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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

#61

Post by beagle3 »

rdl wrote: post #53
DaniFong wrote: post #36

In case it saves anyone some headaches, I was rejected from YC 3 times (though with useful feedback and connections arise from the experience each time). Our startup (LightSail Energy) is currently among the best poised to change how the world gets its energy. Investors agree; our startup is currently valued above $100MM, with Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, and Khosla Ventures among those who have invested. So things are g…

Wow, it sucks that LightSail isn't in YC. Is that what you applied with? There's probably a bias toward "team" vs. "idea" in evaluating apps, but idea is still important, and it's one of the best ways to understand a team, I think.

I would suspect that LightSail was (certainly is now) way too capital intensive for YC.

Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why

#62

Post by DaniFong »

beagle3 wrote: post #61
rdl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it sucks that LightSail isn't in YC. Is that what you applied with? There's probably a bias toward "team" vs. "idea" in evaluating apps, but idea is still important, and it's one of the best ways to understand a team, I think.

I would suspect that LightSail was (certainly is now) way too capital intensive for YC.

It's hard to prejudge that, and things might change for future LightSails. More are getting into hardware these days.

We applied to YC at the time as a flier. The money would have helped a bit at that point, but also I felt it would be good to give YC the first look.

Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why

#63

Post by rdl »

DaniFong wrote: post #60
rdl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it sucks that LightSail isn't in YC. Is that what you applied with? There's probably a bias toward "team" vs. "idea" in evaluating apps, but idea is still important, and it's one of the best ways to understand a team, I think.

We were in a related field but not there yet. We were still honing in. Also, we were pre-prototype, and I'm not even sure if we had revealed our secret sauce yet (important, because we had to patent it). At the time, it was a compressed air powered scooter that was to be the product. Note: I applied three times . I think YC was right to reject the first two, as suboptimal ideas, further sub-optimally suited to still…

Heh, the first time I saw LightSail, my immediate thought was "replace the crappy battery powered UPSes and diesel generators at datacenters", and then "add redundancy to industrial facilities which could benefit from it (mills, processing plants, etc.) which don't have UPSes because they're too inefficient/expensive in the multi-megawatt industrial scale, and then grid-leveling. I never would have thought of vehicles.

The closest I'd get to vehicles would be something like a supercharger station -- absorb power from the grid at night (or from solar panels), lightsail it, and then dump 480v into a Li-Ion Tesla in an hour.

Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why

#64

Post by rdl »

DaniFong wrote: post #62
beagle3 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suspect that LightSail was (certainly is now) way too capital intensive for YC.

It's hard to prejudge that, and things might change for future LightSails. More are getting into hardware these days. We applied to YC at the time as a flier. The money would have helped a bit at that point, but also I felt it would be good to give YC the first look.

YC companies have raised $6-15mm within a few months of Demo Day, I believe. I don't think the limiting factor is "how much money is available", but how much can be reasonably used.

Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why

#65

Post by jamesrcole »

pg wrote: post #26

I wish people wouldn't treat us like an oracle that can predict startups' success. If only. The fact is we read applications fast and make plenty of mistakes. One thing YC has taught me is that this must be true of practically every application process. For some reason, both the people who are accepted and rejected in any application process tend to read too much into it. (Is there a name for this phenomenon?)

Your Black Swan Farming essay seems relevant http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html

Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why

#66

Post by mvkel »

“At the end of the day YOU have to be the one to make your own destiny. If we want Kodable to be used in every elementary school in the country, YC isn’t going to do that. We are.”

...so get to it. The past 3 seasons you spent trying to get into Y Combinator you could have spent building a base of customers.

Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why

#67

Post by jonpeda »

rdl wrote: post #49
pg wrote: post #26

I wish people wouldn't treat us like an oracle that can predict startups' success. If only. The fact is we read applications fast and make plenty of mistakes. One thing YC has taught me is that this must be true of practically every application process. For some reason, both the people who are accepted and rejected in any application process tend to read too much into it. (Is there a name for this phenomenon?)

One of the strengths of the YC process is that being rejected one time isn't prejudicial against future applications. So, even if the process is somewhat imprecise in any given year, applying again is possible (unlike, say, college admissions), and those who apply multiple times and show improvement are more likely to get in.

Colleges will most certainly welcome re-applications (transfers or post-gap-years), but the window is generally small, as elite colleges are a young-person's institution.

Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why

#68

Post by argonaut »

ldh wrote: post #58
argonaut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A story about being rejected 3 times by YC up voted to the front page of HN. You don't see that as a large indicator as to the culture here? And I have no problem with non-technical people, or anyone learning to code, I just thought it odd that the startup idea was for a non-coder to learn programming in order to 1) teach it to others, 2) ?, 3) profit.

No. That's 50 upvotes. You know how many people it took to get this up to the front page? 50 people. 50 people does not a culture make.

Re: I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why

#69

Post by argonaut »

jonpeda wrote: post #67
rdl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the strengths of the YC process is that being rejected one time isn't prejudicial against future applications. So, even if the process is somewhat imprecise in any given year, applying again is possible (unlike, say, college admissions), and those who apply multiple times and show improvement are more likely to get in.

Colleges will most certainly welcome re-applications (transfers or post-gap-years), but the window is generally small, as elite colleges are a young-person's institution.

Colleges don't limit applicants by age.

However, re-applications are definitely dinged, or so I've heard from reading books/articles about the admissions process.

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