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Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

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Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#101

We, Body Boss ( http://bodybossfitness.com ) didn't even have a product last time year, and we thought just having a good idea was enough for acceptance. In the past year, we've boostrapped like crazy, built a product, launched and acquired plenty of customers to validate our idea. YC rejection for the 2nd year in a row has done little to dampen our spirits and ambition. Here's to another rejection that motivates us…

Congrats on your success--the site looks great! It loads pretty slowly for me though even with a decent connection. I'm in Australia, so that could be a factor, but I see a few quick optimizations you could do.

1 - Some of your images are huge. The ipad workouts image alone is 300kb, which is way too big. Of course you want them to be good quality, but you should be able to cut a lot of weight without any noticeable effect. The Fireworks Export Wizard is a good tool for this.

2 - Some of your images are unnecessarily broken up into lots of separate img tags. The main landing page image with the helmets and devices has over 6 tags. You should combine images in order to have as few img tags as possible. It will reduce http requests and also give the browser less layout work to do.

3 - On a similar note, you have a bunch of small images like the player portraits that you could group into a spritesheet to further reduce requests.

4 - It doesn't seem like you're using a CDN? Something like Cloudfront or Cloudflare is quick to setup and will improve download time for your images drastically, especially for people who are far away from your server like me.

5 - You should put your javascript at the bottom of the body instead of in the head. You're not executing anything until the dom is loaded anyway, and putting at the bottom will allow the page to render before the js is downloaded and parsed, improving perceived load time. Use 'display: none' to initially hide anything that depends on the js to look right.

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#102
post #72

I'm just hoping to give a few people some perpective on such rejections: - Damien Katz (creator of CouchDB) was also rejected[1]. He went on and got $2 million from Redpoint Ventures [2] - On this video[3], Jessica Livingston interviews Drew. It shows that he was also rejected the first time he tried out YC. - The oscar of rejected but finally accepted: I got into YC after applying six times [4] - Peteris Krumins als…

Chartboost got rejected from YC in S11. These days we're at $21M in funding led by Sequoia for Series B and ~55 employees. :) It's not the end of the world.

Way to go Chartboost.

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#103
Urlbox.io is offering our $9.99 plan free for life and 50% of all other plans. If you are a startup who requires to integrate screenshots as a service. Urlbox.io got easy API to help you up and running.

Email your YC rejection letter to founders@urlbox.io and we'll get you going in no time.

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#104
post #5

I just want to say that e-mail looks very well-written and comforting for a rejection e-mail. I wish companies sent similar rejection e-mails to job applicants. Keep your spirits up, rejectees, this is not the end of the world. Continue doing your thing. :)

I for one wish companies would give more details to job applicants. I've heard that some companies don't give you any details for fear of (discrimination?!) lawsuits or, as a recruiter once told me, simply paranoia. If someone knows other reasons for this besides not keeping records of the interviews, I'd like to know more. What's even stranger/funnier is that some companies reject you without giving any specific rea…

A solution to that might be tests, where the company isn't telling you why you were rejected, but it is obvious from something objective.

I.e. if the process aborts after a certain stage, and the first few stages are fairly transparent tech skill evaluations. If it is something as fuzzy as code on a whiteboard, that is more like a human interview, but something like progressive fizzbuzz could be used as a 1h pre-screen.

If all teammate interviews happen pre lunch, then, and you are told to go home before lunch, then it is the team interviews. I guess then exact reason wouldn't be clear to you, though.

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#105
post #96
post #14

Rejection by YC does not mean your idea/team/execution is not good. Just keep working on your startup, in the mean time you may want to try some other top programs like techstars, 5000startups, angelpad, etc

so many accelerators that provide the same value as YC out there - http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators

it's a really useful link, thank you!

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#106

I'm just hoping to give a few people some perpective on such rejections: - Damien Katz (creator of CouchDB) was also rejected[1]. He went on and got $2 million from Redpoint Ventures [2] - On this video[3], Jessica Livingston interviews Drew. It shows that he was also rejected the first time he tried out YC. - The oscar of rejected but finally accepted: I got into YC after applying six times [4] - Peteris Krumins als…

It's not the rejection that bothers me, it will be what they end up accepting that will sting. Don't get me wrong, they have made some great selections in the past, but there were a lot that also seemed very weak. I may have been overconfident simply because of the thought, "Well hell, if they accepted that group, surely we'll be accepted."

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#107
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing here yet. We applied a week late. Anyone else apply late with no email yet?

We applied April 10th. Haven't heard anything either

Hey, we still haven't heard anything. Have you guys gotten an email yet?

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#108
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one wish companies would give more details to job applicants. I've heard that some companies don't give you any details for fear of (discrimination?!) lawsuits or, as a recruiter once told me, simply paranoia. If someone knows other reasons for this besides not keeping records of the interviews, I'd like to know more. What's even stranger/funnier is that some companies reject you without giving any specific rea…

A solution to that might be tests, where the company isn't telling you why you were rejected, but it is obvious from something objective. I.e. if the process aborts after a certain stage, and the first few stages are fairly transparent tech skill evaluations. If it is something as fuzzy as code on a whiteboard, that is more like a human interview, but something like progressive fizzbuzz could be used as a 1h pre-scre…

An answer saying "our team doesn't like you" would be fine with me even if more details would be welcome e.g. you didn't get the joke about Lisp. After all, I can't be liked by everyone :-)

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#109
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! It's too bad that you aren't in our target market. :-) Our progress so far is a huge testament to the skill, execution and resolve of our team ( http://bodybossfitness.com/about ).

Your site looks nice. But one thing. Your target market is "coaches and players" Yet your "about" page is targeted toward either a) getting funded or b) people who are into tech, read HN, etc. That's a problem. You start of with "Andrew Reifman" who is a "pixel perfectionist". This has nothing to do with anything that your target market (say the coach at my local high school team) would even remotely care about. The…

Thanks, larrys. Great feedback, and we've already taken some of your advice to heart.

Cheers, Daryl (Mr. Business of the Body Boss Team)

Re: Tell HN: YC rejection emails have started going out

#110
post #76

FlightCar was rejected on first pass--don't feel bad guys! The reason most startups fail is because the founders give up. So don't give up and keep hustling! --Shri (Founder, FlightCar)

Congrats to you and your team, Shri! I just read about FlightCar in TechCrunch. Very neat idea, and I look forward to seeing how everything goes!
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