
Vote up if you're rejected but will still proceed - vlad

======
brezina
Hi guys. Sorry about the news.

I suggest joining my YC alum startup, Xobni, instead. Sometimes great hackers
_joinup_ instead of _startup_. That is what Paul Buchheit did :
<http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/03/looking-for-co-founder-try-
attending.html>

send resumes: <http://www.xobni.com/jobs.php>

~~~
hello_moto
Sorry I couldn't resist to reply. I just checked xobni job page and was
surprised that they're looking for someone with C# knowledge. I assume they're
building something based on ASP.NET ? (or at least .NET technology)

So right now the list of startup companies that use .NET has grown to 2 in
YCombinator? Xobni and Loopt (arguably one of the most successful YCombinator
investment).

PG, any thought on that?

~~~
philc
And consider that they their products thus far are outlook-based. MS does a
lot of the work for you if you use their tools and language.

------
rbc
My business partner and I applied back in the spring of 2005 and were passed
over. It wasn't all that surprising to me, based on the number of applicants
that the SFP had received.

In retrospect I'm a little relieved. At the time, our company was not really
in the state to make a run for a M&A; or IPO exit, nor did it need to. It was
only after doing more research that I realized that our company mostly needed
customers, not investors.

We've spent the last two years setting up the necessary infrastructure for us
to support our customers. It looks like 2007 may be our year. It's been two
years and we are still proceeding.

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nostrademons
Yes, but we're taking a break on the original idea for about a week or so. The
yCombinator rejection gave us another product idea; we want to push a minimal
version of that out and see how it goes before returning to our original idea.

------
neurokinetikz
today was an odd day ...

it started out with my site (neurokinetikz.com) winning a webby award

<http://webbyawards.com/webbys/current_honorees.php?category_id=48>

and then ended with a rejection email from YC

odd indeed ...

c'est la vie ;)

~~~
nickb
I spent a couple dozen seconds on your site and had no clue what it was about.
You need to focus your pitch and make it more obvious for "old" folks like
myself. You lost me as a viewer very quickly.

PS: Lose the obnoxious, animated, poorly incorporated wrt background color
GIFs... they gave me a headache.

PPS: Also, lose the first page: you'll get better SEO results & it won't look
like it's 1997. ;)

------
jward
Reddit has made me wary of vote polls, so I won't vote up. But we are still
going to do our thing. I'm looking at the silver lining of not getting in.
Moving really sucks ;)

~~~
vlad
Well, I voted you up even though I disagree with your belief about not voting
up.

------
cwilbur
I knew I was a long shot. I had two strikes against me in that I'm a single
founder and I'm more interested in building a company I want to work for than
in becoming rich at it -- so my interests and investors' interests don't line
up.

Of course I'm still proceeding -- Y Combinator money was a means to an end,
and not an end in itself.

------
eskaper
we didn't get in but will keep going; the only frustrating part of our
rejection is that ycomb didn't even look at our demo (they would have had to
login to do so).

~~~
jason13
Our team had a similar experience. It seems they didnt even look at the parts
which didnt require logging in.

------
Leonidas
The rejection from Y did hurt for a few minutes but then it is actually a
blessing. It helped our team to re-evaluate ourselves. Our background is in
medicine. We lack the technology part yet understand the 'gaps' in medicine
that technology is needed. It's like Steve Case and his dive into medicine
with revolutionhealth.

Anyways, going to give it a go for another program but this time using our
strength - medicine. Any hacker out there want to give it a shot with us in
the other program application, we have some great ideas that combines the
internet, medicine, health insurance etc. Tired of hiring programmers, we need
a real partner who can program since my programming ability is still newbish.

Give me an e-mail ;)

~~~
theoutlander
ping me - theoutlander at gmail ... i dont have urs

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dmgreer
Of course, my thing is already started, the YC thing was just a last minute
deal, I only found out about it a couple of weeks before the deadline. People
are interested in what I'm doing, interest is building, and I have a lot of
ideas to continue improving it.

I'll still be looking for some cash, though, because development would go a
lot faster if I didn't have to work to pay the bills, and it would help me
compete against anybody who might be out there to compete against me.

------
Readmore
I would hope that you would continue working! yCombinator isn't the end all be
all, it's not really even what matters. Just make something that you feel has
value and hopefully other people will too. I think Paul is a very intelligent
guy and I love reading his views on stuff but if you stop working on a startup
just because you didn't get his blessing into yComb then you're giving him WAY
too much credit.

------
mukund
We have been telling this from first, YC or not, we will go for it. We are
still in the race to make it happen and go live

~~~
amichail
I think it's important to be flexible though. If an idea does not seem to be
getting much traction, you might consider moving on to your next idea.

~~~
mukund
Not really dude, we believe that wasnt the criteria for rejection. We believe
in our idea and we will implement that and will go live. Then we will do a
soul search depending on how the world reacts

~~~
amichail
Well, yes, you would probably want to see how the world reacts before giving
up.

~~~
vlad
If you honestly think PG rejected people based on their idea, I think you're
wrong. That's probably the last criteria he used. So, work on the idea. I
would reject 90% of submissions, too, if I was running something like this.

For example, with Google, Google AdSense was the glue that made everything
work (profitability, great product, many users, good reputation, ability to
have free food.) You might say their demo and pagerank was actually important,
but they couldn't even sell that for $1 million dollars. Heck, even right now,
nobody would buy their original technology as Yahoo! and MSN must have already
surpassed the original PageRank in quality.

~~~
mukund
yep vlad. As i told you, we know why we were rejected. so its not the idea

~~~
amichail
I think what's important is to do some preliminary user testing to see if
people can even understand what the application is all about.

Of course, if you are trying to keep your idea secret, then this could be
difficult to do.

~~~
mukund
Well its ok. We would dare to go ahead and see how users take our model

~~~
theoutlander
mukund, why don't u ping me: theoutlander at gmail....

------
aglarond
Will definitely proceed because I believe in my idea. I just need to make
enough time to work on it, which means finding funding so I can do it full-
time...

It was a very nice rejection letter, though. And, I'm consoled by the fact
that they at least looked at the website - at least there was access from a
Bay Area IP...

------
shsung
We submitted way late - literally last minute - but we'll still be proceeding.
It's okay, since we thought up of a few more interesting ideas, and a few that
would be easier to start first before working on our really big ambitious one.
It's amazing how many ideas you can come up when you really sit down and think
about it.

------
vlad
I just want to say that there are as many comments as there are votes. This is
great! I think we have likely exceeded the number of teams which will have
been selected at the end. Those just starting now have months of time to get
going. Let's have tons of demos up by June 1st, when YC probably starts!

~~~
Leonidas
We should have a section to list demos that are up or going to be up so that
we can support one another.

Maybe someone can put up something that the audience on here can go on and
evaluate what everyone is doing. Perhaps make it 'invite' only to avoid
trolls.

------
whacked_new
Just to share a little story. I am "stuck" in a foreign country for some
strange reasons; one of them is to avoid folks squaking at me for this crazy
endeavour. YC would be a good excuse to fly back; it passes off as a job
interview of sorts.

I am destined to piss off the older people. Shrug.

~~~
bls
Where? I am currently in Thailand.

~~~
whacked_new
japan. on traveler's visa. very, very random story.

~~~
jamongkad
Really? Philippines here, I got rejected too but it's cool, After much
evaluation on my part. My start up needs customers more than investors at this
point. And yeah living in the Philippines I have the advantage of lower
expenses all across the board. :-)

~~~
whacked_new
I dunno about the Philippines, but I do know that user preferences in the
Eastern hemisphere are very different from those in the West. And if you are
developing for a Western audience, you may very well be in the wrong place.

~~~
BitGeek
Cause the only way to know anything about your customers is to look out the
door?

I assume they are american expats...

... or maybe they are developing a product for the 5/6th of the world that
isn't America.

~~~
whacked_new
or they share a similar very very random story.

I presented to a bunch of devs 2 months ago, and despite being senior IT
developers, they never heard of digg or delicious. It's not a big deal, but
it's hard to get your point across.

------
xinroman
For us, this was just a small step towards seeking out more funding. While it
would have been faster and easier to develop and launch with some money coming
in (read, one less contract job necessary to get through the summer) that's no
reason not to do it anymore.

------
dfranke
I'm not sure. Without someone to pay my living expenses, I can't work on it
full time. So I'm deciding between moonlighting it, or taking a job with
another startup.

~~~
felipe
Yes, you can! Save enough for six months to a year in basic living expenses --
that's your seed fund. While you save, keep moonlighting on your project. Your
seed-fund will empower you to make the right decision when the time comes (i.
e.: When your project gets traction). And you can always do consulting gigs if
you need more money.

~~~
dfranke
Well, I just finished working out the terms of the job offer from said other
startup and I'm insufferably pleased with my negotiating :-). I probably won't
have time for side-projects while I'm there, but even if I don't get rich with
them I'll probably walk away with enough savings to set out on my own
afterwards.

------
startupstarter
I'm starting a startup hub in the SF bay area:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=11808>

------
jason13
Did y combinator even take much of a look at the demo's?

~~~
theoutlander
No, I think they have been very busy ... besides, the idea has to sound
promising to waste time looking at a demo...

~~~
IMorgothI12
They looked at my demo. I still got rejected thought. A better question is how
many demos they looked at that still got rejected.

