
If you got rejected from YC, your life is over - jessepollak
http://jessepollak.me/if-you-got-rejected-from-yc-your-life-is-over/
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codex
I would say that it's more likely your life is over when you get _accepted_ to
YC--slaving for peanuts with little chance of success, when the expected value
of other opportunities are much higher. It's all a bit exploitative, but in
every realm of human endeavor, you see people making huge sacrifices with
little chance of success:

* Actors hoping to make it in Hollywood

* Singers hoping to get famous (see: American Idol)

* Bands hoping to sign a record deal

* Restauranteurs hoping to open the hot new restaurant

* Gymnasts hoping for an Olympic medal

* Ballerinas hoping for the starring role

* Drug dealers hoping to one day become the kingpin

99% of these people will strike out, and yet we try. I guess it's built into
human nature.

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CyrusL
The median outcome is low, but the expected value is pretty high for starting
a startup.

Mark Zuckerberg is worth $20 billion after 7 years. That's about the same as
25,000 engineers working for 7 years. There aren't any singers or ballerinas
with that kind of outcome.

That's part of why seed-stage startup investing exists even though the capital
costs for startups are so low. The investors are paying the founders' salaries
for a couple years in exchange for a small chance at seeing a huge return. No
one invests in ballerinas like that.

~~~
minimaxir
Expected value is a function of both value and probability. Sure, $20 billion
is a lot, but Zuckerberg's success is as likely as winning the state lottery.

Even with Y-Combinator, not _every_ accepted startup raises funding, and dies
without a congratulatory TechCrunch post.

~~~
CyrusL
How come investors give money to startup founders but not state lottery ticket
buyers? Isn't their entire job to professionally evaluate these expected
values?

Being accepted to YC actually means being funded. With YCVC it's ~$100k.

~~~
wtracy
Investors give money to organizations that either they perceive as having a
significantly above-average chance of "winning the lottery", or that have
basically already "won".

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a bunch of people out there offering
to loan money to people who have already won the lottery. :-)

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toblender
It sucks to get rejected, but things are hardly over.

I got rejected 3 years ago. Shortly after I realized I didn't need an
incubator. Since then I've created a few dozen startups even sold a few of
them.

I'm sure there are people in your network that got into YC. PG has office
hours with YC alumni, if you really wanted to meet him you could tag along
during one of those meetings.

Not knocking PG, but there are tonnes of people with similar experience. If
you really want to find a mentor like PG you can definitely find one if you
work hard enough.

~~~
lambda
"A few dozen startups" in 3 years?

Are you sure these are startups and not just side projects? Was there any
expectation that these would actually grow into larger companies, or were they
just part-time mostly self running websites? Not any new business or website
is a startup; a startup is specifically one that seeks a scalable business
model, that can expand into a much bigger business with more investment,
rather than something that is going to be limited by the output of of or a
small number of people.

So, I'd be curious about what you are considering a startup such that you have
created a few dozen in 3 years.

~~~
toblender
@lambda actually I'm writing a book about the startups I started.

For me a startup is a team you get together to deliver a service to customers.
Team + Logo + MVP + Deck.

I have a gift for getting a group together to tackle a problem. Often times we
discover that the problem is not big enough and dispand.

In the 3 years, I started 3 companies that made it to customer phase.

1) Printsites2Go, a shopify for printers

2) 360 Data Solutions, Big data analytics in China

3) General Skin, Korean cosmetics for the masses

Ones that didn't make it to the paying customer phase:

4) KDD mining (Yukon prospecting)

5) Noble Earth LTD (Plastic to oil conversion)

6) Shame Buy (Anonymous buying of goods you are afraid to have shipped to you)

7) 6M Development (Real estate in Niagara)

8) RepairMutt (Home based bug tracker)

9) Like Follow Me (Selling of likes and follows)

10) Samurai Print (Large format print for sellers)

11) Miss Mary Books (English trainer online for HK students)

12) Hungry Joes (Facebook app development team)

13) Defyent (My contracting company, since 2007)

I didn't include my contracts... too many to count.

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zbruhnke
Great post Jesse, As someone who has been both accepted and rejected by YC I
can say this is absolutely the truth, I made it to YC in one batch but I've
been rejected both before that and since, I was always under the impression
past founders had better chances of making it when applying again but that
certainly isn't the case with me.

That said, I'm an entrepreneur, its what I do and if a YC rejection letter
stopped me I would've probably quit before I ever got started multiple times.

I'm not a hugely successful guy, but I've had a seven figure exit without
taking outside funding and I'm raising capital now for a new startup without
the YC name behind it and that's going just fine.

The most important thing you have in your startup is DRIVE. If you believe you
know where you're headed its not a matter of IF you can convince someone else
to join you(this goes for VC's or employees) its WHEN you convince them to
join you.

At my first company I sold cars on the weekends to make payroll, and if I had
to do that again tomorrow to keep this new company running I would.

Not everyone succeeds because they're the best at something, a lot of people
make it because they're the most stubborn at it.

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bifrost
First, Sweet moustache.

Second, If one rejection letter is all it takes to derail you, you probably
should not be in the biz.

YC is not the arbiter of success, you are, and getting rejected probably just
means that you need to polish things up and spend more time on the product.
I'm glad you didn't stop, looks like you guys are doing just fine.

~~~
jessepollak
thanks :)

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mbesto
From the YC rejection email: (I know it too well)

> _Another reason you shouldn 't take this personally is that we know we make
> lots of mistakes._

> _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._

For me, those two lines are extremely motivating.

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freehunter
>Your company will never ever ever ever be successful. Never Ever.

You've got some broken links in this one, such as [http://jessepollak.me/if-
you-got-rejected-from-yc-your-life-...](http://jessepollak.me/if-you-got-
rejected-from-yc-your-life-is-over/snapchat.com)

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adamzerner
Good post. For some reason people have trouble matching their understanding
with their emotions. People who get rejected _understand_ that their life
isn't over, but they still _feel_ like it is. Reducto ad absurdum
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum))
arguments like this often help to bring your emotions up to speed with your
understanding.

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seiyak
My intention for YC would be different from yours but you didn't start your
project for YC, didn't you ? I guess that you started to working on it with
motivation to achieve your goal or prove your concept besides becoming rich.

I got a rejection letter yesterday but I don't give up my idea until I prove
the concept or I consider it's worthless. It's ok even though that YC rejects
my concept.

So don't throw that away.

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joeblau
I remember an interesting tidbit that I heard from the YC ambassador at a
Commonwealth Club event. He said most companies in the history of the world
never went though YC. I look at YC like college; It's an opportunity, not a
guarantee.

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memracom
Mehh...

Given that the overwhelming majority of YC applicants are young people and
that the majority of successful startups are founded by people over 35yo, I
would say that getting rejected from YC means that your life is just
beginning. Now you are free to go get a real job, to learn about a real
industry or two, and to acquire all the skills that you need to make a real
success. And when you are 40 or 50 years old, then you can make a real go at
it.

~~~
Uhhrrr
If you follow the links, it becomes obvious that the post is sarcastic.

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smaili
TL;DR - don't give up

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ebarock
complete waste of time this article ;|

