

Tell HN: Lessons Learned from Y Combinator Rejection - nitrogen
http://nitrogen.posterous.com/lessons-learned-ycombinator-summer-2010-rejec

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davidw
> Last time, my cousin agreed to let me use him as a token cofounder.

This is interesting in that it's kind of the culmination of the 'get a
cofounder!' idea from YC. Rather than actually having a good one as per YC's
actual intentions, people are just dressing up a dummy in the passenger seat
to try and get in the carpool lane. My guess is that this sort of thing is
fairly easy to spot, though, and doesn't look good.

~~~
Harj
yes, it's easy for us to spot and will not help the application

~~~
p6
Why do you guys insist on a cofounder. Harj, you of all people should know
that alot of the coding work can be outsourced. A visionary sometimes doesnt
like having an equal to deal with.

~~~
davidw
They do not insist on it: they have funded a few single founders. It's just a
model they see works well, so, all other things being equal, they go for it.

~~~
p6
Dude you potentially miss a lot of opportunities when you filter on the basis
of having a cofounder. PG claims a startup is too much work for one person.
duh. Thats why you hire employees.

And things are never all else equal.

~~~
davidw
Well, it's their money, they do as they see fit. If some other, similar seed-
funding group accepts lots of single founders and does better than YC, maybe
they'll change.

It's not just them saying this, though. I really wish I had someone to work
with myself; it would help things a lot.

------
garply
Maybe a better lesson is - screw YC, who needs them? Honestly, if you need the
money to bootstrap, freelance. If you need the connections, go network.

Think of it positively - this way you get to keep 100% of your equity.

~~~
gizmo
That's not a good lesson at all. YC offers a good deal of value for 6% equity
in terms of connections, encouragement, advice, some money, and so on. Why
apply in the first place if getting rejected is considered a good outcome?

The "Screw YC" attitude is a silly rationalization, if you ask me. And this
comes from a guy who's bootstrapping and has never applied to YC.

~~~
garply
I too have built a company bootstrapping and I've never applied to YC.

I'm not saying YC is necessarily a bad deal if you want to go through the VC
funnel and flip your business - in fact, in that case, I think it makes a
great deal of sense.

What I am saying is that if you don't have access to that opportunity, well,
screw it, realize it's one among many and you can make things work anyway.
Plus, whenever something negative happens, always look at the positive side -
in this case, you get to keep equity.

Or, if you want a more Chinese perspective on the issue, an old story:

There was a farmer who lived in a village with son and they had a horse. One
day the farmer’s horse ran away. His neighbors came by and said, “What bad
luck! Your only horse ran away! Now how will you till the fields?” The farmer
replied, “Good or bad, who can say?” The next day, the horse returned with
five wild horses. “What good luck!” the neighbors exclaimed. “You’ve got five
free horses!” The farmer replied, “Good or bad, who can say?” While the
farmer’s son was breaking in the five wild horses, one of the horses stepped
on the son’s leg and broke it. “What bad luck!” cried the neighbors. “Your
only son has broken his leg. Who will help you run the farm?” The farmer
replied, “Good or bad, who can say?” A few weeks later, war breaks out and all
healthy young men are drafted into the army. Since the son’s leg is broken, he
cannot be drafted. “You’re so lucky!” the neighbors say, and the farmer says,
“Good or bad, who can say?”

~~~
jacquesm
Thanks for the story, that was really neat.

Lots of wisdom in old cultures.

------
follower
I was surprised to read "Assuming they would read my demo page this time, I
spent all of my time focusing on the demo instead of the application" given
the start of the application form specifically says "We look at online demos
only for the most promising applications, so don't skimp on the application
because you're relying on a good demo".

Did you miss that or just interpret it differently to me?

~~~
nitrogen
I assumed that, since they saw the demo last time, my application must be good
enough already, so just make the demo better this time.

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dtran
Upvoted for publishing a very well-written self-reflection piece on the
process. I feel like most people in the same situation would just write a
ranting reaction to disappointing news like this, but this was very well
thought-out and as such, will help others going through the application
process.

I wouldn't read into the subtle differences between this application and your
last - maybe they didn't have time to check your URL this time because they
got a lot more applications and they were on a bigger time crunch. Persistence
is key - keep on trucking dude!

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lambdom
If it makes you happy, I answered no to those questions and still got rejected
;)

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prgmatic
Thanks for sharing your experience and giving us some useful insight. Just
based on your whole approach to the process and dealing with the rejection, I
think you will be fine with or without the YC experience.

best of luck

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nitrogen
tl,dr: have a cofounder, remove distractions from the application.

Yes, I'm posting a tldr for my own post :).

~~~
tsally
If it's worth the read, it's worth the read. Otherwise why write it?

~~~
nitrogen
Good question. I wrote the blog post for myself mostly, so I could document my
experiences and reactions, but with the hope that someone else might find it
useful. I intended the tldr summary as an experiment, and to provide some
benefit to anyone who doesn't read the full post.

------
idlewords
Probably should have worn a shirt in the video, too.

------
p6
YC is so 1999. pg thinks he can replicate his success from before dot.com
bubble burst. Really, of the startups hes funded, besides dropbox, who really
needs that shit?

~~~
coffeemug
At the _very least_ , YC partners are trying a novel experiment nobody has
tried before, and if you're a curious person, it's interesting where it will
go. If it succeeds, great! If it fails, at least it's a really interesting
thing to try, and it inspired hundreds (thousands?) of people to strive to do
great things.

I honestly want to know, what compels you to knock smart, energetic people
trying new, interesting things? Even if the idea is ridiculous, who could it
possibly hurt?

~~~
gizmo
[devil's advocate]

YC could end up hurting all the founders. YC is selling a message that it's OK
not to worry about a business model or revenue (or profit!), and that may turn
out to be horrendous advice. In this case YC is partly responsible for the
creation of a new web 2.0 no-revenue-required bubble.

So what you call "knocking smart energetic people" may just be a highly needed
reality check, to keep people from dropping out of college and investing their
savings and future into doomed ventures.

[/devil's advocate]

~~~
p6
Thank you for referring to me as the devil. Thats quite a compliment.

