

My Technical Co-Founder Quit 2 Days Before I Got My YC Interview a Year Ago - emmiechang
https://medium.com/@emmie/my-technical-co-founder-quit-the-day-before-i-got-my-y-combinator-interview-759482562fcc

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brandonb
Congrats on sticking it through! This apparently happens more often than you'd
think. I went through a similar experience a couple years ago:
[http://brandonb.cc/what-happened-when-my-co-founder-quit-
the...](http://brandonb.cc/what-happened-when-my-co-founder-quit-the-night-
before-our-yc-interview)

EDIT: I commented before reading the whole thing! Glad the blog post helped.
And I'll bet your story will in turn help others. :)

I'm really surprised two YC founders gave you advice to throw in the towel.
Doesn't seem very YC-like. Glad you didn't!

~~~
cfield
Indeed, she credits your blog post for giving her "confidence that someone
else had done it before" (and noting that your situation "was way worse")!

I'm glad you both took time to share your stories. There are so many factors,
known and unknown, that influence these kinds of outcomes. But, as pg has
written [0], the one constant is simply ... DON'T GIVE UP!

[0] [http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html)

~~~
emmiechang
Yeah--not very YC of them to discourage me. But then again, I didn't seem like
I was YC material at the moment they talked to me. I'm glad PB and my
interview team took a chance on me though, I'm still going strong!!

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emmiechang
I swear there was a comment here earlier--did they delete it? Hey! Any
comments? This was my first stab at writing a personal blog post and the most
difficult for me. I hope it helps everyone keep their head up!!

~~~
aculver
Thoroughly enjoyable! The voice you're writing with here is really fun and
easy to read. I hope that feedback makes it easier for you to keep writing
more with confidence!

Just as a heads up, on Roo's landing page there is one screenshot has a typo
on the button. "Rread More." :-)

~~~
emmiechang
Ahh! Thanks for that! fixing it now!

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xtrumanx
Presumably you told your co-founder after his email that you've actually
secured $100k in funding.

What was his reason for not coming back was financial concerns and general
uncertainty? I would imagine $100k would solves both of this issues for most
people.

~~~
qhoc
This is just my guess: now with the funding, there is a need to increase time
commitment. I don't know the financial situation of the other cofounder but
with 5 kids, man, doing startup for little pay is not an option. I guess the
salary is little to none in this case but require full-time.

~~~
emmiechang
He never knew we raised $100k nor got into YC (until sometime in the Spring of
'14). It wouldn't have mattered. If you are in, you're in. If you're out,
you're out. It shouldn't be conditional.

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ogo
Awesome! Thanks for sharing the story Emmie. Congrats on the success!

