[deleted]
The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#22So why don't we tell people why we didn't invite them to interview? Because, paradoxical as it sounds, there often is no reason.
Maybe I'm trying to read tea leaves, but did the "You are the only founder" boolean play a bigger part this time around since you received so many qualified applicants?
Working full time as a solo founder for the last four months (and 13k LOC of Java later), I understand why you would be hesitant to give the nod to a solo found. The work is overwhelming, but some folks can pull it off if they have the right support network and determination.
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#23What about a simple traffic light feedback: green for the accepted ones, yellow for the pretty good rejected ones, red for the rest. At least it would help to see if someone is on the right track...
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#24Summary: The number of good/compelling ideas+team >> Available spots
Exactly. Thousands of Valedictorians don't get into Harvard every year.
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
So this is the first scalability bottleneck you have hit?
It's the current one. There have been others we hit and overcame. We used to review applications printed out on paper, for example; now we have software for it. We also have software for keeping track of all the startups, for communicating with them, and for generating all the documents for startups we fund. We'd have ground to a halt by now without these apps.
And Software do decide who gets accepted of not. :-)
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#26If you think you were rejected unfairly and that your idea is a good one, then build it. PG is telling you that many didn't get rejected for any defined faults or voids in your app. There were good ideas and good applicants, and some were just a rung above you. If anything, that's more encouragement to pursue your idea. So you got cut, big deal. It happened to me before, and it happens to hundreds every year. Just mo…
The concept of "fair" doesn't really apply here. YC can use any [legal] criteria they wish. We're just interested in learning what we could do to improve the application, so we're asking for a little more information, if possible. It's not a "tell us why not". It's an "if possible, give us some info to help improve efficiency of the process".
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#27If you think you were rejected unfairly and that your idea is a good one, then build it. PG is telling you that many didn't get rejected for any defined faults or voids in your app. There were good ideas and good applicants, and some were just a rung above you. If anything, that's more encouragement to pursue your idea. So you got cut, big deal. It happened to me before, and it happens to hundreds every year. Just mo…
The concept of "fair" doesn't really apply here. YC can use any [legal] criteria they wish. We're just interested in learning what we could do to improve the application, so we're asking for a little more information, if possible. It's not a "tell us why not". It's an "if possible, give us some info to help improve efficiency of the process".
You can't give suggestions on improvement if you can't pick out anything that's lacking or needs to be improved. That's the point.
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#28If you think you were rejected unfairly and that your idea is a good one, then build it. PG is telling you that many didn't get rejected for any defined faults or voids in your app. There were good ideas and good applicants, and some were just a rung above you. If anything, that's more encouragement to pursue your idea. So you got cut, big deal. It happened to me before, and it happens to hundreds every year. Just mo…
In other words: entrepreneurs shouldn't ask for permission before building something. (legal matters aside)
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concept of "fair" doesn't really apply here. YC can use any [legal] criteria they wish. We're just interested in learning what we could do to improve the application, so we're asking for a little more information, if possible. It's not a "tell us why not". It's an "if possible, give us some info to help improve efficiency of the process".
You can't give suggestions on improvement if you can't pick out anything that's lacking or needs to be improved. That's the point.
Ok. Didn't hurt to ask, though :)
Re: The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews
#30If you think you were rejected unfairly and that your idea is a good one, then build it. PG is telling you that many didn't get rejected for any defined faults or voids in your app. There were good ideas and good applicants, and some were just a rung above you. If anything, that's more encouragement to pursue your idea. So you got cut, big deal. It happened to me before, and it happens to hundreds every year. Just mo…
> and some were just a rung above you
That's not necessarily the case. For some proposals, "[we] didn't understand the problem domain well enough to judge them". Or didn't have the time to look at stuff you've done; or your demo. Or they liked enough other proposals already that they didn't feel the need to look at your demo. The "stellar" ones were ones that "seemed better" in the opinion of the reviewers. As noted, "this process is fraught with error".