
One Response to Rejection - DaniFong
http://daniellefong.com/?p=25
======
jaed
Is it just me...or is this a little over-the-top? This essay makes PG out to
be the second coming of Christ. YCombinator is great...but it's not the
meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Keep building your product and
pounding the pavement. As Coach K would say...next play.

~~~
DaniFong
I wouldn't want to elevate PG as a demigod. Yet upon rejection this was, in
many ways, how I felt. This essay comes from an analysis of these feelings.
The understanding I came to later represents how I now see things. I'm proud
to say we are moving on. But I'd hoped to share my experience, for others
currently going through rejection, and for future, aspiring entrepreneurs.

~~~
dennykmiu
I have been an entrepreneur for the last fifteen years and in retrospect, the
two things that are hardest to learn are the following ...

1) How to embrace rejection ... not just accept it but embrace it. Most smart
engineers prefer to avoid rejection by spending more time on developing
technology or products and they want to get it as perfect as possible before
presenting it to a potential user or customer for critique. This is wrong. Get
over rejection. Embrace it. Do it early. Any chance you can, get in front of
people who are not your family or your friends and get real feedback. You
don't learn anything from positive feedback. Your learn a whole lot more from
negative feedback.

2) How to develop a sensitivity to other people's inconvenience. For
everything that is new, there will always be early adopters. It is easy to let
initial success gets to your head. But to going beyond the initial veneer,
your product or services have to simplify people's life, not just the smart or
motivated people, but the normal and lazy people.

As my base jumping friend told me once, after about 500 jumps, you will start
to realize how cold it is up there. This is just the beginning. Suck it up.

~~~
wallflower
> Your learn a whole lot more from negative feedback.

Negative feedback can be more honest. In every criticism (especially if it's
someone who you don't have an existing relationship with), there is usually a
nugget of truth.

"If you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig"

~~~
dennykmiu
I agree. In startups, there is no worse experience than putting lipstick on a
pig. Not only is it a big waste of effort, but it annoys the crap out of the
pig.

------
dhouston
if you have a great idea, build a prototype. that's the great equalizer -- if
you have working code, or better yet, traction, then most concerns about being
a "proven" team evaporate.

if your code isn't quite ready, build a screencast, then submit it to news.yc.
doing this was probably instrumental in our eventual YC acceptance. (this lets
you convey the cool parts of your idea in a way you can control even if there
are a lot of missing pieces.)

otherwise, if you've only got a team and a hunch, you're in this _giant_ pile
of "eh who knows if it'll work, who knows if they're good, but maybe"
applications (many of which ultimately fail), and it's basically a crapshoot.
yc gets enough apps w/ 1) amazing people 2) amazing products or 3) amazing
traction to avoid having to place these kinds of shaky bets.

the more risk (product risk, people risk, market risk) you can eliminate on
your own, the better you'll look to _any_ investor (and the more equity you'll
keep for yourselves.)

obviously, there's a catch-22 that to prove some of these things you need
initial capital, but for most software startups it just means locking yourself
up and hacking out a prototype and letting it rip to a few people.

then just apply next cycle -- mercifully, it's not like college admissions
where you (generally) only get one shot. (my first yc app was rejected a year
before ultimately getting in.)

~~~
DaniFong
Absolutely. That's the plan.

------
wumi
"YCombinator has it’s own personality. Their opinions are their own. They have
perspective and wisdom and the will to apply it. But they have no more
dominion over truth as the rest of us, nor are they immune to the blindspots
that all beings must endure, nor would they suggest otherwise. It’s taken much
for me to fully understand this"

"But none will succeed as YCombinator does, winning successes from strange
ideas with unproven players, unless like YCombinator, they cultivate a
personality of their own, and call upon their imagination to see as the bright
minds applying dream."

"Upon rejection, it couldn’t feel like a group in Mountain View had overlooked
our ideas in favor of ideas more compelling to them."

------
alfredp
I get an sense that a YC rejection is quite a bit different than the average
rejection (not getting into Google, not getting into Harvard, not getting into
the finals of a competition, not getting a date, etc.). The fact is, getting
into YC really _is_ a big deal and really is life changing.

All the reading, obsessing, thinking that we as Hacker News participants do,
build up hopes and expectations in an unhealthy way. But then again who can
drink the YC kool-aid and not get drawn in?

Anyhow, cheers to you for being brave and making a go at it.

~~~
icky
> I get an sense that a YC rejection is quite a bit different than the average
> rejection (not getting into Google, not getting into Harvard, not getting
> into the finals of a competition, not getting a date, etc.). The fact is,
> getting into YC really _is_ a big deal and really is life changing.

Take _that,_ Harvard! ;-)

------
uuilly
Honestly if you don't know why you were rejected then you need to pitch to
more investors and friends. There are tons of angel forums out there. Move to
sv and start combing the circuit. YC is a great program but other angels will
be way better at giving feedback to your pitch / idea / company. After a few
rounds you'll know your weak spots and sell toward your strengths.

~~~
DaniFong
One of the point I've tried to make is that what seems strong or weak is at
times a subjective judgment too.

But you're absolutely right. We need to pitch more. And we'll need to listen,
and ponder, and most of all, build.

We have in fact located to SV (or, Berkeley, rather). If you have any tips as
to which angel groups would be most suitable to approach, we'd love to hear
from you.

~~~
wumi
what bout your former colleagues at Scribd? seems like they may know a person
or two.

when do we get to see a preview?

~~~
DaniFong
That's a good idea. We'll ask them.

We'll be able to show a preview when it's ready for everyone else, though
earlier private showings remain possible. I hope not to jinx myself, but I
think it will be fairly soon, within the month, or by early summer.

------
Prrometheus
>It started with a question: could software help people connect in real life?
Nothing we knew about was any good. Nobody sane would sift through lists of
events online. Dating sites mostly sucked. Put people in the position of a
judge, and romance cannot bloom. Chat rooms sucked. There are trolls and
perverts everywhere. And the internet at large has no location. Rarely would
you find someone nearby.

Ah, local social software. A chat room that you can only access if you are
close enough to start a conversation in real life. A forum that you can only
post to if you are sitting in the same coffee shop.

I hear that they are working on such things for the iPhone.

I can't wait until the world realizes that social software is not social
unless you actually meet people through it.

~~~
attack
If so then what about a blind man? If he does not see or touch other people
then he can never be social?

Humans are able to have significant interaction through more than physical
means. It is incredible, I know.

------
cmos
It's the best thing to have happened. You were a little obsessed. Now become a
lot obsessed with yourself. Essays and some rent money don't have all the
answers. No one really does.

People, please stop obsessing over this stuff. It's nice. It's great. But
imagine this: Instead of spending your time raising money, spend your time
making money. If your product isn't ready then take on some part time
consulting.

It's not hard to earn enough to pay the rent.

For me the holy grail would be 100% in control of my destiny. Taking early
seed money is actually being rejected from the world of 100% ownership.

So rewind. Do some part time work to pay the bills. Launch and make a ton of
money, and keep it all for yourself (and your cofounders).

How much fun would that be?

------
mixmax
Wow . that was the most well written thing I've read this week.

~~~
maw
I wouldn't know. Small, grey text over a black background? Forget it. Tab
closed.

~~~
DaniFong
Is it genuinely hard to read? YC News uses small grey text over a white
background.

~~~
maw
I found it to be so, yes.

What see on news.yc is black text over a beige background (except for posts'
metadata, which is grey over beige).

------
breck
Amazing resume. If they rejected you, I'm glad I saved myself a couple hours
by not applying. ;)

<http://daniellefong.com/?p=25>

~~~
SwellJoe
I've mentioned this in the past, but it's worth mentioning again: YC are not
school snobs.

The schools I attended aren't worth mentioning, and I couldn't remember what
school my co-founder attended when I filled out the application (and it was
within a couple of hours of the deadline, so I didn't wait to find out--it
turns out to be among the best in Australia, but YC didn't know that when we
were accepted, or even now, for that matter). So, while I get the feeling
graduating from a good school is one currency with which you can show you're
capable of doing something hard and completing it, I believe the YC folks are
very amenable to accepting many other forms of payment.

There are certainly plenty of Stanford and MIT grads that make it in...but
it's definitely not a requirement. (Seriously, I attended community colleges,
and for crazy crap like audio recording and Jazz performance. You can't get
much less impressive than my post-high school educational record.)

~~~
aswanson
Yeah, that was the impression I got from some of the earlier PG essay's
(replete with "top coders", "top CS departments", "top schools"). I remember
thinking while reading that, "how does that prove the person can build a
product, or do anything other than what they have been told to do?"

Later on I think he toned that down a bit.

~~~
tokipin
<http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html>

~~~
aswanson
Exactly.

------
pchivers
One thing I don't understand: why is building applications for people
interested in local events a "perennial tarpit"? Does it have to do with
having a limited market of potential users?

~~~
DaniFong
Our contention is that it's because it's easy to get wrong. To attract users
one must simultaneously execute well on visual design, on formatting data in
an easily understood format, and suggesting local events aptly, and most
importantly on getting interesting local events posted in the first place.
Monetization is a challenging problem too.

In our opinion none of the existing players have really thought deeply about
the problem, and most attempts are similar to what's out there. A good service
will require a substantial rethinking.

It's a hard problem, but one we're prepared to try to solve. We want to help
people get out more.

~~~
rantfoil
There is nothing stopping you from creating it with or without the validation
of YC. You're right that just because it's been done doesn't mean you can't do
it better and get it right. Would Yelp exist if they thought -- oh, darn,
Citysearch seems to have the whole market, we'll never win.

That being said, you should consider starting with a specific community you
know, getting it in the hands of real users, and iterating like crazy. These
things can't be developed in an intellectual vacuum.

Best of luck!

~~~
DaniFong
We hear you. There are advantages besides proximity to investors to siting in
the bay area. San Francisco and Berkeley are wonderfully vibrant communities.

------
alaskamiller
Now I feel dumb :(

~~~
Tichy
why?

------
mattmaroon
Is your startup public yet?

~~~
DaniFong
Not yet.

