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Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#51

Post by ericb »

dcurtis wrote: post #43
ericb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're rejected, you can interpret it as this "says something about me" and take it personally, or you can interpret it as an opportunity someone else missed out on for whatever reason, (not a good match, not web 2.0 enough, who knows!) and move on. If you believe in your idea and yourself strongly, there's usually only one clear interpretation you should take. And yes, self confidence is generally a productive…

Awesome. Maybe I mistook your tone. I agree that a positive, confident attitude is probably productive, but you made your point by turning the positivity against Y Combinator because you are upset that you were not accepted. Right?

I don't see where I turned anything against y combinator in my posts. Please clarify.

Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#52

Post by schaaf »

When I was visiting Harvard one time before undergraduate college applications, my tour guide mentioned something that stuck with me -- that after a round of auditions for the highly selective a capella groups on campus, the students that were passed over for all the existing groups decided to band together and form a new group. And that that group ended up training more seriously and later that year came in first in some a capella competition.

There's a lot of potential value floating around HN.

Perhaps an informal BarCombinator of sorts could be formed?

(incidentally, we made it past this round, but...)

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.

No match for "BARCOMBINATOR.COM".

( Let the domain race begin? )

Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#53

Post by trey »

I got a no as well and my feeling is that the entire process is pointless for an applicant without any feedback. I'm not bitter about being rejected, but going into this I expected at least some amount of commentary, and not 5 hits on my site and a form rejection letter. Maybe I should have tapered my expectations or the website should have been more clear about saying that if we don't pick you, you won't hear anything from us.

Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#54

Post by keating »

xenoterracide wrote: post #44
pius wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask where the web logs I should look at are? I think he's saying that you can check the logs of your own server.

ah... seems like yc had a note about checking something here for comments/questions. I thought he was referring to that.

If they have... had a question it would show up at the top of the page on this site.

Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#56

Post by Readmore »

fallentimes wrote: post #31
Readmore wrote: post #13

I also got a no. It's actually what I was expecting my app is nearly done already www.embought.com and I'm a single founder. Congrats to everyone that made it. Looking forward to reading the interview recap blogs.

Readmore I think your application is a good idea. Have you considered letting people choose their own charity instead of the preselected ones you have listed? Or even better, people could choose their own cause (whether it's a charity, fundraising event, boyscouts, girlscouts etc etc) and could encourage friends, family and acquaintances to use the site to raise money for their cause.

Thanks!

I've thought along those same lines, and I'm hoping to make that an option in the future. Currently I'm not confident that I can track everything well enough to attribute purchases to an individual user. I didn't want to say a user could pick their own charity and then not actually be able to donate the money for them.

As I get traffic I'm hoping to find a way to pull that off.

Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#57

Post by ebukys »

keating wrote: post #50
ericb wrote: post #18

Don't be discouraged. I'm 100% sure my idea is rock solid, I've executed successfully before AND I have a cofounder, but I was turned down. You don't have a good startup-tale without getting turned down a few times. I think of it like this: me: Would you like to make some money with me YC? YC: No thanks, we have plenty.

> I'm 100% sure my idea is rock solid, I've executed successfully before AND I have a cofounder, but I was turned down. Send them a letter rejecting their rejection letter and show up anyhow. From gettingintogradschool.com: Thank for your letter of April 9. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me admission to our department. This year I have been particu…

Haha, brilliant! The problem is, you need at least one person (someone who has deciding power) to be impressed enough with your pure stubborn flippancy to let you in even after having been rejected.

Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#58

Post by izaidi »

kirubakaran wrote: post #32
pius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's anything wrong with positive self-talk. A founder being confident about his or her ability to execute shouldn't make anyone else feel insecure.

Agree with you 100%. We are nothing without confidence that at first seems baseless.

Yeah, exactly. Fake it 'til you make it.

Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#59

Post by aschobel »

wumi wrote: post #42
aschobel wrote: post #29

Just got the "rejection" letter, I'm a bit disappointed I couldn't get the team reviewing the proposals as passionate about the project as I am. I think being a solo founder hurt me, but I've been working on the project full-time for four months (over 12k lines of code). This won't slow me down. =) What is your company going to make? We make it easy to jot something down from any device and then share that note with…

the first part sounds a bit like twitter/ letsprovewhere

Kinda, but this is a very different animal.

There are two itches I'm scratching with 3banana.

The first is that I want to keep track of small bits of information and make it easy to retrieve them from any device. Right now I email myself notes, which is clunky. The site has full text search and allows you to label your notes.

The site also automatically labels stuff like Address/Phone Numbers/etc, so you can query it to give you all the Phone Numbers you jotted down in the last week.

The second itch is that sometimes you have an existing note that you want to share. You click one button and the note is shared to Facebook/Twitter/Email/AIM/wherever your social graph is. Your note is now a instant threaded discussion forum.

3banana: your notes are social http://3banana.com

Re: Tell YC: Summer 08 decisions out

#60

Post by rms »

dcurtis wrote: post #8

Do the decision letters for accepted groups ask them not to post that they were accepted? It seems like, after every funding cycle, no one admits they were accepted in these after-threads.

I think it more has to do with modesty. It would make me feel bad to exclaim how great it was that I got an interview when so many other people are really sad about getting rejected.
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