
Ask HN: Who got rejected in earlier cycles of YC application and made it anyway? - jacquesm
Daniel just wrote he got rejected and someone else chimed in they had been too, but were definitely not going to let it make a difference.<p>So, my question is what is the biggest success that YC missed out on, some group that pitched during one of the cycles and that was rejected, manned up and made it without the YC funding and the access to the network?
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smanek
My company was rejected from YC W09, but raised $1.5M in VC 2 months later.

We just buckled down, and launched anyways (ahead of schedule!). Once you get
users and have some promising data, raising money is definitely doable.

~~~
pg
We totally blew it that time. IIRC you did fix the thing we were most worried
about when we were talking to you.

~~~
smanek
Well, I think it's still a little too early to tell if you blew it ;-) Raising
capital != successful company, so we'll have to wait a few more years to see
if I can make something of the opportunity.

There were some significant problems with the company/idea when we applied.
Hopefully, we're fixing things quickly enough to win in the end (I think we
are!) :-D And thanks to PG's advice, I have a new-found appreciation for some
aspects of the business that I'd overlooked before.

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pg
We've definitely missed good startups. But one advantage of having so many
competitors is that we're much more likely now to learn when we screw up. When
a startup from one of the other YC-like organizations does well, I often check
their YC application to see how we missed them. Usually it's because they were
good guys but working on a terrible idea, which they later changed. So in
response to that we now make a conscious effort to pay less attention to the
idea and more to the people when we read applications.

~~~
froo
Ok, what about if the opposite was true?

How do you handle situations where the idea is (in your opinion) great but the
person is perhaps lacking for whatever reason?

Is this a situation where you pass or do you take a proverbial punt? Have you
done so in the past (don't need to name names to save someone's ego)

~~~
pg
We wouldn't fund a group if the founders were really lacking, e.g. if they
seemed uncommitted, or not smart enough to build whatever they were planning
to.

~~~
cperciva

        we now make a conscious effort to pay less
        attention to the idea and more to the people
        ...
        We wouldn't fund [people who were] not smart
        enough to build whatever they were planning to
    

These comments don't seem entirely non-contradictory. Wouldn't you ever say "I
don't think you're smart enough to make that work, but how about working on a
less ambitious problem"?

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DaniFong
We were rejected, with some recommendations on what to work on next; we
changed our application for our technology when we heard that twice, then
after nine months we raised money from a top green VC at a multimillion dollar
valuation. We just made it through series B, and we're going to power the
developing world before coal can get its pants on.

~~~
jacquesm
That sounds like a very interesting project, I've read a bit on your pages and
I figure Vuilleumier heat pumps or the Stirling cycle figure in there
somewhere.

I wish you much good luck with this, one reason why I'm really happy someone
is looking in to this is because coal causes more radioactivity released in to
the atmosphere than nuclear plants even would.

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Alex3917
"My question is what is the biggest success that YC missed out on"

There is a company that makes iPhone software that was rejected by YC, and
they recently turned down a buyout offer of 10M. I can't really give more
details than that since obviously it's not public.

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jeromec
AfterTheDeadline was rejected, and got acquired last year by Automattic
(WordPress). [http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/09/08/after-the-
deadli...](http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/09/08/after-the-deadline-
acquired/)

Edit: I should note that Paul Graham mentioned in his interview on Mixergy
that picking companies is one area where they are weak. That may be true, but
I'd wager the YC batting average would be higher than typical Angels/VCs.

~~~
freshfunk
Hmm don't know. With all due respect to PG and crew, VCs and angels seem to do
their homework as well. Actually their initial filters are probably much more
restrictive so I guess it would depend on how you calculate the batting avgs.

~~~
Harj
VCs do months of due diligence before they'll write you a check. We review an
application from and write a check after speaking with you for 10 minutes.

~~~
jacquesm
> VCs do months of due diligence before they'll write you a check.

That just simply isn't true. Early stage is _much_ quicker. The only time a VC
needs 'months' to do dd is when there is a substantial company already, so
when you're doing a late-stage investment, usually in the millions.

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tophercyll
I don't have a "YC missed out on investing in our insanely profitable company"
story, but I did get rejected before finding myself at a YC company anyways.

Evan Miller (emiller) and I applied for Summer 06. Evan had to do most of the
work on our application because I had deadlines with my publisher on my Ruby
book. I was proud that I was writing a book, so I mentioned it in my bio.

In retrospect, I wonder if that doomed us. Sorry, Evan. If I was reading
applications, I'd have been like, "This guy thinks he's writing a book and
starting a company? Fuggedaboutit."

But another one of my friends got into Winter 07 and he's very persuasive. A
year after their session ended he convinced me to leave the corporate world
and join him and his cofounder.

Wish I could finish the story by saying we're insanely profitable already, but
hey, we're still alive, we've got a great product, and that's awesome.

There are a ton of ways to get a business off the ground, so one rejection
from one incubator is really just the beginning. To everyone in that
situation, don't give up. And if this one doesn't pan out, maybe you'll go
even further with the next one!

~~~
jacquesm
That's a hell of a story. I can't imagine that the book thing is what blew the
application though, after all that could have been discussed in the interview
if it would come to that.

Good to see you're still going!

~~~
tophercyll
Haha, well, we were also in a pool with a ton of other brilliant, driven
applicants! That might have had something to do with it too. =)

------
charlesju
My company is a YC-reject, we're doing ok. With that being said, I still love
YC and it makes sense for a lot of companies and I agree with pg that it just
wasn't right for mine.

Here are a couple things I have learned about funding in my last 2 years
building my startup:

1\. Funding is mostly a security blanket. An expensive and usually unnecessary
one. I think most startups do worse with funding because they lose that fight
or flight mechanism that drives entrepreneurs to do mind-blowing things. I
don't think most ideas require funding exceeding the seed stage, which is
usually a lot cheaper if you can find it elsewhere. For example, I launched my
company to profitability with just 3 laptops + servers, which you can usually
dump onto credit cards if you're growing way faster than your cash-flow (which
makes your startup cost almost $0 to start).

2\. You cannot base your startup's success on whether or not one person (pg)
believes you can make it. If nothing else, pg cannot possibly be an expert in
every field.

3\. Money is EVERYWHERE in the valley. It is absurd how many different VCs
there are, and how much money they're obligated to deploy in behalf of their
LPs. There are definitely less opportunities than the money out there to fund
them. Getting funding is pretty easy. It's all about building models that you
can plug a # into and get a bigger # out, which if anyone needs help with
please feel free to email me.

4\. Lastly, if you believe you can make it, no one can stop you. Go be a
tiger.

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SwellJoe
CouchDB is a pretty well-known "didn't get accepted, but kept going anyway"
project. Not really a business success story, but it is a project that has had
an impact on web technology, and on a scale that many YC companies have not.
It's an Apache Foundation project now, but I don't know what that means for
its business case.

And, of course, several teams have been rejected once or twice and then gotten
in later. A few have even blogged about it; notably wheels of Directed Edge.

~~~
marketer
Actually, the authors of couchdb did eventually start a company around it:
<http://is.gd/aEdvW> . I think it's still in stealth mode, though.

~~~
tcc619
it's up and running at <http://www.couch.io/>

funny how TC called it "stealth mode". i don't recall the couchdb guys ever
being very secretive about it. they are too relaxed for that :)

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blader
I was rejected the first time, got in the second time, but dropped out a week
later to run a different company. We were profitable at 32 employees and got
acquired by Zynga last month.

~~~
pg
It is probably not an accident that this is phrased in such an odd way, with
the subjects of the sentences missing. It should read " _we_ got in the second
time, but _I_ dropped out a week later." What happened is that Siqi and a
cofounder started YC, then a week in Siqi bailed and left his cofounder in the
lurch because a side project of his had unexpectedly taken off. We suggested
making the side project be the focus of the startup they were doing, but Siqi
didn't want to share it with his cofounder. His poor cofounder kept going and
managed to recruit someone new, but the startup limped along without Siqi and
didn't live much past demo day. It was probably the most treacherous thing one
cofounder has done to another in YC so far.

I would never have said anything publicly about the matter, but I can't stand
to hear it described in this misleading way.

~~~
blader
Wow, this really stings coming from someone I respect so much. This is what
happens when you leave without an explanation from YC I suppose.

Paul, I agree I should have said "we got in the second time, but I dropped out
a week later". I apologize for not being clear but I don't accept that there
was anything wrong with what I said.

To be clear, the side project of mine which took off was co-owned 50% by my
another founder who was not involved in YC and didn't want to join, so it
wasn't mine to simply share with my YC team.

There were 3 cofounders who went to the YC interview - there were 2 cofounders
remaining after I left. I was transparent with both of my cofounders and we
remain friends to this day - they had zero involvement in the side project
from beginning to end. I specifically asked each of them if they felt I was
behaving unethically - they responded that they don't believe so and would
have done the same in my shoes.

~~~
blader1
I created another account just so I could get around my noprocrast settings.

Out of the 2 cofounders in YC, one I later hired to run network operations at
my company and the other I am very close friends with and regularly have
beers. We left on good terms. Why don't you ask the two of them what they
think of me?

You're the reason why I'm an entrepreneur today and I respect you immensely.
To hear you describe what I did as treachery is hurtful but worse it's just
factually wrong. It was an incredibly difficult ethical decision for me at the
time, but I truly believe that I behaved in a transparent and above the board
way.

I take responsibility for not talking to you before or after I left - I didn't
realize you felt this way about it and I'm happy to have the chance to bring
this out into the open.

~~~
pg
I'm glad they don't blame you. But what bothered me so much about what you did
was that you were the leader of that group. You'd recruited them as cofounders
to apply to YC with. IIRC you were the CEO. So it was like an officer
deserting his men, not just one of three guys dropping out of a three person
startup.

~~~
blader
It was far from an easy decision and I never felt great about it. This is fair
criticism and I accept it.

However, I don't feel the same way about your original response. The side
project wasn't mine to share, and calling it "treacherous" takes it way too
far.

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leif
I believe Directed Edge got rejected, kept going anyway, and got accepted a
year later. They had already done a bunch of work and had customers in the
pipeline, which let them make great use of the network once they were there.

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freshfunk
I definitely intend on continuing development on my projects. If you're a YC
reject and want to join the community of rejects in moving forward, I'm
putting together a group (in SF).

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1191553>

~~~
andyjdavis
It would be good/fun to see a little competition develop between YC funded
companies and the YC rejects. The empire Vs the rebellion if you will. I'll
leave it up to you to decide which is which.

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jasonwilk
The guys from MyFit are doing well, (by well I mean raised a series A) and
they were rejected from YC. But, In my opinion, if you get rejected by YC, it
doesn't mean your idea is awful. From my experience, it seems PG likes ideas
that with a ton of hard work in 3 months can go from concept to market. Some
ideas, such as MyFit, were going to to take too long to get a proof of concept
ready and thus it's not exemplary of the program.

If you are thinking about applying, or re-applying, keep your idea simple and
concise. Let PG and all the amazing YC contacts help you figure out what the
killer feature is of your app that will turn it into the multi-million dollar
idea.

