If you are not a White or Asian male, don't even bother. Someone needs to start a fund for African Americans and women.
We Make Mistakes
91–100 of 206 posts
Re: We Make Mistakes
#92I get YC makes mistakes (as does everyone else) but I expected / wished / hoped that the response would be figuring out how to make fewer mistakes; maybe an improved process to reduce the risk of mistakes and not just a blog post throwing their hands in the air and wishing everyone that fell on the wrong side good luck. I think they owe that to their stakeholders, if not all the aspiring entrepreneurs out there. This makes it seem like they don't really care...
Re: We Make Mistakes
#93There are more applicants than YCombinator could accept (or anyone could accept if you look at it in scale). Someone should create a social-media type website for YCombinator applicants (or anyone) to share their stories, meet, interact, network, learn, and collaborate on new and existing ideas. Imagine how many start-ups would be "born" like this. Think of how many great ideas don't get in or simply don't apply, thi…
Check out #startups on freenode
Re: We Make Mistakes
#94First application, got rejected. Honestly happy it happened now instead of after the interview. It gives me more time to think about what's next. My startup is movie industry related, so maybe Los Angeles would be a better place to be. I'll post the startup site here when we launch.
Looking forward to seeing it. Lots of room for innovation in the entertainment industry.
I have a small web app for low budget filmmakers that a hesitate to call a startup (I think rocket growth might be particularly hard to achieve in the production side of the industry). More of a business in its infancy.
Best of luck to you.
Re: We Make Mistakes
#95I never got into Y Combinator (I think I applied 4 times but I'm not sure) but I'm now the CEO of a rapidly growing, well funded startup that actually SERVES an increasing number of YC companies. The way I always thought about YC was that it is ALWAYS worth applying because the exercise is good and the upside is high (and the downside minimal) but getting into YC should never be "part of your plan" - there are too ma…
> it doesn't define you, it defines them.
Brilliant observation.
Re: We Make Mistakes
#96If you are not a White or Asian male, don't even bother. Someone needs to start a fund for African Americans and women.
Re: We Make Mistakes
#97If you are not a White or Asian male, don't even bother. Someone needs to start a fund for African Americans.
Re: We Make Mistakes
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best way to get into YC is to build a great business :)
honest question because I hear this line from YC partners, then at that point why as founders would we need YC at all?
Have you read the book From Good to Great? I've never applied, much less been accepted, but I imagine that YC helps you get the flywheel going that Jim Collins talks about.
It sounds like everybody that participates says they make more progress in the program than they would have otherwise in that amount of time.
But if you have a successful business then you probably don't NEED them. But they can still help.
Re: We Make Mistakes
#99I'm curious to how many founders in this batch are... - Over 35 - Female - African American Edit: My post here is to gauge if the needle of progress in our industry is moving forward in the terms of race, age and sex.
I am 37. Solo founder. No revenue, but working product. Invited for interview.
Re: We Make Mistakes
#100A relevant question I asked PG a year ago: [Do you review rejected YC apps to find startups who then made it big?] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7122774
I've mentioned this in another post. I'm a CPSC University of Calgary alum. James Gosling (Founder of Java) is also an alum. A bunch of my profs went to school with him back in the 70s and the stories they told about him. Well he was a legend. One day he came to do a talk when I was in undergrad. He told us that he applied to every major CPSC school for his PhD and was rejected EVERYWHERE except for Carnegie Mellon. As he was about to walk across the stage to be awarded his degree there, they pulled him aside and told him that each year they randomly select one person that they initially rejected and accepted that person, and that he was the first one that ever graduated. Even James needed luck. I would love to see the same experiment done with YC. IT would be one hell of an experiment.