

YC is Wrong About You - jeremynolan

I’m not the type of person that you’ll hear commenting all the time here on Hacker News. Fact is, I couldn’t stop and see all these people feeling bad about them because YC rejected them.<p>I’m not interesting in applying to YC. Come on, you don’t need YC to succeed. You don’t need them. Many of you guys are just here because you think YC would be the salvation to your startup. Don’t kid yourself.<p>If you feel bad because you got rejected, because you lost the “golden mentorship” and the 10,000 grand, then you shouldn’t be doing your startup in first place.<p>You should believe in your idea and go on, even if the other people don’t see what you can see. Thomas Edison didn’t stop because everyone believed he was nuts. Henry Ford didn’t stop back then, the Google guys didn’t stop, and you shouldn’t stop.<p>Keep going, keep moving, don’t let fear or rejection stop you. Never.
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tsally
Not to be an internet hardass, but if a YC rejection crushes you beyond all
belief, you probably shouldn't be founding a startup. Every single successful
startup has experienced _at least_ one defeat as large as a YC rejection. A
healthy dose of confidence and ignorance about your abilities is necessary.
Preferably a combination of both.

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nostrademons
_Four_ YC rejections, however, is pretty rough.

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edw519
Walt Disney got a yes from the 996th bank he approached. I'm such a pussy that
I would have quit after 950 attempts. He never quit. That's the point. I
expect that you won't either.

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10ren
Cool story, have you a citation?

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david927
I'd like to add a couple things to this:

1\. This is the 'gatekeeper' problem. You have a handful of people deciding if
you're making "what people want". They can't possibly know what all people
want. JK Rowling got rejected by, what, 20 publishers? They can't know. They
can only do their best. The 'gatekeeper' problem also means you get
idiosyncrasies, such as (essentially) a ban on single founders, etc.

2\. Some ideas are easy to pitch, others nearly impossible. Take this year's
Best Film Oscar winner, "Slumdog Millionaire", and try to pitch the plot in a
way that's not ludicrous. You won't succeed. But take any cheesy, crappy
B-flick and you can perfectly summarize it and even make it sound good. Now,
I'm not saying there's a correlation between a good idea and difficulty in
pitching it. (Ok, but I will say there's a clear correlation between mediocre
ideas and ease of pitch.) So if you didn't get accepted, your idea either
isn't very good or it's great.

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froo
_(Ok, but I will say there's a clear correlation between mediocre ideas and
ease of pitch.)_

yeah, "index all of the world's information" is such a mediocre idea, even
though it is a very easy pitch, those Google guys will never make any money.

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mahmud
I upvoted you but I disagree wholeheartedly with your google invocation: No,
Larry and Sergey never expected their startup to become what it is today. Your
small-step success feeds into your ambition; it's one they nailed search that
they have started to visualize bigger and bigger success, then execute it.

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froo
and yet just because they nailed it - still doesn't mean it was a bad idea...

There are plenty of bad ideas that are executed well and don't succeed. There
are plenty of good ideas that are executed poorly and succeed anyway.

The point isn't how they executed, it really was a reflection on the
david927's assertion that there is a correlation between ease of pitch and how
good an idea is, is wrong, plain and simple.

"our site is like facebook meets digg" is an easy pitch (I've actually heard
this from someone), and in my humble opinion, is a bad idea

"we want to index all of the world's information" is an easy pitch, and so
happens to be a good idea.

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david927
You all got it wrong. Here's what I said:

\- There is no correlation between a good idea and how hard or easy it is to
pitch. Some great ideas are easy to pitch, others are not. No correlation.

\- There is a direct correlation between a mediocre idea and ease in pitching
it. Every mediocre idea is easy to pitch.

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s_baar
This title may not be the most supportive for those who get accepted.

It's starting to feel like College Confidential around here...

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jlm382
LOL reminds me of senior year in high school.

But seriously -- your source of funding doesn't identify you, the college you
attend doesn't identify you, and they shouldn't.

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khangtoh
Right on. Take this time to reflect on your idea. Winter application is 6
months away and now is the time to start preparing for it.

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bcx
Just to put things in perspective the next round of YC is not exactly a 'no
luck' process either. Basically PG and company meet with you for 10 minutes to
meet the team, and discuss the project and plan. Now, tell me, how they can
possibly judge people and projects in 10 minutes, in a rational even-handed
way.

I'd say Ycombinator is more about winning the lottery, than doing everything
right. I am fairly confident that YC receives far too many really good
applications to be able to really vet everything. And also, to be fair if you
are looking for mentorship, I can imagine this year will be a little different
from normal, as the number of teams has doubled, and PG and Jessica have a new
addition to the family. As for connections, if your scrappy you can make your
own connections -- and $25K for 5% is really not that great of a valuation.

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danielzarick
Funny you say this... my startup is called We Will Never Stop.

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fiaz
No they are not.

YC has more experience than you.

YC has more success than you.

If they turned you down, listen to the "why" and make the adjustments
necessary to be successful.

Consider it a badge of honor that they even gave you the time of day. Take the
information, feedback, advice, and rejection to heart and grow a pair.

Success is not static, it is dynamic.

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danielzarick
You are missing the point. The people that got turned down for interviews
didn't even get feedback. It is just a glorified "sorry and we really
appreciate you" letter with a "let us know if we're wrong and you do something
awesome" attached to the end.

So this is also the stage where many people hang their heads down and go back
to their normal routine of nothing. But this is the only flaw in the YC
system. It takes people who are not entrepreneurs and wholly dedicated to
their idea and gives them an opportunity because they are a good hacker. Now
once it gets to the interview stage they access how dedicated you are, but who
wouldn't be at that point?

So please don't make some hugely dramatic post. Paul and Jessica would (and
do) say that they are wrong about many startups. Not only the ones from
interviews, but even with the applications. There are so many high-level
applicants that it is hard to access who fits where.

