161–170 of 341 posts
Hey I was like really cool there for an hour or two :)
Guys - we are deeply sorry for this screw-up. I know we got people's hopes up only to let you down, and I feel terrible about it. While it doesn't excuse our mistake, for what it's worth, Startup School makes the classes and all the materials available online to everyone. So even if you didn't get accepted to the advisor track, we hope you will follow along, watch the videos, and find the material useful. My apologie…
Pretty certain I incorrectly received the "Ooops, you didn't actually email" Please confirm this bug. My company is basically a unicorn.
"Yep"
"What company?"
"We are in stealth-mode, currently"
"Ah, what stage are you at, can you share that?"
"Yeah, like I said, we are a stealth-mode pre-unicorn startupschool audit track company"
My cofounder and I were cheers-ing about our acceptance an hour ago and now we're texting about this y-combinator screw-up--we're not accepted after all! For all the other founders and teams who had that momentary confidence of outside reenforcement -- remember how unstoppable and brave you felt in that moment! That glow doesn't have to go away with a retraction email. Hold onto the feeling. Go make great things, go…
I felt really downbeat for a while after getting that redaction email. This comment picked me right back up. Thank you.
So much love for everyone who received an "accepted" email in error. Don't let it get you down. I just got rejected with https://dependabot.com despite $6k MRR and 2,000 active users. I'm sure there are lots of other great companies in the same situation - let's keep building great things.
Given the sheer volume of applications, my guess is they rely heavily on your LinkedIn profile to pattern match based on their profile of a successful YC candidate. So yeah just because you don't look like what they want you to look like (school, history, network, etc), that's no judgement on you. Keep on keeping on.
I just got accepted (after initially rejected) and my startup is pre-launch and has zero customers/revenue. But I do have a degree and have worked for a dozen very large enterprises e.g. Apple, Oracle.
It's great to be accepted but my passion for my startup hasn't changed one iota. Still going to work 24/7 regardless and so should everyone. Do it because you love it.
Ha such a roller coaster of emotions for us over at https://vrooms.tv Excited, confused, super let down, then came here to see we weren't alone.
Yes. Startups are an emotional rollercoaster, but YC is supposed to help with that, not make it worse. We're so sorry that we did the wrong thing today.
My cofounder and I were cheers-ing about our acceptance an hour ago and now we're texting about this y-combinator screw-up--we're not accepted after all! For all the other founders and teams who had that momentary confidence of outside reenforcement -- remember how unstoppable and brave you felt in that moment! That glow doesn't have to go away with a retraction email. Hold onto the feeling. Go make great things, go…
Exactly. It doesn't make two fucks what YC thinks of you, your company, or anything else. Just go win without them. Muster up a little outrage if that sort of thing helps you, be pissed for 30 minutes or so, then buckle down and start writing code, or whatever you need to do to move forward.
As a wise man once said:
Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth, but you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty certain I incorrectly received the "Ooops, you didn't actually email" Please confirm this bug. My company is basically a unicorn.
"Oh youre a founder huh?" "Yep" "What company?" "We are in stealth-mode, currently" "Ah, what stage are you at, can you share that?" "Yeah, like I said, we are a stealth-mode pre-unicorn startupschool audit track company"
"We are deeply sorry, but an error occurred in the software that triggers acceptance emails and you were actually supposed to receive the email below accepting you into the Startup School Advisor Track."
But now I want to be super sure ... ¿Are We In? If I login into the StartupSchool page , I don´t see anything yet.
Felt like shit.
You don't need a "startup school" or a YC acceptance to be successful.
This application allowed me to type like 45 words about my company, and that was it. I imagine they had thousands of applicants.
Once a week with an advisor that's working with 25 other companies? Startup School definitely won't be the thing that moves the needle for your project.
Pessimistically, I see this more as a feeder for YC. This "software glitch" is somewhat telling of the care they are putting into this. In other words, "It's a numbers game".
Keep putting in work. We don't need $120K for 7% in funding for "connections" to get our products off the ground anymore. We don't need this. We can bootstrap.