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Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

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Re: Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

#51

Post by deepGem »

estsauver wrote: post #26
deepGem wrote: post #24

We applied to YC once and were rejected. Didn't take it personally but since we were in a very early stage, we dropped the idea. I've personally found the YC application extremely gratifying to write. It does help you answer those key difficult questions that you'd have otherwise glossed over because of complacency or over confidence. What I've thought of doing is to fill the YC application for the next idea that I g…

I was initially quite frustrated with the amount of time that my cofounder spent on honing pitches. I came to really appreciate it, having someone who can maintain that obsessive focus on pitch decks usually translates quite well into an obsessive focus on product. If a person is obsessive and has had a lot of past success, they're probably obsessive about the right things.

Yep, I agree but such an obsessive focus comes at a cost of execution speed. In the early stages I'd rather be fast and a bit sloppy than be slow and perfect.

Re: Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

#52

Post by GFischer »

I agree. They're so swamped with applications they don't even look at demos sometimes - they didn't look at mine, which hurt, but I understand why they rejected us (no growth even though we have a LOT of positive feedback, but we really need money to make it grow).

Re: Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

#53

Post by GFischer »

LargeWu wrote: post #23
whistlerbrk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the distance between YC and the next best incubator is measured in light years (imo)

I suspect YC has become similar to the Ivy League schools, in that its primary value is in signaling and networking, rather than the education itself.

Absolutely, I'm pretty sure YC companies have a way easier time raising money.

Re: Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

#54

Post by ultrasounder »

Pieter Levels(pieterhg) is the creator of: - https://nomadlist.com/ - https://remoteok.io/ - https://hoodmaps.com/ Was apparently YC reject too and posted this on his twitter today for some inspiration; https://mobile.twitter.com/levelsio/status/98653081431266099... He is super nice guy too.!!!

Re: Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

#55

Post by [deleted] »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #48

I have a related question. I had an idea many years ago and I've poked at it irregularly since. I have kids and I've already had one startup fail, so I just kind of slow-rolled this one. I still believe the idea has merit, so I keep poking at it here and there. I spent money on design work and it's incorporated, but I don't have a partner or support mechanism. I had a BizSpark account, but I "graduated" in February,…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

#56

Post by spinlock »

loceng wrote: post #12
BIackSwan wrote: post #9

Would love to see the anti portfolio list of YC.[1] 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…

Going through the exercise alone, regularly - say twice per year - is extremely valuable, without needing to actually submit or save the answers in the application form they provide. The questions are nicely structured and hit on important points.

I hate ycombinator comments like this. Now I need to go procrastinate by writing a tool where I can go through the YC application every quarter.

Re: Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

#58

Post by gargarplex »

Or maybe quit and re seed the DNA of your founding team. People get into YC all the time without an idea. It's about the people.

I know someone who literally spent a year finding roommates and living with them in advance in order to cultivate a better YC application.

It's competitive, and 99.9% of the rejected will end up failing.

It's hard to listen and put in the effort but it's worthwhile, having a chip on your shoulder doesn't really make you more productive often it slows you down because you're working in circles to address your emotional needs rather than really listening to the business feedback.

OK, just some ranting from someone who has been rejected by YC for over 10 years now (not really something I want to brag about) but has been fortunate enough to receive investment and grooming from other fine people in the business community.

Keep at it (I kept at it and I'm honestly loving the results) but maybe really change and listen.

Re: Tell HN: Rejected from Y Combinator? Don't be upset or quit

#60

Post by dahart »

BIackSwan wrote: post #9

Would love to see the anti portfolio list of YC.[1] 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…

> Would love to see the anti portfolio list of YC.

That would be interesting! I'd also love to see the list of both rejected and accepted applications that failed. BVP's "anti-portfolio" is a list of massive successes they happened to pass on. It wouldn't be as fun to look at the list of actual failures they passed on, or the failures they funded, but that might be even more instructive, right?

> 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.

Absolutely!

Personally, early on, I made the mistake of thinking that an investor rejection somehow reflected on the viability of my ideas or my business, that they knew something I didn't.

Growing past that and realizing that investors mostly don't care about the ideas, nor do they usually even know what's viable before the market responds, was important.

It also helped me to realize that looking for money just to survive was bad for me, looking for money to accelerate before I was moving at all was bad for me, and most investors are not the right partners for me, no matter how much money they have.

*Edit: BTW, I did once apply and was rejected from YC. With hindsight, I know their call was correct. Not because YC isn't the right partner for me, but because I wasn't ready.

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