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Tell HN: YC Application Responses Are Out

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tell HN: YC Application Responses Are Out

#42

Post by huhtenberg »

yaz wrote: post #14
chrisacky wrote: post #4

We just received our rejection letter. Major shame, but wasn't at all unexpected. Based on Analytics and MixPanel our demo we set up wasn't actually tried, so I guess the takeaway from this was that the application wasn't as strong as we thought. Even so, the entire process of writing the application was very rewarding. It really did help focus our direction into something concrete. Incidentally, since it's all over,…

My demo wasn't tried either (I checked everyday), nor did I have more than 4 pageviews of my video, most of which are mine. Good luck and don't take it hard.

Have it at all occurred to you guys that some people might be running AdBlock and alike, so MixPanel/GA scripts won't even have a change to load? Hm.

Re: Tell HN: YC Application Responses Are Out

#43

Post by joncalhoun »

tmh88j wrote: post #39
phzbOx wrote: post #35

I haven't applied this year but I really hate that rejection email. I hope one day YC could man up and tell why it was refused rather then giving a "You don't need to get in to create a successful business" bullshit. Even if it's only one sentence. I feel like not doing so is really lacking respect for the teams who put hours filling it up. Add on top of that the fact that some demos are not even tried. As some peopl…

There are thousands of people who apply. They can't possibly find the time to reply to all of them. Maybe a few of the borderline ones, but in reality you can't expect them to spend weeks responding to everyone.

And on top of that - most of the borderline projects would probably get an interview if they didn't have so many applications, so even those would be impossible to give a clear reason as to why they weren't picked aside from saying "we thought X other projects were more promising"

Re: Tell HN: YC Application Responses Are Out

#46

Post by sudonim »

Keep things in perspective. Getting in to YC != success. It's one data point.

Success = Success.

Get your customers to love you. Get people to pay you for your product / service. Be better tomorrow than you are today.

If you were doing all those things when you applied, that 1 data point doesn't a failure make.

Re: Tell HN: YC Application Responses Are Out

#47

Post by anthonycerra »

notdarkyet wrote: post #36

We received our rejection as well. As much as you try to tell yourself say it is not a big deal, it still hurts. You question much of what you are doing. I have been grinding on many unsuccessful projects for a while now, and it's hard to stay positive. The funny thing is, we had no intention to apply to YC originally, but once we did, you start to dream about how it could change your life. How that might be the defi…

Keep on keepin' on. Your rejection is in no way a foreshadow of your success or failure. This time last year I found out my company got accepted into an accelerator. A year later the business is a failure and a bunch of companies that got rejected are still going.

People that run incubators are amazing human beings, but they're not fortune tellers.

Re: Tell HN: YC Application Responses Are Out

#49

Post by solnyshok »

the questions asked in the application form were very useful, and led to better understanding of own ideas. we, however, didn't start our project for VCs, but for users... so rejection by YC is not bothering me as much as getting traction. we are sms social network. http://this.is.osom.me
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