

Ask HN: How to proceed if we do not get into YC2011? - brainless

Fellow Entrepreneurs and YC folks: I am part of a tiny team in India working on a product (global audience). We have applied to YC. As much as we want to get in, we understand there will be a thousand applications rejected this time. But we have made up our minds to do this even if we do not get into YC2011 (both founders have quit jobs). What strategies do we take in the case we are not in YC? How can we otherwise get the knowledge/guidance that YC startups get? How can we connect to the right people within Silicon Valley?<p>Note: we are looking for mostly the non-financial benefits of YC. Yes the money is important but when you are hell bent of doing something (specially an Internet startup: low capital) we feel money will be the last thing to stop us. Our team is our capital.
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abbasmehdi
Great attitude. What kind of connections are you needing? Is it coaching and
mentoring?

PS there will be thousands rejected. >2k

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brainless
Hey thanks abbasmehdi! Connections: Our product needs connections with
consumer product brands. So Levi, Jockey are examples here. That is one side.

On the other side, we need to spread our application on FB (our version first
is an FB app). So we would love to receive mentoring regarding how to create
great user experiences? How to build, support and actively engage users?

These are our main issues while starting off. We do not have the "chicken-and-
egg" issue, where you need lot of users to make the app interesting, but we
will still need a large user base to make a mark :)

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abbasmehdi
So you need a) business development opportunities, b) learn how to promote via
FB, c) learn how to improve user experience, and d) get users.

We are in a similar situation, and except (b) above this is what we've decided
to do.

a) We have decided to ignore this for now, build the MVP without relationships
and get data on the user side, then take this data to large comapnies and make
our case.

c) Build, get data, get user feedback, and improve. This is how anyone would
tell you to do it anyway.

d) There are a few ways to do this. i) find out where your users hang out
online and offline, ii) find out what they read, iii) develop a good feedback
loop with them so you improve fast, respond quick, and keep a relationship
with them. I can think of many other way, but I will tell you launch now,
learn and improve and see how many things that takes care of.

