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missiveapp.com and conferenceBadge.com, my two startups, have both been rejected at the interview phase. Our yearly revenue for both now stands in the 7 digits. We are still just a team of 3 + 1 employee, 100% bootstrapped. Life is good. My advice, keep pushing! https://missiveapp.com/ https://www.conferencebadge.com
I thought YC main thing was growth not revenue. Why did they get rejected for revenue? Also making someone fly overseas for a 10 minute interview to get rejected really sucks. I hate the all day interview, but if you are coming from overseas then maybe give them more than 10 mins.
It's great that YC provides feedback on why they don't accept (some) companies. However, it's a bit disappointing to see that not having MRR is a reason to reject a company. It seems like a lot of the successful YC companies were accepted way before they were anywhere to close to revenue -- and some were even working on a completely different product when accepted. My hope is that MRR is sufficient, but not necessary…
1. Startup has no revenue whatsoever, but ostensibly have good product. They go pitch to investors and get rejected, likely because they have no revenue.
2. They hack around for 1 (!) weekend and get their MRR to $500. Five hundred bucks. They now go back to investors and say: hey look, we now have revenue (peanuts really), can we get funding please?
In what world would those $500 be expected to make a difference? How is that a proof of anything? I expect even really inept startups can somehow pull together $500 revenue from friends and family.
I suppose I just don't get how $500 in revenue could be seriously considered the tipping point between rejection to acceptance for investment?
To my layman reasoning, this is incredibly naive, but I'd like to be proven wrong.
missiveapp.com and conferenceBadge.com, my two startups, have both been rejected at the interview phase. Our yearly revenue for both now stands in the 7 digits. We are still just a team of 3 + 1 employee, 100% bootstrapped. Life is good. My advice, keep pushing! https://missiveapp.com/ https://www.conferencebadge.com
Apropos of nothing, this little marketing page is pretty great -- https://www.conferencebadge.com/why-use-conference-badge
These founders haphazardly threw a new paid feature into their app just to try to impress the YC team? They should have taken the time to do market research and do it right rather than risk alienating their user base. I wonder if getting rejected was a big enough blow to their ego that they couldn’t see clearly, just like college applicants will go to top ranked colleges with no concern for the price or the risk/rewa…
It was worth money.
Therefore, they have left a lot of money on the table.
In my opinion, they're still not charging enough but they'll work that out. Keep at it OP.
These founders haphazardly threw a new paid feature into their app just to try to impress the YC team? They should have taken the time to do market research and do it right rather than risk alienating their user base. I wonder if getting rejected was a big enough blow to their ego that they couldn’t see clearly, just like college applicants will go to top ranked colleges with no concern for the price or the risk/rewa…
I think one of the good things about YC, is if you try to optimize for getting into YC, you're actually building your startup in a constructive manner.
These founders haphazardly threw a new paid feature into their app just to try to impress the YC team? They should have taken the time to do market research and do it right rather than risk alienating their user base. I wonder if getting rejected was a big enough blow to their ego that they couldn’t see clearly, just like college applicants will go to top ranked colleges with no concern for the price or the risk/rewa…
It’s not a guarantee of success, but it definitely helps you build the relationships you need to participate in the “global domination” game (which is the game you’re playing, because that’s the game investors are playing).
These founders haphazardly threw a new paid feature into their app just to try to impress the YC team? They should have taken the time to do market research and do it right rather than risk alienating their user base. I wonder if getting rejected was a big enough blow to their ego that they couldn’t see clearly, just like college applicants will go to top ranked colleges with no concern for the price or the risk/rewa…
who's at the top of the HN leaderboard?