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Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
61–70 of 93 posts
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think one of the brilliant things YC (and PG) have done is propagate “being a founder” as occupying an elite career/employment category beyond anything else. Like, there’s an under appreciated level of category building that YC is responsible for (and the success of their founders hasn’t hurt).
I don't understand this. Anyone can "be a founder." All you have to do is go down to the Department of Finance, file for a business and fictitious business name, and voila, you're a founder. Or, does "founder" mean something different? Does it mean that you start a company AND bring a company to $100 million revenue minimum or something? If that's the case, that's kinda weird to me, but ok boomers, er, sorry, milleni…
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3479042 popped up on HN a few years ago and explains the idea well.
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the .so TLD. If enough people keep using it I don't see how that would still make people nervous. It's a nice sounding TLD and if people have a problem with Somalia they shouldn't take it out on an innocent suffix.
The question is "what control can the government of Somalia have on names that are registered under its TLD?" Can it seize the name? In 2010, it was regulated by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. In 2015 it was a different government and managed by Somali Network Information Center. In 2018 it was transferred to The National Communications Authority. Will the policies change? If the country cuts ties with…
The risk of miscommunication in the supply chain between your registrar and SoNIC is much greater than the risk of nation-state attack by Somalia on your TLD. The people at SoNIC are professional.
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#64>But for the past three years, we've struggled to find the right problem to solve and gain even a small traction.
Each time we pivoted and applied to YC (and were rejected), we learned something new.
Respectfully, I’ve never particularly understood this approach to business. It seems like a lot of VC-funded or VC-hopeful companies take the approach of “I know I should be in business, I just don’t know in what” which feels entirely backwards to me. I understand the company that starts out selling one service (renting DVDs for instance) and then shifts to an adjacent business (streaming movies) because one falls out or there’s opportunities to expand. But the hunting around for a market seems bizarre.
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#65> YC’s new standard deal takes 7% for $125k and equity worth $375k next capped or priced round
Yikes.
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#66>But for the past three years, we've struggled to find the right problem to solve and gain even a small traction. Each time we pivoted and applied to YC (and were rejected), we learned something new. Respectfully, I’ve never particularly understood this approach to business. It seems like a lot of VC-funded or VC-hopeful companies take the approach of “I know I should be in business, I just don’t know in what” which…
It is essentially the the same sentiment that other people have when looking for a good job.
If you want to work for yourself, you look for opportunities to do so.
VC look for opportunities to invest.
Everybody is simply searching for a way to make money the way they want to.
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#67Congratulations! I've been thinking about this a bit, even for a company as renowned as YC, I don't like how the power balance is, and the sort of "we made it!" vibe as if you finally impressed some diety enough to grace you with good fortune. I see the same kind of posts (oddly) about people who tried n times to get a job at google and finally they "made it". Like what are we doing? I think that once an institution…
Unfortunately, It's a human weakness to look for 'formulaic' answers to solve for life's most difficult problems. If successful people came from Ivy Leagues, it became de rigueur that getting into an Ivy League sets you up for success. Then it was Big 4 Consulting, then it was working for FANGs, now it is Founder at a YC company. Not saying that YC is bad, but it would be nice if getting in was easier. Maybe they sho…
Well they can't let everyone in because they have finite attention to give, and one of the reasons to be in YC is for their attention.
They also presumably have finite money, so giving money to everyone is clearly untenable.
YC is a brand, letting everyone in would dilute that brand. Letting people pay to get in would dilute that brand.
They act as a first-level-filter. Having made it into YC goes on your resume Because you passed that filter. The VC network values you more Because you passed that filter.
In other words YC as they are, are specifically working as designed. Changing that removes their value.
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#68This is obviously based on anecdata, take it with a healthy helping of salt, but from what I've heard from a bunch of founder friends who have applied to YC with varying results, I get the sense that if you want to get in, you might be better off applying before you even start working on your startup. Once you actually start, the bar for getting in seems to get much higher, because there's suddenly a lot more concret…
> Once you actually start, the bar for getting in seems to get much higher, because there's suddenly a lot more concrete data points to benchmark your startup against. I started in late 2013 and was rejected by YC in 2016. Haven't applied to anything since, with the exception of Apollo. Certainly was very aware of that dynamic at the time. As a solo founder who lacks the aforementioned impressive resume, and who's ne…
Would it not make sense for you to get user validation with a smaller scale poc than the herculean plan you outlined. Also your plan seem to focus too much on funding goals than user acquisition or product market fit. Unless you are planning to create a spacex style capital intensive company, I don't see why you need so much funding for.
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#69>But for the past three years, we've struggled to find the right problem to solve and gain even a small traction. Each time we pivoted and applied to YC (and were rejected), we learned something new. Respectfully, I’ve never particularly understood this approach to business. It seems like a lot of VC-funded or VC-hopeful companies take the approach of “I know I should be in business, I just don’t know in what” which…
I have rarely seen an entrepreneur execute the same plan that the person had since the inception of the idea. That's the nature of the startup, you have to keep pivoting to avoid a crowded space, discover new markets when you have an insight. If you haven't pivoted then you probably haven't discovered an untapped market. Building a startup is all about testing hypothesis and running experiments. More often, these experiments fail and you have to create a new hypothesis. You will be surprised how often people have similar ideas and the unique idea you think you have is not so unique and have lot of execution nitty gritty. I have seen later stage orgs pivot too. And boy, pivoting is an art too. You can pivot when you are selling none or selling a lot easily. When you are selling few, you have a hope that the product might work and you get stuck in the chasm. I'm glad these guys have found a way to get out of it.
Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one
#70I cannot reconcile this article with this year's YCombinator stats..
43% of the batch were accepted with only an idea
71% of the batch had zero revenue before YC
https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/meet-the-yc-summer-2022-bat...
Is it about how you behave during the interview and/or your past record (ex. successful serial entrepreneurs)? Otherwise, I do not see any reason why this startup was rejected 5 times and many other startups are accepted presumably first time itself with just an idea or no revenue/customers.