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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

#391

Post by ankit219 »

arbuge wrote: post #385
ankit219 wrote: post #315

I find these kind of messages distasteful. When people are focused on building, they need feedback from the market. That rejection/feedback helps, but any other kind of rejection - especially a VC or investor rejection - hurts. You could argue that founders should be used to rejection, still this is a needless rejection - without any specific feedback and from a group not their TG - not something people should spend…

If rejection hurts you so much I think your life as an entrepreneur will be tough. The right mindset would I think be to show them that they were wrong if they reject you. Ultimately fundraising is selling. And in sales, your goal should, funnily enough, be to get as many rejections as possible. To eat "no" for breakfast, as it were. Easier said than done, I know.

Fundraising is about focus. If you are in a fundraising mode and applying to YC, great. Would learn a lot, and I think it makes sense to do that. When fundraising, many rejections are great. When not fundraising and a VC reaches out, it's distracting. How is the case different here? PG himself says so [1]

When you are building and selling a product, shifting your focus to fundraising in the middle (and not committing to it) is stupidity and would leave you to neither be able to build/sell well or fundraise well. It's a mindset shift, and one of PG's essays talk about that too.

Problem is not with rejection. Rejection from the customers is what motivates people. I am not motivated by "wanting to show others they are wrong", but by solving a problem, creating value, and impacting people. What you wrote is a weak justification for the time you spent on application - that could have spent on building product or a sales pitch.

Again, my point is not rejection but distraction. It's about focus. When you are in the middle of building, it's unhelpful to just fill out an application for "what if". Don't do it. Most entrepreneurs know when they are fundable.

[1]: https://paulgraham.com/fr.html

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

#393

Post by ankit219 »

tptacek wrote: post #376
ankit219 wrote: post #315

I find these kind of messages distasteful. When people are focused on building, they need feedback from the market. That rejection/feedback helps, but any other kind of rejection - especially a VC or investor rejection - hurts. You could argue that founders should be used to rejection, still this is a needless rejection - without any specific feedback and from a group not their TG - not something people should spend…

This is all a just-so story. Rejection is the air you breathe. One of the better things YC does is offer quick, no-nonsense rejections, which is a stark difference from the institutional VC market which will happily string you along, offering feedback and meetings for months with no intention of ever taking anything but an option on joining your round if a real buyer shows up. Meanwhile: if you're so busy talking to…

I am not coming from a jaded bootstrapper angle at all. My point is simple: if you are in fundraising mode and are fundable, apply to YC. And talk to as many investors as you can. If you are not, don't do any of those. Focus on building. YC would have another application in six months.

YC is better than other investors, but it is still an investor.

> the time to apply to YC is damaging

It's not damaging but distracting. Focus is your biggest asset as a founder. And you need to minimize distractions. PG's essay on fundraising talks about the same.

I do not have a viewpoint about other people venting about YC. I am not coming from that angle, and I have ignored those posts mostly simply because YC's content has helped me.

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

#394

Post by b20000 »

dang wrote: post #255
b20000 wrote: post #247

i applied several times and never got feedback which doesn’t help

YC responds to every application, so unless there was some weird email problem, I can't imagine why that would happen. Especially several times—that is really odd. If you want me to look into what might have happened there, I'd be willing to try if you email hn@ycombinator.com. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40093529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40092169

"Rejections usually aren't personalized because that can't scale"

that says it all.

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

#395

Post by ketanmaheshwari »

lappet wrote: post #379
ketanmaheshwari wrote: post #15

I wanted to sell samosa on the internet. Would YC be a good place to seek funding for such a business? Samosa because they are versatile across many dimensions: ingredients, taste, shelf-life, and can be easily made in a combinatorics space of these dimensions. They are kind of like how Bubba describes shrimp to Gump. I once wondered if YC is a good platform for such a business?

holy moly, if you setup a kickstarter for this, a bajillion desis would support it. curious though, are they going to be frozen samosas?

They could be three types on that dimension: 1. Freshly made and delivered locally on hourly scale; 2. Take and bake or fry perhaps same day; and 3. Frozen for longer term.

I find that desis and non-desis alike are samosa fans.

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

#396

Post by dgfitz »

swores wrote: post #331
dgfitz wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did Elizabeth Holmes.

They were arguing success is possible without a college degree, not that lacking a college degree guarantees success.

No. They were naming famous people who dropped out of college.

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

#397

Post by chaostheory »

vertis wrote: post #387
chaostheory wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll see if I can scrounge up the data. For some years, I had the entire batch covered, but most had holes since not everyone had a LinkedIn account. Unfortunately, the more recent the years the less the data. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with what YC is doing. Startups are hard enough as is, and they found a formula that works consistently.

Dang going around saying, "no no apply anyway" says to me that even if it is in that state, that's not what they want. As a unknown university dropout (2001) I wouldn't feel intimidated to apply, and may well go after the next batch (have just found a cofounder). I have to trust that they'll evaluate me on merits rather than prestige.

That’s the thing. They were clearly judging people on merits if you look at the founders closely. They just all happened to have graduated from really good schools.

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

#398

Post by sebastiennight »

bko wrote: post #377
sebastiennight wrote: post #361

Applied for the 3rd time (B2B AI SaaS, 300% YoY growth, $109k revenue last month). Decided to take a risk with the founder video. On my first 2 applications I did what everyone does and shot 100 takes to get one "right"... On this one though, I shot the whole video in one take (with warts and all) and used our own software to edit it, and then used that as the demo as well[0]. In a way, it feels like I can't win on t…

Congrats on your success. Why would you even want to join YC? They give the same deal to everyone. So you're lumped into a batch that basically has 30% of people in it with just an idea. It's pretty offensive if you actually proved yourself and your business idea. But don't worry, you prob still won't get in

I don't compare myself with others much. Why should I care if there are earlier-stage startups in there?

We always think that our current stage is pretty high up the mountain already (see a rough July 2022 ARR update[0] when I thought I was on top of the world) but if you zoom out, you see things with much better perspective (18 months later, the whole year of 2022 looks way less impressive[1])

If we're on the road to $100MM+ in ARR, the current spot we're at will be flattened to almost zero when you look back with perspective a few years down the line.

So there's that.

And then, "why join YC", well the answer is simple.

- We are growing, but we could grow so much faster. Everything is still on a shoestring budget.

- We have an epic roadmap and could grow the product to mind-boggling levels of awesome. YC could help us shave years off of that.

- Plus we finally cracked breakeven acquisition on cold traffic but we're strapped for cash.

- And finally, I've joined several founder "communities" in the last few months (online and local) and those are all just a dump-your-promo Slack channel with zero added value or interaction. The local "startup" events are full of startup consultants on the hunt, designers, would-be employees and the like (but zero founders). So it feels a bit lonely when you've got a challenge which is clearly in the "thousands of founders must have solved this exact same problem before, so why should I bang my head on the wall" category.

So: advice, founder-friendly terms, a network of peers, and not having to chase investors for capital. That's why I applied.

[0]: https://nuro.video/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Capture-de%CC%...

[1]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSEOGmySAAyv...

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

#399

Post by bko »

sebastiennight wrote: post #398
bko wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats on your success. Why would you even want to join YC? They give the same deal to everyone. So you're lumped into a batch that basically has 30% of people in it with just an idea. It's pretty offensive if you actually proved yourself and your business idea. But don't worry, you prob still won't get in

I don't compare myself with others much. Why should I care if there are earlier-stage startups in there? We always think that our current stage is pretty high up the mountain already (see a rough July 2022 ARR update[0] when I thought I was on top of the world) but if you zoom out, you see things with much better perspective (18 months later, the whole year of 2022 looks way less impressive[1]) If we're on the road t…

Thanks for answering. I misread your orig post. When you said you had 109k last month I thought that was monthly rev, which would make your arr 1.3mm. The standard offer 500k for 7% is pretty bad (5x rev multiple with x00% growth)

Overall the money isn’t a lot. It sounds like you’re strapped for cash. If you optimize for that you’ll likely find much better terms. The point about cohort being so many idea stage is that they focus on that and have resources geared towards those people. And the community (cohort) will be much less mature business wise. They give you the golden touch which helps for cos selling vapor ware. I think you’re beyond that and can go more traditional route to raise money. Did you reach out to other vcs?

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