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Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

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Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#201

Post by OJFord »

dang wrote: post #162
GMoromisato wrote: post #144

My co-founder and I have applied twice and been rejected twice, and we don't regret it. There is no real downside to applying. In fact, as others have said, applying helps you to refine how you pitch your startup. The only negative is that there's a 99% chance that you will be rejected, and rejections can hurt. But being able to deal with rejection is important in itself.

Rejection sucks, it's true. But one thing a lot of people don't know is that the chance of being accepted to YC goes up with repeated applications. I even think most founders who YC funds get rejected before they get accepted. (I may be wrong about most* but certainly it's a large chunk.) The main thing is to demonstrate progress since your last application. * Edit: I asked the team and got back: "most is true! for w…

I could've sworn there was a cap, like apply and be rejected three times and that's it or something, but I can't find that now - is that not the case? Just could be quite significant to people considering 'just apply' advice quite last minute over this weekend is all :)

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#202

Post by dang »

anilmr wrote: post #195
dang wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert but I've been hanging around YC for a long time and have the consistent impression that when it comes to visa issues, something can nearly always be done. If I were you I'd just apply and mention in the form that you'll need help with this. If it's the kind of application YC would fund, they're not going to turn you down for this reason.

thank you, I will take your advice and apply!

Good luck!

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#203

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

dang wrote: post #194
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how it becomes the next $100M household name Unfortunately this is too low for a VC/YC. The min valuation they are looking for is around $1B

That's not so. At the last YC talk I attended, founders of $100M startups were cited as successes (anything else would be pretty weird, no?) That's incredibly successful, even though startup investing is a power-law game.

Here is the YC rejection letter for my startup

> "... we felt this was unlikely to be a unicorn, even though it might have a solid chance of reaching 10-100M in valuation."

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#204

Post by dang »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #203
dang wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not so. At the last YC talk I attended, founders of $100M startups were cited as successes (anything else would be pretty weird, no?) That's incredibly successful, even though startup investing is a power-law game.

Here is the YC rejection letter for my startup > "... we felt this was unlikely to be a unicorn, even though it might have a solid chance of reaching 10-100M in valuation."

If that's an accurate quote then I owe you an apology and I'm sorry!

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#205

Post by andrewstuart »

loceng wrote: post #44
_akhe wrote: post #23

Re: "won't get in" How do I balance this encouraging advice with everything I've heard online about YC basically being a post-Ivy League thing? Seems like there's basically a 0% chance a random person would get into YC. And often those who did get in went to Stanford, Harvard, etc. and don't even have a product - sometimes they don't even know what they're going to build yet. I wrote the idea of VC stuff off long ago…

Also understand the VC industry is inherent with learning from the ideas submitted to them as part of curating deal flow; and it's common for them to justify it with a mantra that ideas are supposedly not worth anything, and it's all about execution. When and who to share ideas with - and any market traction you may have as proof points there's an opportunity - is possibly the most important part of executing, and wh…

>> ideas are supposedly not worth anything

If ideas are worth nothing then a great team executing well should be able to create a billion dollar company selling dog droppings.

Anyone who says ideas are worth nothing is flat out wrong.

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#206

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

dang wrote: post #171
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not their problem. If you have issues or any issues or they smell any issues, you will be rejected. Too many people take VC/YC personally but try to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself if your startup would be worth it. Your answer will be their answer

I couldn't disagree more! If anyone is feeling this way, please re-read my text at the top because the whole point is to convince you that YC might be a lot more interested than you'd assume. Look at it this way: if there's even a small chance that an application could lead to a major startup, would it make any sense for YC to reject it because of visa reasons (or similar)? Absolutely not. That would be how startup i…

Unfortunately dang we will always be yin and yang (founders and vc/yc).

If I have a thousand applications lying on my desk, my first task would be to remove everyone that has even the slightest issue. There is absolutely no way you would know who is going to be successful so your job is not to find the winners but get rid of the losers.

Unfortunately VCs have a power over startups. Any startups they touch will have higher chance to succeed. And when the winds are strong even the chickens can fly so it's not that you choose the right startups, its just that the startups YC chooses become right.

Not saying you are wrong but let's just agree to disagree ;)

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#207

Post by anamax »

threeseed wrote: post #123
999900000999 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction, I got a response, but no specific feedback. I double checked my emails. Anyway, I'm realistic in knowing my ideas aren't going to garner investment. I would love if you had a YC Junior for just getting help on ideas vs capital.

No investor is going to give you specific feedback. Your best bet is to go to onto Reddit, Discord etc, find the startup communities and ask for advice there. There are a lot of people who want to support other founders. Or even better go on Linkedin, find some prospective customers and ask them for advice. I've had about 10% of people reply back some with page long answers. If you are willing to spend money there ar…

> No investor is going to give you specific feedback.

That depends on what you mean by "specific."

Several Sand Hill Angels members, who are investors, provide feedback almost every month. (It's in the context of a pitch, but...)

See https://www.sandhillangels.com/raw

("pitch practice" is somewhat misleading.)

[edited to add some detail]

The typical angel-group pitch has three parts, the pitch, the Q&A, and then the "with the entrepreneur out of the room" discussion.

This event lets participants listen to that discussion, as well as those three parts for the other folks pitching the same night.

Then there's an "ask investors anything" session at the end.

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#208

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

dang wrote: post #204
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the YC rejection letter for my startup > "... we felt this was unlikely to be a unicorn, even though it might have a solid chance of reaching 10-100M in valuation."

If that's an accurate quote then I owe you an apology and I'm sorry!

That's a verbatim quote copied from the rejection email.

You don't owe an apology because you are not the one rejecting it. However keep in mind that what your beliefs are, they are not the same held by colleagues/friends/families.

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#209

Post by OJFord »

ssroovy wrote: post #106
dang wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're already signed up, because you can use your HN account to log in. (All YC accounts are HN accounts and vice versa.) The process is that you fill out a form and make a 1 minute video* and click 'submit'. (* I know...I hated the video thing too... but it gives a sense of what someone is like that doesn't come through in text, and you just talk for a minute about what you care about. nothing fancy.) (edit: also,…

Video is fine(it's just a minute), but why LinkedIn URL is required(not optional)? LinkedIn is about education, career, and networking. I am under average in all of them, so I'm not registered. This is the only thing which holding me back from applying. Otherwise, I work full-time on kick-ass product for months with 1000+ commits.

Just enter some kind of dummy text/fake profile URL that indicates you don't have an account? I can't imagine it's seriously a hard requirement; you creating a basically empty account now just to be able to provide a real URL isn't better than 'N/A'.

Re: Tell HN: Ever think of applying to YC? Do it this weekend for S24

#210

Post by [deleted] »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #208
dang wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's an accurate quote then I owe you an apology and I'm sorry!

That's a verbatim quote copied from the rejection email. You don't owe an apology because you are not the one rejecting it. However keep in mind that what your beliefs are, they are not the same held by colleagues/friends/families.

[deleted]
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