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In this business, you're going to be rejected a lot! If you received the famous YC rejection email, keep pressing forward.
Honestly, if this slows you down, then you're most likely doing something wrong anyhow.
There are tons of incubators and VC around the country. Surely these people didn't apply to just one? or does YC have exclusivity requirements?
They have a very strong community that will help you post graduation.
I do suspect a lot of people who apply to YC believe it's a golden ticket, due to all the hype around some of their more successful companies.
'It's quite likely, in fact, practically certain, that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email making fun of us; we want to learn from our mistakes.'
Granted, this year it's been replaced with the less fun/personal:
'It's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd sincerely appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we very much want to learn from our mistakes.'
Don't take your rejection letter as "You aren't good enough," take it as a challenge to get to the point where you can make fun of them honestly and with a grin.
There are tons of incubators and VC around the country. Surely these people didn't apply to just one? or does YC have exclusivity requirements?
There's something that was in the original rejection letter from the Summer Founders Program that should ring true in the mind of everyone rejected: 'It's quite likely, in fact, practically certain, that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email making fun of us; we want to learn from our mistakes.' Granted, this year it's been replaced with t…
I have a friend who got into an incubator with a crypto idea and very positive feedback on the idea. Six months after funding, the whole thing imploded due to personal conflict. At the time, my friend had recently up with his girlfriend of five years and the venture ran out of steam. They ended up returning the money to investors. When the crypto bubble hit he was kicking himself having just missed out.
After that, he took a break to go overseas and recuperate. As I write this, my friend has just closed a $1m seed round for his next project and is well on the way to rolling it out. Last night he popped the question to his now fiance. It's important to remember that startups are a marathon, not a sprint. Roll with the punches, learn from your mistakes and keep on hustling :).
FWIW - We have been rejected 3 times from YC over the last 3 years. We did not take it personally as OP said, put our heads down and got working on our startup.
After lot of hard work, setbacks and near death experiences, we are now currently growing ~10% MoM and generating millions in ARR. YC or any other investor/accelerator should never be the make or break thing for a startup - it should be your own judgement call on whether you want to continue or not based on market feedback.
It's now mostly "YC stamp of approval" that increases your brand and access to good investors on demo day.
Everything else (e.g. educational value, sense of community) gets degraded due to huge batch sizes (294 founders in S17) and most of the things YC teaches becoming public knowledge.