

Ask HN: Got a YC S14 batch interview? - jw2013

It seems the results of S14 interviews are out. Probably some of you are already in the bar celebrating, and some are gathering together encouraging each other cofounders being rejected will only make you more determined to make your startup a success. I wonder if anyone applied to YC S14, whether you got an interview or not, can share us the story of you and your startup during the application month&#x2F;months (and probably some background on what your startup does). Any comment will really be appreciated, and I think will benefit a lot of readers on HN no matter whether they want to apply for YC or not.
======
ondiekijunior
wallenje here(wallenje.com). We are making a mobile wallet app. We applied
with a prototype but we are launching on 1st of May. When we applied we got to
focus on who we are. I can say the YC application was the turning point for
us. We built out our vision, I created a website in 10minutes for a landing
page and have 2000 members in the waiting list two weeks after that, got some
merchants interested in our concept, this was really awesome. We also
recruited our first employee. We are on beta, but the fact that we may get our
product-which is an MVP out earlier than Clinkle(clinkle.com 30m funding)
without funding has put us on a buzz that YC rejection can hardly put a damper
on. Our first rejection was KIMA, so we are getting quite used. We have been
brainstormin and have got awesome ideas after every reponse but especially the
rejections. I Remember when we started we thought due to Regulations on
financial products we would need more that a million dollars. Its shocking to
realise that with the right approach we can avoid most regulation, get
partners and get our product out there. Nearly 70 merchants have rejected us
but we are still making it with 25 merchants signed up! 1 has paid for product
despite existence of a trial period, just for training their staff, and an
incentive to release the product fast. EDITED-got rid of some typos and
improved comment clarity

~~~
bradhe
> braunstormed

Wait, is that a word or a typo? I hope it's a typo...

------
ben-gy
Applied with [http://astute.io](http://astute.io) and
[http://regular.io](http://regular.io), got help from YC alums in our
application and it was pretty solid, weakest parts of the application were we
hadn't launched yet and didn't have a demo, users, or traction. We've quit our
jobs and finish up soon to go all out on [http://astute.io](http://astute.io)
regardless. Fun times ahead, so excited :)

~~~
bradhe
Astute looks like a cool product, BI space has huge disruption potential. At
this point I think it needs a product that isn't incremental.

------
clockwork_189
We are metricwire.com and we got an acceptance. We provide a platform for
researchers(market, academics and medical) to perform studies. Our tool
provides these researchers with an easy to use tool to build their study and
push it to users smartphones and then the data is aggregated online and they
can run analytic models through our interface.

------
nemasu
I don't fully understand the business side of startups, legitimate question:
When does a startup need funding? If you build an app and release
it...shouldn't you somehow receive money from it (ads or whatever)? Do you
need the money for advertising? Or?

~~~
pbiggar
Suppose you haven't released your app yet, or you have major changes to make
to make your app as successful as it might be. You might have some revenue or
none, but you probably won't have enough to hire 3 full-time developers (as an
example).

~~~
nemasu
Ah I see, never thought about hiring people. I ask because I'm working on an
idea too (just released beta), but doing all the work myself after my full
time job. I guess doing it full time would be best case scenario, but then
again getting involved with investors can be a huge pain ( used to work at a
startup, it did not end well ).

~~~
pbiggar
Whether investors are a good idea depends on your product, customers, market,
and yourself. However, I'd recommend YC unequivocally.

------
fedor91
We got rejected, it's now a bummer because we really dreamed of going to
California. Now we have to do it ourselves and I believe that if you can't
bring up the motivation to do it without YC, you will even have had a hard
time at YC. \--> JK Rowling got rejected lots of times, not a lot of
publishers wanted to publish her book. Sylvester Stallone had a hard time
bringing Rocky to a succes and so on... So, I believe rejection is not fatal
for our app! I wish you all the best of luck with your startups, with or
without YC! :)

------
brianliou91
Didn't get an interview. Would love feedback on our app because I thought we
had a real shot. Idea: Codecademy for Data Science Team: 3 UC Berkeley Seniors
with degrees in CS (2X), Statistics (2X), Business, and Electrical
Engineering. 2 committed to working full time. One has a 1 year masters after
working full time in the summer. Progress: Prototype stage Extra: Received
recs from 2 YC alumni, not sure specifically what

I feel like we were just a bit early maybe to apply?

~~~
sdesol
I think your problem is your potential market. How big of a market is there
for Data Science?

The thing with codecademy is they could potentially attract hair dressers,
janitors, etc. Your main target are people with degrees who have an interest
in data mining.

You are either not describing what your product does correctly or you have a
unrealistic view of your potential market.

Your team sounds great but I really can't see the demand for data science
knowledge being that great.

~~~
argonaut
As someone who has tangentially interacted with YC, I seriously doubt that is
the reason. YC cares about the team above all, then followed by
customers/users/traction (but really, it's the team). The addressable market
is not very high on their list of concerns. Though it certainly is a factor, I
don't think it is the reason for rejection.

One question I have is how well does the team know each other? What are some
of your team members' accomplishments? Honestly YC doesn't care very much
about all the degrees you have (I would even argue that the fact that there
are 5 degrees among the 3 of you is a negative signal for YC because it
indicates credentialism, but that's just my opinion).

------
davidhariri
Didn't get an interview. First time applicant. Not too big of a deal for us as
we just got a term sheet for funding, but still stings a bit. _sigh_

------
abgupta
Second time applicant - www.chance.fm

Rejected again. But we anticipate better news in the horizon. Lets see..

------
pearjuice
I think most will go stealth and prepare for a proper press release.

