. The reason for rejection was same at both times - I didn't have a clear strategy…

I'm a runner, and just ordered two pairs of socks! seems like a great business to me. I have no insight into what could/couldn't be a billion dollar business, but I'm also positive that not every successful company needs to be a billion dollar business.

No disrespect to GP, but at a glance, it's a specialty online store. I'm sure it's great and doing well, but it's not a "take over the world" kind of breakthrough idea.

Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#38

Post by enknamel »

pcsanwald wrote: post #35
mazumdar wrote: post #19

I applied to YC six times over the last 2.5 years with the same idea - https://yathletics.com . Got rejected every time but interviewed with them twice. The first time I applied was before I launched our first product and had $0 in revenue. The last time I applied, our yearly revenue was almost $1M, and we're still just getting started. The reason for rejection was same at both times - I didn't have a clear strategy…

I'm a runner, and just ordered two pairs of socks! seems like a great business to me. I have no insight into what could/couldn't be a billion dollar business, but I'm also positive that not every successful company needs to be a billion dollar business.

I'd really like to hear a followup on how these socks compare to Thorlos and Balegas.

Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#39

Post by will_brown »

I co-founded a legal startup, and a funded YC company pivoted into our exact space. We applied and never even received an interview. I once did a Show HN about it that made the front page and was immediately removed, upon an email to dang my post was reinstated and I even received a comment/review by a YC partner. The review was overall complimentary, included actionable critiques and even included reasons why he subjectively believe the YC company was ahead of mine.

While the YC company raised well over $1M, the last available data shows their annual income was $80k, my startup was bootstrapped making well over 6 figures and ultimately I achieved a liquidation event.

Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC?

#40

Post by shubhamjain »

plehoux wrote: post #6

We've been turned down twice with ConferenceBadge.com, once at the interview. It's now projected to make around $750 000/year. We were rejected for good reasons, it's definitely not a billion dollars business. More recently we've been rejected three times with Missive, ( https://missiveapp.com ), still not financially successful, but starting to receive a pretty good vibe from early users + big potential. I wrote abo…

I am a little curious. ConferenceBadge seems to be an excellent idea but how did you guys manage to pull off that yearly revenue with that pricing? If I am not missing something, that would translate to like million badges a year.
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