This is none of my business, but I'm a little confused. I don't see why pg/yc has to apologize. When was the last time a vc acted like he was obligated to hear your elevator pitch, let alone read your huge application---and not only do that, but do it FAIRLY, without giving undue advantage to some other guy with a plan and an MVP (...or not)?
We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
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Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#22This is none of my business, but I'm a little confused. I don't see why pg/yc has to apologize. When was the last time a vc acted like he was obligated to hear your elevator pitch, let alone read your huge application---and not only do that, but do it FAIRLY, without giving undue advantage to some other guy with a plan and an MVP (...or not)?
I don't think pg is apologizing as a VC, but as a hacker/painter.
If the goal is to create something that people want. He has to be just as customer focused.
Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#23[deleted]
Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#24So, assuming I got a rejection letter AND I updated after the deadline, I'm guessing my rejection still stands? ;)
Yes, sorry. This bug got fixed at a certain point, so not all the late edits marked the application as late.
Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#25This is none of my business, but I'm a little confused. I don't see why pg/yc has to apologize. When was the last time a vc acted like he was obligated to hear your elevator pitch, let alone read your huge application---and not only do that, but do it FAIRLY, without giving undue advantage to some other guy with a plan and an MVP (...or not)?
We'd promised to reply by a certain time.
Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#26Ok, well I'm rather new here, but if 50 applications were accidentally marked as late, does that mean there were like 100+ applications overall? That's a lot of new companies. Are all these already for real, or are the bulk of them in the "programmer with an idea" stage?
Last I heard, the YC crew doesn't announce numbers because they don't want to get into phallus-measuring competitions with other organizations; but based on numbers published in the past I'm guessing somewhere between 500 and 1000 applications.
not really a shocking number considering the current state of the industry.
Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#27Were those on-time-marked-as-late applications sent the rejection e-mail by default?
No. We haven't replied to them yet, because we mistakenly believed they were late and that we thus didn't have to reply on April 7.
Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#28Ok, well I'm rather new here, but if 50 applications were accidentally marked as late, does that mean there were like 100+ applications overall? That's a lot of new companies. Are all these already for real, or are the bulk of them in the "programmer with an idea" stage?
Last I heard, the YC crew doesn't announce numbers because they don't want to get into phallus-measuring competitions with other organizations; but based on numbers published in the past I'm guessing somewhere between 500 and 1000 applications.
It's probably more. Based on public numbers/guesses (Harj: http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-companies-that-get-a..., http://www.quora.com/How-many-people-teams-get-rejected-by-Y..., http://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-Y-Combinator-applica...) and some handwaving, last cycle was roughly 1000 applications, 10% got interviews, 4% (40 startups) got in. This cycle there's already ~145 slots taken, so I'd guesstimate 1500 applications (all else staying constant, etc) minimum. Maybe more like 2000.
Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#29Being at the stage we're at things move/happen quick. I looked at our app recently and it looked dated - since the app we've had some game-changing developments (signed on 2 major customers - we're B2B etc.). It'd be cool if your s/w could accommodate for things like that, and secondly I’m surprised you guys don’t do phone/skype screening/interviews. Might help reduce the risk on your investment. Just some thoughts. :-)
Re: We mistakenly marked about 50 applications as late
#30I'm totally going to pitch an application submission management system in the next round. I know of at least one potential customer.
Make sure to talk to the customer(s) and find out what they really need and would pay for before building it ;)