I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
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I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
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Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#2The first five paragraphs—particularly the multiple pivots, bringing on a woman co-founder in hopes that it might look good, and spending an inordinate amount of time researching everything about getting into YC—really surprised me. I would think you'd want to get into YC because you have a (hopefully) marketable vision and YC is simply a means to an end in getting that vision shipped.
It looks like the OP finally realized that towards the end, but is the first part a common way to approach YC, where it's an end in and of itself? If so, is the central idea that "well, now that I've been a part of YC, everything will just fall into place"?
Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#3The first five paragraphs—particularly the multiple pivots, bringing on a woman co-founder in hopes that it might look good, and spending an inordinate amount of time researching everything about getting into YC—really surprised me. I would think you'd want to get into YC because you have a (hopefully) marketable vision and YC is simply a means to an end in getting that vision shipped. It looks like the OP finally re…
Just to clarify, we initially decided to work together because she's an excellent designer and I can't design for shit. I just thought it might help our case.
Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#4Getting into Y Combinator for the sake of getting into Y Combinator seems to be quite common; I wasn't too surprised at that. Could there be scope in the application for a question along the lines of "What do you want to achieve by being a part of Y Combinator?"?
Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#5The first five paragraphs—particularly the multiple pivots, bringing on a woman co-founder in hopes that it might look good, and spending an inordinate amount of time researching everything about getting into YC—really surprised me. I would think you'd want to get into YC because you have a (hopefully) marketable vision and YC is simply a means to an end in getting that vision shipped. It looks like the OP finally re…
Just to clarify, we initially decided to work together because she's an excellent designer and I can't design for shit. I just thought it might help our case.
Ah, thanks for clarifying: I read the last sentence in paragraph 3 as you had brought her on to improve your YC application.
Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#6This highlights part of the HN/YC culture that just doesn't resonate with me at all. I like coming up with creative ideas and working on fun stuff, but it seems totally backwards to me to repeatedly try to conjure a startup out of thin air in the hopes of getting funded. One of the parts that gave me pause was the idea of somebody furiously learning programming to facilitate building an app to teach others to program.
I guess it's a different mentality, and some people get the same thrill out of the entrepreneurial game that I do from writing code. Anyway, looks like some interesting conclusions came from the story, thanks for sharing.
Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#7This all seems so misguided. "I'm going to come up with something so I can get into this club and I'm going to sit in protest until they let me in! And if that doesn't work, I'll just keep trying." Reminds me of Rudy... Instead of working on an idea in hopes of getting into YC, focus on an idea/market you care about and don't give a shit whether you get into a special "cool kids" club. That will get you a hell of a lot further.
Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#8This all seems so misguided. "I'm going to come up with something so I can get into this club and I'm going to sit in protest until they let me in! And if that doesn't work, I'll just keep trying." Reminds me of Rudy... Instead of working on an idea in hopes of getting into YC, focus on an idea/market you care about and don't give a shit whether you get into a special "cool kids" club. That will get you a hell of a l…
That was his conclusion too.
Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#9Getting into Y Combinator for the sake of getting into Y Combinator seems to be quite common; I wasn't too surprised at that. Could there be scope in the application for a question along the lines of "What do you want to achieve by being a part of Y Combinator?"?
No doubt that YC has a fast growing fan club, I know IDEO have to differenciate between the suitable employee vs. the fan club of which YC is likely to be the same. I have applied to YC this round, but I am confident we can build a business and take on the world with or without YC. The tone of your blogpost suggests success is dependent upon getting in to YC which isn't overly attractive.
Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why
#10This highlights part of the HN/YC culture that just doesn't resonate with me at all. I like coming up with creative ideas and working on fun stuff, but it seems totally backwards to me to repeatedly try to conjure a startup out of thin air in the hopes of getting funded. One of the parts that gave me pause was the idea of somebody furiously learning programming to facilitate building an app to teach others to program…
How in any way does this represent part of the HN/YC culture? He got rejected the first time, didn't he?
As a coder, I always encourage non-technical people I meet to learn how to code, so I don't find the idea of a non-technical person trying to learn to code at all a negative aspect of the tech scene.