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Tell HN: YC Application Responses Are Out
82 points by fearless on April 16, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 104 comments
YC has started sending out invitations for interviews and rejection emails...so check your email and your spam folder.

Congratulations to everyone who got invited to interview.

And everyone else, remember, YC can help you get to where you want to go faster, but isn't everything. Don't give up and you will make it anyway.




We received our rejection as well. As much as you try to tell yourself say it is not a big deal, it still hurts. You question much of what you are doing. I have been grinding on many unsuccessful projects for a while now, and it's hard to stay positive.

The funny thing is, we had no intention to apply to YC originally, but once we did, you start to dream about how it could change your life. How that might be the defining boost and help you need to succeed.

The nice thing about cofounders is they help you stay positive. We are currently working on game related software, which is not exactly your typical YC company, but we thought it was a decent enough concept. We plan to keep pushing forward, maybe try a kickstarter.

Unfortunately this means I will have to go back to getting a job again, with $36.43 in my bank account, I pretty much am on empty...


I realize it's easy to craft a story that somehow connects all of your unsuccessful projects into some narrative that indicts your skills. Don't go there. I know it's hard. Just don't.

I'm a mentor for a much less prestigious accelerator program, I've sold a company, I've selected companies for our local angel network, and I've had business ideas flop, funding doors close, and (much earlier) been rejected from schools I wanted to attend.

A few lessons learned:

1) application processes at this scale are very inaccurate at picking successful companies. at some level you entered a lottery with a merit component. that doesn't mean YOU got a fair, deep, true look.

2) investors/mentors surprisingly often don't necessarily know wtf they're talking about. When they're in an area they don't know about, some of them get hyper critical and knee jerk dismissive. Take any criticisms with a grain of salt. Since you don't know who at YC saw your app, you can't judge their ability to judge it. If you want to double-check your work, get feedback from someone who has built a similar business... that means the business drivers were the same (if consumer- same traffic gen strategies; if b2b- selling into same spot in similar orgs).

3) Startups are truly 50% skill and 50% luck. The key is to stay lean so you can stay in the game, solve the smallest problem that's interesting (@ev), and get it in front of real users and iterate.

Keep your head down and keep learning, and luck will find you. It's a cliche, but I'll just say it because it's true in my experience: people who succeed are willing to do things that others won't. You're at a point where you may have to make some tough decisions about how to manage your time. If you believe there's merit in your business, make the sacrifices to continue working on it.


Woke up this morning to a rejection email. The good news is that this means I have successfully achieved my New Year's Resolution of failing more. The bad news is that it doesn't make failing any easier!

We didn't even hear about Y-Combinator until the week before, but I'd echo notdarkyet's comments about how you start to dream. Either way, the process has already been a very worthwhile exercise, without which I would t have discovered Hacker News, so there are a lot of positives to take away.

Unlike notdarkyet I go back to a very well paying job, but that's a curse in itself because it makes it far too easy to become complacent and comfortable.

I guess I just need to find the next thing to fail at until next round :-)


Just to put it out there - why not continue on the rejected idea?

YCombinator are good, but not infallible. Just because they reject your application doesn't guarantee that your idea doesn't have legs.


Thanks for the suggestions - we absolutely will be doing. Though I didn't apply to Y-Combinator because I thought the idea needed validation, or because I needed the money, I applied for two main reasons:

1. I feel the programme represents the best possible start for the company, the buzz of being around so many super smart people with a constant focus on delivery would help make it a success.

2. The programme would provide a framework for the transition we need to make from a corporate job to startup world. No matter what anyone tells you, it's extremely difficult to give a startup enough attention when you're doing it "on-the-side" of a big four corporate job due to the sheer number of hours (let alone the regulations). It's also very hard to leave a six-figure tax-free salary at 27 under current economic conditions without a framework for a transition.

I recognise that 2. is a complete excuse regardless of its merits. Given that I don't want to be sitting around at 70 wondering why I never did what I truly wanted to, I now have a lot of thinking to do about where to take this - i.e. take the plunge and self fund; minimise workload to bare minimum to find some time to work on the side; find a startup in Silicon Valley to join to move in the right direction.


Did You apply before or after the deadline?


Two days before...


Keep on keepin' on. Your rejection is in no way a foreshadow of your success or failure. This time last year I found out my company got accepted into an accelerator. A year later the business is a failure and a bunch of companies that got rejected are still going.

People that run incubators are amazing human beings, but they're not fortune tellers.


At the end of the day YC is just a business with the same goal as every other, to make money. They pick people and ideas aligned with their own interests. It also seems to be that a large part of it is to find companies that are easy to pitch at demo day for future investment.

It isn't a charity and given the number of applicants the chances are high that some other team has a more sellable or easier to market plan. For most of us that didn't get in the worst possible outcome is a bruised ego. Keep on working and see it as a chance to have a friendly competition with the companies that did get in this batch :)


Find a startup! I'm sure there are plenty of lessons to learn :)


kudos to you for pursuing your dream; even if you do go back to a job again, I'm sure you'll keep pushing forward somehow, some way... wishing you future success!


You won't hear from the applicants that got interviews. PG manually deletes their "we got an interview" posts to prevent pre-interview poaching by other investors/companies.

97% of applicants get rejected. 3% of applicants get an interview. You can read all about it, along with about 30 blog posts of interview experiences, at:

http://ycuniverse.com/interviewees.php


I thought around 10% get interviews and 3% gets into the program?


3% and 97% are the only numbers I've ever seen written by Paul Graham himself. PG has also informed me that I'm wrong about the lack of reason for acceptance posts on HN. Apparently, such posts get deleted because of the large quantity of HN submissions that would result if YC allowed such posts.


We just received our rejection letter. Major shame, but wasn't at all unexpected. Based on Analytics and MixPanel our demo we set up wasn't actually tried, so I guess the takeaway from this was that the application wasn't as strong as we thought. Even so, the entire process of writing the application was very rewarding. It really did help focus our direction into something concrete.

Incidentally, since it's all over, here's what we posted for "tell us something interesting". (I think that was the question). I posted how 1/998001 is an awesome number!

http://rentivo.com/ycombinator/divide

(Perhaps I shouldn't have shown the PHP code! Ha. It's hard to make something so hacky not look so ugly).


My demo wasn't tried either (I checked everyday), nor did I have more than 4 pageviews of my video, most of which are mine.

Good luck and don't take it hard.


Have it at all occurred to you guys that some people might be running AdBlock and alike, so MixPanel/GA scripts won't even have a change to load? Hm.


Our demo was viewed 4 times yet got rejection. We were very confident and feeling pretty bad now :(


I wouldn't worry. It's not changed a single thing for us. YC is just the lamborghini. We are still going to get exactly where we need to go in our trusty wagon, we just might of got their quicker in the Lambo.

Ultimately, I don't think anything should change for anyone who got rejected.


Yeah...got our rejection.

Probably the nicest rejection letter I've ever seen, YC is definitely astute at winning hearts and minds.

We are getting involved in another incubator however it would have been great validation to get into YC. The caveat one has to hold onto is that it's your customers and users you have to be validated by, and not YC.

Great process, just building the application helped to develop insights into many of our assumptions, and product market fit. I'd encourage everyone to apply just for that reason.


Completely agree. The application form makes you think really hard about what you are doing. Every startup founder should try those questions to understand his work better.


Keep things in perspective. Getting in to YC != success. It's one data point.

Success = Success.

Get your customers to love you. Get people to pay you for your product / service. Be better tomorrow than you are today.

If you were doing all those things when you applied, that 1 data point doesn't a failure make.


Not accepted. Our video got 15 views, does that mean anything? Heh.

Rejection letter:

"We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding. Please don't take it personally. The applications we receive get better every funding cycle, and since there's a limit on the number of startups we can interview in person, we had to turn away a lot of genuinely promising groups.

http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html

Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the threshold for interviews ends up being one that we fund. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold and that we miss even interviewing.

We're trying to get better at this, but the hard limit on the number of interviews means it's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes."


It seems that a lot of applicants didn't have their demo sites looked at. This together with what I've seen on PG's Office Hour videos leads me to believe that YC is somewhat idea-centric: if we like your idea, we'll look at your potential for execution. Else, you're out. Needless to say, there is nothing wrong with that. If that method works for YC in terms of success rate vs. time and effort spent, then that's how they should be doing it. Still, it might be worth considering the following example. Suppose that 25 years ago, someone would have come to you with this idea: I'll start a furniture store chain. But instead of shipping the furniture to people's homes, I'll give them a cardboard box with the pieces, a couple of nuts and bolts, and a wrench inside. There can be little doubt as to how that idea would have been rated: ludicrous. But if you had visited a model store and looked at all the neat furniture, not to mention the fancy bedspreads and tableware and what not, then took home a chair in pieces, assembled it, sat in it... You may not have predicted that there were going to be newspaper headlines like "IKEA will continue to hire off-duty Sheriff's deputies to help with traffic control for several more weeks." But you may well have predicted some measure of success for this offbeat idea.


The funny thing with a rejection is that it makes you try harder. If you set your mind to success then no YC or anybody can bring you down. Really looking forward to our 1-year anniversary email to them!!

Go local, go dopios.com


Nonapplicant: are the accepted not allowed to say that they've been accepted, or all they all too busy celebrating to post here?


citizenkeys says no - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850693 - although I've never seen it written anywhere.

No one's been accepted yet ;)


No one has been accepted yet -- interviews come first.


Yay! We're in (for the interview at least!)


Congrats! One of the first to post as far as I can tell.


Thanks!


Rejected. Not overly surprising given our team's lack of wow factor and demo. We had only heard of and decided to shoot for YC a few weeks before the deadline, and it took on the same mystical meaning for us as some others have mentioned. It wasn't until a week or so that I really came to grips with how slim the odds are. It was disheartening, not because it meant there was going to be more work to do before something like YC could really be possible, but because it meant we wouldn't be quitting our jobs and making it happen right now. Part of the reason is the obvious financial obstacle; student loans are expensive and the Bay is the most expensive place to live in the country. The other part is a kind of vindication. We believe in our idea, but there's a difference between believing in it yourselves and having the kind of validation that YC provides. It's far easier to go all in when the house tells you you have a winning hand. The greatest disappointment for us is that it will take many months for us to get going instead of a summer.

The end result for us is that we continue to build, but at a slower pace. We're positive and determined, and probably more focused for having gone through the YC application. We'll be hacking on it nights and weekends, we'll see where we can go on our own or with a different angel, and if we think it's right, we hope to be in the running with the rest of you for YC W13. So until then, ladies and gents, good night and good luck.


I'm sorry to get the rejection. Most of all it made me kick myself for wasting time on low-probability bets like this. I should have spent the time on things with a better chance of paying off.


I applied as a solo founder with no idea, so I knew a rejection letter was inevitable. In all fairness I am not quite ready to build a company but I took the opportunity to apply with no idea anyway.

I currently work as a sysadmin for a 1bn bank, but developing software is my passion and what I really want to do is start my own tech company.

I'm taking small steps. I've completed 2 bonus projects for my bank to build useful web-apps. I work on my own time & maintain IP ownership to my software so you could say I just need to start selling to other businesses.

Applying to YC is another small step to help push myself in the startup direction. My goal for the application was just to get my name in front of someone at YC. If my video was watched then I consider it a smashing success.


I am currently solo with an idea.

lord_nolan at about dot me

Let's talk.


Getting rejected from YC sucks.

But don't get discouraged. There is a common meme that startups need to work 'til they puke to "make it" (check out this site: http://blastingstation.com). Plenty of startups were successful by working hard, staying focused, and persisting.

Remember, as a startup founder, your only job is to find and motivate great talent; set a clear vision; and make sure you don't run out of money / time. Stay focused, set milestones, and persist.

Also, you should check out StartupPlays.com <- it's an online accelerator with modules to help you grow your startup by some of the same mentors in the YC program.


Question is whether people would rather get a rejection letter that actually showed who reviewed app, if even at all. From what I have read there are so many applications it isn't even possible for main guys to review and ones that do get reviewed are through referrals. I think it would provide solace that only an intern read your app so don't take it too personally. The dream of YC is great but don't forget that 25k and access to mentors is attainable through some creative emails and networking. Attend events and above all don't b afraid to ask.


I didn't have my shit together, so it's perfectly understandable why. No team (just had my 2nd Co-Founder jump ship due to commitment issues, now it's just me again), no prototype.

Now I'm going to ask for financial support from relatives. Pay for hosting, contract work to freelancers.

I need a developer Co-Founder, and a designer Co-Founder. Feel free to contact me if interested. lord_nolan at about.me

And by "Co-Founder", I mean fully-committed for equity. I don't have money, and I do receive some, it won't be very much. Money is for contractors and freelancers. and hosting, legal fees, etc.


I haven't applied this year but I really hate that rejection email. I hope one day YC could man up and tell why it was refused rather then giving a "You don't need to get in to create a successful business" bullshit. Even if it's only one sentence.

I feel like not doing so is really lacking respect for the teams who put hours filling it up. Add on top of that the fact that some demos are not even tried.

As some people like to say, applications are only for the people who didn't find a better way to get in.


There are thousands of people who apply. They can't possibly find the time to reply to all of them. Maybe a few of the borderline ones, but in reality you can't expect them to spend weeks responding to everyone.


And on top of that - most of the borderline projects would probably get an interview if they didn't have so many applications, so even those would be impossible to give a clear reason as to why they weren't picked aside from saying "we thought X other projects were more promising"


"I hope one day YC could man up and tell why it was refused rather then giving a "You don't need to get in to create a successful business" bullshit".

It's not a matter of manning up or having respect. Do the math on what it'd take to email 3,000 rejected applicants.


"Do the math on what it'd take to email 3,000 rejected applicants."

Imagine reading 3,000 applicants!


Replies could be generated automatically. Since I presume they are checking applications on computers/tablets they could make checks next to each question. The person reviewing the application could simply check "Not good enough" or "Deal-breaker" next to the answer. It wouldn't be a lot but at least you'd get some idea on what needs improvement, and it wouldn't take much effort on their part. Or am I over-simplifying this?


For those of you rejected but determined to carry on regardless, would any of you be interested in contributing an interview/blog post?

I think a blog with regular updates from teams, showing their progress & determination.

I think it would be great to build a bit of an YC anti-portfolio and showcase the progress of the folks that just made it happen anyway.

YC admit themselves that they miss out on some great teams.

I'm sure it would be a great community also.


We got rejected :). We didn't build our startup for YC, though. In fact the YC application was just a super great opportunity for us to have a 'checkpoint' at our startup. So, I think this was great. Good luck to everybody else! Check out http://eatfindr.com/ if you'd like to find out more about what we applied with. ShowHN coming soon. :)


I know so many people with allergies that need this app. Will certainly pass it along. Throw a like button on that page ;-)


we're on it .. and not stopping there .. you'll even be able to pin-it :P, if you so desire .. in a few hours, that is.


ok, page is like-able now. Thanks frankdenbow for suggesting this fairly obvious miss on our part :)


Done. Looks funky in safari on iPad btw


this is a great idea, i had someone the other day ask me to make an app like this. have you thought about expanding it to help people when choosing groceries in the supermarket? i guess that would be a bit of scope creep though. good luck!


Hi monkeygus! Thanks for the comment!

Yes, that has floated around as an idea. Totally not out of the realm of possibilities! We think that eating out is such a big problem for people with dietary needs, that it often affects their social life very negatively in many ways. This is the big challenge we are after.

But we are definitely on the lookout of our users telling us what they want to see in Eatfindr and following their needs. We've been live for a couple of weeks now, so our selection database is still growing, but we have over 15,000 gluten-free restaurants from across the US, as well as over 1,000 humane & organic restaurants.


You are right about it being hard to eat out. Anyway in case you are interested here is what my friend is begging someone to make - she says 'its a total pain to go shopping and come across a product that LOOKS gluten-free and you buy it then go on-line and find out it's been cross-contaminated at the factory. im wondering if there's some way the app can scan something so that i can find out AT THE STORE when i'm looking at the food.' cheers


got it. We'll definitely consider it in our next rev! I'll let you know.


Great answer, llaxsll.

I agree that the checkpoint brings some value.


I'm currently judging applications for the next round of Start-Up Chile. It's given me a very good understanding of why it's almost impossible to give a reason for why an application is rejected, especially with the borderline ones.

What we are doing is trying to give a sentence or two of feedback suggesting how an application could be made stronger and/or advice on how we think they should proceed.


I got rejected too :) Thank you for rejecting me because this will only make me stronger and more focused on my vision.

Remember, Steve Jobs got rejected by many people at first, before he got his first investment.

My startup is Jawoco.com, search engine which will let you search the web via social media recommendation.

Also have my web browser called Xtravo and the link can be found at jawoco.com

So who's applying for TechStars?


Just a question, did everyone get a rejection letter if you applied and weren't accepted? I applied as a sole-founder and never got one. I know when I tried submitting my application at first the server had issues or something and I had to try again, but I was fairly certain it went through but never received any e-mail one way or the other.


20 video views and a few LI views from 'stealth startup in SF area' - We haven't put a demo online until our patent app goes through the first stage. The whole process was fun though - especially after posting the app we realized how confusing everything sounded so we kind of expected a rejection. Anyway, back to building the system :)


Did you post the video on Posterous? If so, just know the video count isn't entirely accurate. It counts views to the parent site, as well as views in the Posterous manager, so it's really hard to tell a hard count of actual views.


Basically the count minus my views was 30 - a few days after posting the page showed the video directly, so deducting this I thought this may be the number. However, we look freaky and have weird accents, so maybe our views were just for amusement :)


Could someone post their rejection letter? Didn't apply, but I'm curious what it said given some of the responses here.


We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding. Please don't take it personally. The applications we receive get better every funding cycle, and since there's a limit on the number of startups we can interview in person, we had to turn away a lot of genuinely promising groups.

http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html

Another reason you shouldn't take this personally is that we know we make lots of mistakes. It's alarming how often the last group to make it over the threshold for interviews ends up being one that we fund. That means there are surely other good groups that fall just below the threshold and that we miss even interviewing.

We're trying to get better at this, but the hard limit on the number of interviews means it's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes.

Y Combinator Team


Rejected as well, anyways three weeks before I didn't know about the accelerator, but had an 'idea', gonna keep working on it. Didn't have my expectations high but still, it is a blow,may be got a reality check ----------> need to work hard and I supposedly will. anyways long way to go,afterall I am just 17.


don't die, don't let your company die. That's the key Sam Altman advice to Pebble watch when they were not successful at raising VC funding http://www.communitech.ca/vcs-took-a-pass-on-crowdfunded-peb...


Rejected (No idea category)

I ran our application past several YC alumni who gave it a thumbs up, and some of them even +1'd it behind the scenes. I thought our application was quite impressive. Even that wasn't enough to get an interview.

Good luck to those of whom have been invited for interview, and of course those whose haven't! :)


How do you have an app but no idea? Did you make a cool app but you want to do something else?


I think they meant YC Application not software application.


Same here but we had an idea, it's unfortunate but good luck to those who are interviewed.


Rejected as well, but I feel, Oh so good! Sorry to hear that so many people got their dreams crushed. However, lets stop having a pity party and start pivoting, building traction, and being bosses! Lets get educated and move on, and by educated I mean check us out at www.coursegain.com ;P


Loved this ad :)


Got rejected as well, I agree re: how useful it would be to even get just a sentence or half sentence. Maybe even just a round number, i.e. round 1 (intern-reviewed) or round 2, etc. Then you'd know if you got a 1 that your application has a lot of problems in it, at least.


Got our rejection letter. That wasn't unexpected, but a bit sad: we had a couple of access to our demo page which made us hope for the best. Anyway, for us the application was a great opportunity to ask ourselves the right questions.


Rejected. 4 video views. Brush your shoulders off :)

We're building a site that tells you what to buy: the best model of anything, accurately, by crunching owner ratings. We'd love any feedback:

http://daring.is

Congrats to YC S12.


Awesome idea. My guess is the business part is the weak spot, because from a consumer perspective it seems like an easy sell to me.


Thanks! The monetization should be easier in shopping than many other areas because it's just one step away from purchase.

Btw we're doing lots of fun machine learning stuff, let me know if you might be up for interning here in Palo Alto. You can use the feedback link at the bottom of the site.


I should have put a disclaimer that I have no idea how much companies actually make from being affiliates. I was just guessing that was their concern.

Thanks, but I actually work at eNotes.com right now and going to be doing a startup with some friends. Always good to know, though :D ML is fun; when I was in high school I worked for a company which made a product recommendation engine called xPatterns and it was a lot of fun.


Affiliate links are a thin biz model. When you aggregate a bunch of buyers, you can do much more than small referral fees :)

I'll check out xPatterns. Nice, good luck with the startup.


Rejected as well. My husband and I were trying YC first but would love to hear about other options for our early stage startup. We live in the DC area if anyone knows of any development options in the area, please share


Connect with these people: http://www.meetup.com/DC-Tech-Meetup/


Rejected. I'd love to know what you others are building. Started an "Ask HN" post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850089


Got rejected as well. Disappointing, but not giving up. Just the beginning.


OK so all of you who submitted the application on-time have received your response email. Does anyone know when I should expect a response if I applied late? Will I even get a response?


We haven't heard yet and were a late applicant too.

Not sure if we'll get a reply in time to make it over to the states (from Australia), but the FAQ suggests that they will respond at some point:

"You can submit a late application up till the start of the summer 2012 YC cycle in June, but we can promise nothing about how carefully we'll read it or when we'll respond to you."


Yes, that does seem to imply that eventually we might get a response.

Thanks for pointing that out :)


We applied late too. We heard about for the first time 4 days after the deadline. I think we will be hearing something soon.


Any news? We haven't heard anything yet....


We haven't read the late applications yet.


Rejected. But the application process was worth it in itself - it forced us to make concrete goals and discuss our plan going further in a deeper way than we would have otherwise.


I like that word rejection, it's got a ring to it. I have to admit, I'm a bit more motivated now. I've got more to prove to myself every time I get rejected from YC.


Hmm. I just realized that my email address in the profile wasn't completely filled in (dangoldin@gmail vs @gmail.com). Wonder what I should do now...


Rejected also. I would like the weak point of the application, so that i could at least improve the application. Really, a oneliner would be enough.


I think it would be manageable if they had a few generic templates. When they reject the app, have some check boxes for "Don't see the profit model", "Single founder", "Already exists", "Seems like too much of a 'startup idea'", etc. Those could generate a paragraph in the email.


Yeah, I agree. I understand it's probably not feasible when you have so many applications you have to sift through but highlighting key weak points would be nice.


the questions asked in the application form were very useful, and led to better understanding of own ideas. we, however, didn't start our project for VCs, but for users... so rejection by YC is not bothering me as much as getting traction. we are sms social network. http://this.is.osom.me


Rejected, got some demo hits, but the demo needs a bit more work. Is it worth sprucing it up and applying again next year?


ditto. but it was as expected. Being asemi technical and single founder, it wasn't unexpected.


our demo got looked at 4 times - but we were rejected after all! Oh well - another time :)


sounds familiar. Exactly 4 times :)


Us three. Four views :)


Rejection. They not even watch our demo and video. Interesting.


From what they explained that means that the application itself didn't motivate them to open the demo/video. Sorry to hear.


Rejected :/. Given the experience was useful.


We had around 2000 users, but we were still rejected by YC.

I wish they would give some kind of note on why people are rejected. This would help budding entrepreneurs a lot more




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