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Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

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Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#81

Post by graderjs »

eins1234 wrote: post #10

This 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…

I think that's true. it's not dissimilar to an employment application. I never realized this before reading your comment but I think you frame it right: Basically they're looking for people to do the work required to build a business that they want to make them money, and to be coachable enough to take the advice of the YC folks. Just like an employee. Except it's not framed like that and the rewards can be different (but not always) it's just sort of like a higher level of risk, so the bell curve compared to employee salaries probably flattens out and broadens.

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#82

Post by spaceman_2020 »

jitl wrote: post #3

I work at Notion. I advise you to avoid the .so TLD - there’s a lot of institutional bias against Somalia’s TLD, like blanket blocks in many corporate firewalls. This problem will be worse if you serve public user-generated content from that TLD because the chain of communication from you to SomaliNIC might have a bunch of unknown third party intermediaries where an abuse report can get lost. Today Notion is large &…

In general, I would advise against using any non .com TLD. Some percentage of your users will automatically type in the .com domain. Some of these might get confused and not come back.

Why lose any of these "free" users at all?

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#83

Post by j45 »

jitl wrote: post #3

I work at Notion. I advise you to avoid the .so TLD - there’s a lot of institutional bias against Somalia’s TLD, like blanket blocks in many corporate firewalls. This problem will be worse if you serve public user-generated content from that TLD because the chain of communication from you to SomaliNIC might have a bunch of unknown third party intermediaries where an abuse report can get lost. Today Notion is large &…

Thanks for the insight.

I often wonder if this might be why why certain corp environments seem to log me out of notion a few times a month.

Also wish Notion was a first class offline first software so it wouldn’t leave me in the lurch so often.

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#84

Post by mtVessel »

rl3 wrote: post #76
allisdust wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. I used to think in those terms. Thing is, it's a multi-dimensional problem. Dimension one is a human resource limitation. One person pitted against a rapidly evolving technology landscape with very hi…

If your vision is truly so all-encompassing, maybe that's the thing you should work on selling -- but not to investors; to the people you want to work with. Solve your HR problem, get some co-founders, and get going.

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#85

Post by Jgrubb »

romanhn wrote: post #26
eins1234 wrote: post #10

This 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…

The show Silicon Valley had a great bit that mirrors this advice (on why you don't want revenue): https://youtu.be/BzAdXyPYKQo

"But if you have no revenue you can say you're pre-revenue. You're a potential pure play."

"I don't want to make a little bit of money each day. I want to make a fuckton of money all at once. ROI."

Russ Hanneman is one of the funniest characters on this really funny show.

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#86

Post by 1123581321 »

mettamage wrote: post #80
1123581321 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you have ten business ideas you really like, that you think could be successful. You realize there is some luck involved, and that you aren’t going to be as good enough at each idea as you’d like to be, or that you simply won’t figure out how to interest enough people even if you’re really good at making the product. So you keep trying your ideas until one works out.

Isn't the "see what sticks" method the only method applicable in entrepreneurship?

Essentially. The parent comment was struggling with the idea of viewing entrepreneurship as seeing which market would stick, rather than which product would stick. I was (poorly) trying to connect the concepts.

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#87

Post by hodgesrm »

eins1234 wrote: post #10

This 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…

> It's a bit of a catch 22 for B2B startups hoping to use the YC startup network as a source of early customers,

Does YC really help you get customers? Just wondering--in my experience VCs can help with intros but getting real customers requires legwork.

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#88

Post by bentlegen »

As_You_Wish wrote: post #56
bentlegen wrote: post #39

Earlier 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…

The YC badge is part of what distinguishes "everyday small business owners" and "credible tech founders®". This is part of what YC is selling; a credential that identifies you as being a tech founder worthy of respect in the Bay Area.

(I don't personally put a ton of stock in this credential, but the reality is the tech world does.)

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#89

Post by [deleted] »

CoffeeOnWrite wrote: post #53
pavon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the secondary meaning that causes people to choose the .so domain? I get .tv, .ai and finishing the spelling of a word using a ccTLD, but I never understood why people where using so (other than local businesses). Whenever I see them my general impression is one of (a) I'm not hip enough to get this reference, mixed with (b) that company was so desperate to find a good domain name they resorted to registering…

I’m curious the answer to this too. I always think of .so shared object files, which is a cool nerdy association.. but that can’t be it right?

[deleted]

Re: Our five failed YC applications and one successful one

#90

Post by jitl »

pavon wrote: post #42
jitl wrote: post #3

I work at Notion. I advise you to avoid the .so TLD - there’s a lot of institutional bias against Somalia’s TLD, like blanket blocks in many corporate firewalls. This problem will be worse if you serve public user-generated content from that TLD because the chain of communication from you to SomaliNIC might have a bunch of unknown third party intermediaries where an abuse report can get lost. Today Notion is large &…

What is the secondary meaning that causes people to choose the .so domain? I get .tv, .ai and finishing the spelling of a word using a ccTLD, but I never understood why people where using so (other than local businesses). Whenever I see them my general impression is one of (a) I'm not hip enough to get this reference, mixed with (b) that company was so desperate to find a good domain name they resorted to registering…

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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