Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#1

Post by dmvaldman » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 11:37 PM UTC

I applied as a solo founder with my project http://www.quipvideo.com, but alas I didn't get an offer for an interview. I think a big part of that is the fact that I don't have a team behind me. I don't know too many other awesome hacker types, but maybe you - failed YC applicant - are such a person, or suffer from the same problem. Perhaps we should get to know each other better?

Let's turn this unfortunate news into an opportunity to share ideas, brainstorm and meet like-minded folk. Share your thoughts in the comments.

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#2

Post by jiganti » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 11:48 PM UTC

I'm building http://moodstir.com and http://kothpoker.com. If the idea's shortcomings weren't the reason I was rejected, it was likely because I'm currently a solo founder. It seems like there are a lot of awesome teams applying and that alone is hard to compete with.

I would be happy to meet up in SF with fellow failed YC S12'ers.

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#3

Post by vibrunazo » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 11:54 PM UTC

Does YC gives you any kind of explanation for the rejection? Or is it just a no?

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#4

Post by jsmith72 » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 11:55 PM UTC

Don't know I applied as a team and still got rejected, ummm passed over. Should I take that more personally :-). Actually they have quite a tough job to do in reviewing so many applications. I the e-mail was actually almost too nice. It would have been helpful if it had some quantitative data as in what each person thought of it as in. As in a score or something even such as, we liked you but your idea really stunk, or no technical co-founder, or don't give up your day job.

Actually open call here. I am very interested in hearing any ideas that didn't get accepted. I hope to modify my site in the next day to allow a discussion on this and to talk to others. Y-combinator is a great way it seems to develop concepts, but not the only way. If other rejected ones are like us then we should really talk to each other. Feel free to e-mail me at joshua.smith@i4edge.com. Better yet here post on this page http://www.i4edge.com/ycombinator-apply-list/ ‎

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#5

Post by tunnuz » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 11:57 PM UTC

vibrunazo wrote: post #3

Does YC gives you any kind of explanation for the rejection? Or is it just a no?

It just says "sorry".

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#6

Post by longcreative » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 11:58 PM UTC

We're building http://HuntersDB.com - a big-game hunting database with search, data and maps.

This process forced me to ask myself the tough questions and for that we are better.

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#7

Post by linh » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 11:59 PM UTC

Didn't apply to YC but interesting idea. I thought of the same idea but there was one fundamental problem I couldn't solve. That is, the text on the side is too distracting. I hope you can think of some ways to solve that problem!

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#8

Post by longcreative » Mon, Apr 16, 2012, 11:59 PM UTC

vibrunazo wrote: post #3

Does YC gives you any kind of explanation for the rejection? Or is it just a no?

http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#9

Post by chrisacky » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 12:02 AM UTC

We received our rejection letter as well.

We are building a centralized platform as a service which allows vacation rental home owners and property agents to launch and create their own marketing website which they can manage from a single location. Property owners can also receive marketing and exposure on any number of sites. (We're placing more emphasis on enterprise rather than the social side that AirBnB went down). ie Agents can launch their own marketing website, manage their own property portfolio and run their own branding. Kind of like how you can launch your own Desk.com website and create your own knowledge base... on our platform you can do the same by managing your own catalogue of properties and revenue share with other advertisers who might make a booking on your behalf.

The enquiry management, booking tools and payment facilities are all built in. We haven't launched yet. Which was why this cycle would of been the best fit for YC.

http://rentivo.com/how-it-works

We will be launching soon (so no demo is available), but in case anyone knows a designer send them to the post on Baby Unicorns and Rockstar Designers I wrote this morning.

http://rentivo.com/blog/baby-unicorns-and-rockstar-designers

Re: Ask HN: Rejected from YC? Who are you?

#10

Post by allanscu » Tue, Apr 17, 2012, 12:03 AM UTC

jsmith72 wrote: post #4

Don't know I applied as a team and still got rejected, ummm passed over. Should I take that more personally :-). Actually they have quite a tough job to do in reviewing so many applications. I the e-mail was actually almost too nice. It would have been helpful if it had some quantitative data as in what each person thought of it as in. As in a score or something even such as, we liked you but your idea really stunk,…

While it would be great for founders to get quantitative and qualitative feedback from PG & team, it would be a pretty daunting task for YC partners to give a well thought out answer to the 1000+ groups.

While 1-2 sentence answer from YC could help out your company, it could open up a whole new can of worms that causes some groups to say, "but wait.." or "good idea, we can pivot...".

Their nice rejection letter is probably the best result the non-interviewees can get.