YC emails are sent - zekenie
======
VaedaStrike
For me it's obvious that rejections are often born out of a very high bar,
limited capacity to take on startups and the limitations of human foresight.

It would be one of the more difficult tasks for me to imagine ever being upset
at YC for a rejection (Got my 4th tonight, no stranger to it). If this was
your first or second, don't worry , it gets better.

I can honestly say I've never felt closer to success and making progress than
I do as I, every six months, write up a summary of where I'm at, where I'm
going and then compare it with the previous series of rejected applications.
Heck next time I could see myself easily with an actual website and customer
base, or, if I get lucky, with a co-founder - how novel would that be?

So grow, YC, do it in a way where you don't loose your soul. And hey, if I
never get in...well I'm in enough...

I'll make it. That's one of the best feelings. I know that it may look nothing
like I presently imagine, but I'll make it. That's the beauty of malleable but
relentless dreaming.

Now someone call Hollywood, er Kickstarter, I've got a killer idea for a film
about two co-founders in the valley, 'Dotcom Quixote de la Big Chanca' and
'Sancho "the Ramen" Panza' as they go tilting at Heroku Dynos and courting
Aldonza Horowitz aka "Andreesenea".

:)

~~~
exo_duz
Would love to read your summaries if you have them posted somewhere. Would be
a great learning curve for me as this was my first rejection (planning for
more ;P)

~~~
VaedaStrike
I've found the best single thing that's helped me, both in terms of
conciseness, product and effort focus, and gaining empathy for my target
audience, is to see what I can cut out and what I can simplify. Focusing is
seemingly among the most important, and often most difficult, tasks.

But I'm just some repeat offender/y-comb reject.

~~~
exo_duz
Focus is always the key. Without it you cannot achieve what you want without
getting distracted.

Another hint which I often receive is to always narrow your market as much as
possible. You can always expand later.

------
nness
I wonder how many visitors of HN, like myself, sometimes forget that there's
all of the Y Combinator stuff going on behind it...

~~~
stingraycharles
That makes me wonder, are there any other examples of a regular business'
forum spinning off like this? And to dive into it a little further, in
hindsight this can be seen as a brilliant marketing move by pg, but was this
intentional?

~~~
ASneakyFox
Devshed. But as soon as the owners realized that was happening they decided to
kill off the community with in forum blackberry ads. Every one dispersed
within a year including me.

Over all I think Its bad. Eventually the fact that the goals of yc aren't
aligned with hn will be revealed. Then every one will disperse.

~~~
brudgers
HN is aligned with the goals of YC because it provides a useful source of
information about [some] applicants. From what I read, the success of a
startup is in part dependent upon the communication and technical and social
skills of its founders, and HN is a forum where all of those are often on
display. A YC application plus an HN profile is going to lead to better
filtering than just a YC application.

More than that, in YC's business model the cost of running HN probably doesn't
even amount to rounding error. Until recently the website was running on a
single server [it may still be, since I haven't heard otherwise since the
infrastructure change to Cloudflare] and with PG himself handling a
significant portion of the maintenance and coding. In other words, the
financial side of a business like YC is incompatible with most people's
experience in offices - it's not about profits from sales. It's about internal
rates of return on working capital.

------
sanswork
Rejection notice here. The application process did help us learn a lot and
improve our plan quite a bit though so it definitely was worth the time and
effort put into it.

Congrats to everyone receiving interview invites.

~~~
derwiki
What is your startup? I've started a thread for people to post their rejected
ideas:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7596563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7596563)

~~~
jacquesm
Why would you post your rejection publicly? You can bet that this can be used
against you in several ways. (copycats, sharks, people seeing 'rejected by 'x'
as a negative'.

Better to learn as much from your rejection as you can, swallow and prove them
wrong.

There are lots of times when openness is a good thing, being rejected by YC
may or may not be such a time, it depends on a lot of factors and if you open
up make sure you've thought through the consequences of doing so.

Typically in the VC world, when a VC passes on an investment they keep very
quiet about it to avoid tainting the seeker of funding.

See:
[http://www.bvp.com/portfolio/antiportfolio](http://www.bvp.com/portfolio/antiportfolio)

It would be very interesting to see the YC equivalent of that!

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
You've got a point about VCs. (Hollywood works in the exact same way) Some
industries act like a high school hive-mind popularity contest that runs on
social proof over logic. Perhaps it works better for them to think emotionally
like customers and users do. However, I've gotten 3 job offers when I posted
my failures on HN. I've gotten no job offers when I posted my successes.
Overall as hackers/entreps we understand that "failure = successful trying" so
sharing failures on HN has it benefit.

~~~
jacquesm
> However, I've gotten 3 job offers when I posted my failures on HN. I've
> gotten no job offers when I posted my successes.

That makes good sense, failure indicates 'availability' whereas success
indicates the opposite!

------
vishaldpatel
To those of you who got rejected: you're still fine. It's just one of many
ways to possibly succeed. Not a big deal.

~~~
dnautics
I submitted (non-profit track) kind of on a lark. Shrug.

~~~
shankysingh
same here

------
shrikrishna
Rejection here. Was prepared for this, but still, it stings.

> We're trying to get better at this, but the hard limit on the number of
> interviews means it's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on
> to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send
> us an email telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes.

Next goal: To reach the point where we can send that email!

Edit: Congratulations to everyone who got the invites to the interview. Good
luck!

------
jacquesm
If you get rejected, make sure you don't take it personal and ask yourself: If
we needed YC to accept us to succeed were we on the right track? And if the
answer is no then make it work without them. After all, YC is a factor in the
success of quite a large number of start-ups but there are many more start-ups
succeeding without having gone through YC than that did.

If it were the only factor common to all successful start-ups rejection would
be a bad thing.

So go prove them wrong.

------
opendomain
I submitted my non-profit, CharityCoin.org and unfortunately was not accepted.
However, I firmly believe in our mission to create a sustainable charity so I
am still working on it. We do not need the capital, but It would have loved to
get some advice from YC.

To anyone else that has not been accepted - please consider CharityCoin- we
are the kickstarter for charities that helps startups raise money for Free.

Here is how it works: We ask celebrities for their permission to mint gold and
silver coins with their image. We then give those coins to donors that promise
money to their favorites charities. But the money raised goes to startups who
promise to pay back and support the charities. This effectively is a loan and
the interest is just a commitment of volunteer time to promote the charity.

Please go to [http://CharityCoin.Org](http://CharityCoin.Org) to check it out
and contact me Ric AT CharityCoin.Org

------
adamzerner
Based on
[http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html](http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html),
it seems that there's a point in the application where if you're impressive
enough, they'll spend more time on it and if not, they'll disregard it.

> If the founders seem promising, I'll now spend more time trying to
> understand the idea.

It might be a good idea to put the applications that don't get past that point
in one pile, and send them a different and more specific rejection letter. (I
was just rejected and am naturally wondering how close I was, and this idea
came to mind.)

~~~
ecolner
Imagine sending 3,000 tailored responses that spawn discussion threads. Not
feasible. Believe in yourself kid!

~~~
adamzerner
I'm not saying to give "tailored responses". Just maybe put them in a
different pile and send out a first rejection letter saying that you didn't
make it past the "first cuts".

~~~
ecolner
Ah. I'm sure they've considered something like that. Smart suggestion. But at
the end of the day does it really matter?

------
sparkzilla
There once was a lonely developer. Who got rejected by Y-Combinator. Paul
Graham said "No!" But it don't make him feel low. He'll make next year's
attempt so much better...

------
patrickford
In an earlier startup I went to 88 meetings over 8 months before getting to a
VC term sheet. That is a lot of 'no'. If you are going to be an entrepreneur
you need to learn to live with rejection and keep moving forward. I got my
"sorry" email from YC tonight, but that's fine. I knew the odds were very
long. I'm getting up early tomorrow to continue working on my idea. I may
apply again in the future with this (or another) concept, but for now I'm just
going to keep on hacking!

------
exo_duz
Rejection here too. Would've loved to get some feedback but I know how time
consuming that would be.

~~~
bretthellman
Lots of founders were kind enough to give me feedback on Hall.com when I had
$0 funding. Since then, we've raised $6m+ Feel free to send over your info and
I'll give you feedback. (brett@hall-inc.com)

~~~
ondiekijunior
this seems to me an awesome opportunity brett. Will send you some info

~~~
bretthellman
I hope you do...

------
jackhammons
Acceptance here. We're pretty stoked.

~~~
exo_duz
Congrats. Hope all goes well. Would be great if you could write up a blog post
or something to share your experiences.

------
myattaches
I didn't make this round but I am still excited because if one waits until
you're 100% sure you will never accomplish anything. Go with 75% sure and
you'll get there. I know I will. Thanks for the No Thanks. That's how one gets
off their back and keeps going.

------
clockwork_189
Acceptance here!

For those who didnt get in, chin up! It is not the end! Keep hustling and keep
pushing forward!

------
mark-bain
We've also got rejected, and now I'm pretty sure that Ycombinator is just a
great bottleneck itself. It can even be inferred from Kirsty's email or Sam's
post: [http://blog.samaltman.com/the-worst-part-of-
yc](http://blog.samaltman.com/the-worst-part-of-yc).

Anyway, it's now like a challenge for all of the good/promising startups
(including ours) to prove them their mistakes or missed opportunities
resulting from undercapacity. On the other hand, I wish all the best to every
accepted company! You're now on a better track to your success ;)

Good luck to everyone, Mark Bain

------
jmaha
Rejected, but not dejected. The process was invaluable and I'm excited for the
next opportunity, and congrats to those called in for the interview.

Mixpanel and others have offered special deals for rejects in the past. Silver
lining!

------
ycsummer14
Anyone NOT get a response yet?

~~~
mhluongo
We haven't.

EDIT- Got it a few minutes after posting.

~~~
juarez
In my case I found it under the "Updates" tab in Gmail, only after I read this
thread and went looking for it. It might be worth checking it out if you
haven`t already.

~~~
shankysingh
whats the email id they are sending email with ? We can search with that.
EDIT: Got the mail, Rejected.

------
markovbling
Rejection here too - honestly think we just weren't far along enough (0 users,
0 traction, barely working prototype) - will keep hustling and re-apply in 6
months.

In all honesty, I really can't blame YC because the only reason we didn't have
users/traction is we only started working on our idea a couple weeks before
application deadline but from the perspective of a YC partner, I can imagine
their first thought is that a lack of users/traction communicates that you're
not hustling hard enough.

Good luck to everyone who has an interview :)

------
scobar
I only just had the idea about a week before the deadline for the apps, so I
knew the odds were stacked even higher against me. On top of that, I'm
currently a single founder. However, the objective of my idea needs to be
satisfied, so I am absolutely continuing to work on the idea with a bit more
urgency now that I won't have YC guidance and connections.

My project is [http://www.MyAdversity.com](http://www.MyAdversity.com) \- A
mock-up of how my profile would look is at
[http://www.MyAdversity.com/profile.htm](http://www.MyAdversity.com/profile.htm)

The idea is to have a central hub where employers with available positions and
applicants looking for a job connect. Unlike current (and highly successful)
services that attempt this while obeying the status quo of hiring, MyAdversity
will provide two huge and beneficial differences:

(1) Employers will hire the best person for the job far more successfully.
Applicant profiles will already be screened and sorted. So an employer simply
has to search for qualities and skills they're looking for in an applicant,
and a ranked list of applicants will appear with the best match first. An
applicant's profile will provide the employer with most information that is
sought by a conventional interview. Therefore, employers will be able to focus
their time on conducting a better interview that likely includes a sample of
real work the applicant would be assigned if hired.

(2) Applicants will have a level playing field when pursuing a position they
really want. The screening process does not depend on the inaccurate filters
employers use today to save time, nor does it weigh so heavily on pedigree.
Applicants will be judged by who they are, what they're passionate about, and
what they're capable of. Applicants should have hope that if they acquire the
skills to competently perform the work at their dream job, that they have a
reasonable chance to be hired.

Even though it's only an fleshed out idea with a first iteration mock-up while
I code the actual MVP for beta, I'm not in stealth mode. If anyone steals the
idea and executes it better than I will, then the objective will be satisfied,
and I'll be grateful. That is my main goal. I greatly appreciate any feedback
you may have. Congrats to all of the groups who were chosen for an interview,
and best of luck!

------
ondiekijunior
I got rejected. Then rereading the email, i remembered Drew Houston didnt get
in the first time. The best way to experience success is to overcome
rejections and go on to succeed. I personally think between the YC partners
blogs, we have enough advice to continue working with our product. In 5 years
YC or not, the target is at least 20m users or whatever else is your targets.
just target 5% growth.

------
vqc
Rejection here. Congrats to everyone who got an interview.

I feel okay with not receiving a reason for being rejected. We put in effort
when filling out our application, and YC put in effort (at least according to
our Youtube analytics) in reviewing our application. Sure, it would be nice to
get some feedback, but all we asked for was a fair shake. And because they
watched our video, I feel we got it.

~~~
edvinmemet
How many views, if I may ask? For us, youtube analytics shows 2 views, both on
April 9th (one from Australia).

~~~
vqc
Three views (one from London), all of which were for a substantial portion of
the video.

------
vgrichina
Got rejected.

My startup is visual programming system ala Spreadsheets + Zapier, here is my
YC application – [http://spreadsheets-on-
steroids.tumblr.com/post/82903500034/...](http://spreadsheets-on-
steroids.tumblr.com/post/82903500034/my-failed-application-to-yc-summer-2014)

Would like to hear some feedback on my application.

------
shaohua
"Y Combinator is wrapping up wading through 3000 applications for this
summer’s intake" From this url:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/hollieslade/2014/04/15/early-
sta...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/hollieslade/2014/04/15/early-stage-
startups-the-biggest-killers/)

------
dcustodio
Another rejection here. It was our first time applying for YC (or any other
incubator). The application process sure helped us view things in a
perspective other than co-founders as coders. Even if we decide not to apply
again it will be a great exercise to answer the application questions every 6
months.

------
tsf
If anyone wants feedback on their idea from a smaller accelerator, Chris
Heivly, co-founder of MapQuest and later The Startup Factory would like to
schedule a one-on-one video meeting to talk about your application. If that
sounds interesting, send us an email at mark@thestartupfactory.co.

------
utsavagarwal
Rejection here as well. We had applied with a marketplace for used cars, and
even engaged in an email conversation with Paul regarding the idea. He had
suggested a couple of models & a way to bring supply onto the platform.

Little dejected & disappointed right now.

------
mark-bain
Ohh, and one more thing. Maybe I missed it, how many applications did you/YC
receive for S14 batch? I've read on Sam's blog that it was around 20% more
than in the previous edition, but would be great to know the exact number ...

~~~
mkempe
They received more than 3000 applications for this batch. Going by past
ratios, 9% are interviewed -- and in the end 3% are selected.

~~~
mark-bain
Without going into details it sounds, like 97% chances that you would be
rejected ...

------
shaohua
Still waiting. Our idea is 'Try before you buy for Github repos' \-
[http://beta.howtox.com/](http://beta.howtox.com/)

~~~
dfc
Sounds neat. How do you figure out the dependencies? I have to imagine this
works for a limited set of languages. Was there any language that was
preposterously hard to support?

~~~
shaohua
Lisp... just kidding... you are right that that is one of the hardest problems
in the project

------
pmalynin
Has anyone else STILL not received any email yet? I've checked all over my
inbox and misc folders (junk, spam etc.) and couldn't find anything

------
reputer
Still waiting - gotta check the 4-5 gmail tabs now ! Kyle (at) reputer.co

------
imwhimsical
Not an applicant, but would love to chat with somebody who got accepted.

------
pradeep89
Rejection here

------
monsterix
Reminds me of my comment about an year ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5648760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5648760)

(1) Quality of applications, as in number of people who can write and talk
really well, have gone up and the (2) number of applications have gone up;
means the gate is even more crowded than ever before. So the pressure to dole
out a silkier YC application next time will go up.

Obviously the outcome of this cycle is that the focus of the entire selection
ruckus will move towards "best of best applications written in English" and
not really start-ups (which look/are bad) but have the potential to go on to
become unicorns/home runs.

Meanwhile, this pressure will also give rise to energetic backbenchers. A
psychology for those who feel cheated by fate to go after and kill it outside
of the incubator loop. Good luck YC, no-YC both!

