
Ask HN: What are some examples of successful companies rejected by YC? - daniel-levin
Naturally, YC cannot accept everyone that applies. We know that many YC alumni have gone on to be successful, but we don&#x27;t hear too much about the companies that were rejected and have now gone on to become going concerns. YCombinator is not the only way to launch a startup. How many that are turned away actually continue working on their startups, and successfully?
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mazumdar
I applied to YC six times over the last 2.5 years with the same idea -
[https://yathletics.com](https://yathletics.com) . Got rejected every time but
interviewed with them twice. The first time I applied was before I launched
our first product and had $0 in revenue. The last time I applied, our yearly
revenue was almost $1M, and we're still just getting started.

The reason for rejection was same at both times - I didn't have a clear
strategy of how to grow my company into a big business. (For those that don't
know, YC gives you a pretty clear explanation of why they rejected you and
what they want you to do better.)

We make products that our users absolutely love and have seen phenomenal
growth, and YC understands that. But it seems like it's very important to them
that you are able to clearly articulate what your business will look like in
ten years when it's a billion dollar company.

I have no doubt that I will make my company into a billion dollar business.
But I simply don't know how I will take over the world yet. I strategize what
needs to be done over the next 1 year and focus only on that. Sure, it might
not be a trait for successful founders, but I firmly believe that staying
focused on building great products is key to my business. The vision for how I
will turn this into a billion dollar company will gradually come with time.

~~~
pcsanwald
I'm a runner, and just ordered two pairs of socks! seems like a great business
to me. I have no insight into what could/couldn't be a billion dollar
business, but I'm also positive that not every successful company needs to be
a billion dollar business.

~~~
enknamel
I'd really like to hear a followup on how these socks compare to Thorlos and
Balegas.

~~~
pcsanwald
I like the socks quite a lot. they are much thinner and more lightweight than
balegas, but they fit my foot a bit better and they breathe really great.

If you like a thinner sock, these are the best I've tried.

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plehoux
We've been turned down twice with ConferenceBadge.com, once at the interview.
It's now projected to make around $750 000/year. We were rejected for good
reasons, it's definitely not a billion dollars business.

More recently we've been rejected three times with Missive,
([https://missiveapp.com](https://missiveapp.com)), still not financially
successful, but starting to receive a pretty good vibe from early users + big
potential.

I wrote about how we manage the two projects side by side with a small team of
4. [https://medium.com/missive-app/successfully-bootstrapped-
a-p...](https://medium.com/missive-app/successfully-bootstrapped-a-product-
then-what-b4483276fd14)

Everyone is biased towards themselves, but still, I think we're a high
quality, high achievers team that should have been accepted. You can now troll
:).

We will reapply until we are in or until it doesn't make sense anymore. The
value proposition of YC is that good + life is an adventure.

~~~
cocoflunchy
Hey just a little thing on your website - the headline "How it works?" is a
bit weird, maybe it should be "How does it work?" ?

~~~
plehoux
Good catch, I've just removed the "?".

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smt88
> _YCombinator is not the only way to launch a startup_

It would be a stretch to even say it's a common way to launch a startup

~~~
stephengillie
It's a testament to this advertising machine we're currently posting on.

~~~
gist
It's actually fascinating along those lines how much of a halo is around
something that you read everyday and pay attention to. For example I don't
read reddit and never have. If I sat on a plane next to someone important from
reddit (except for Alexis) I could care less. But if I sat on a plane next to
someone from YC (or even a top commenter on HN) I would definitely be all into
talking to them because of the halo.

~~~
stephengillie
Rarely is an audio concept given such a fitting visual analogy. Those in an
echo chamber do seem to reverberate, or glow, with the energy that surrounds
them.

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will_brown
I co-founded a legal startup, and a funded YC company pivoted into our exact
space. We applied and never even received an interview. I once did a Show HN
about it that made the front page and was immediately removed, upon an email
to dang my post was reinstated and I even received a comment/review by a YC
partner. The review was overall complimentary, included actionable critiques
and even included reasons why he subjectively believe the YC company was ahead
of mine.

While the YC company raised well over $1M, the last available data shows their
annual income was $80k, my startup was bootstrapped making well over 6 figures
and ultimately I achieved a liquidation event.

~~~
pewpewlasergun
Was your post antagonistic towards the YC company or removed for an otherwise
valid and transparent reason? If hacker news is removing posts by competitors,
or giving their startup founders free range to remove posts I should probably
start using it differently.

~~~
will_brown
My Show HN post didn't mention the YC company, and the post was reinstated
without any revisions of the post itself after I emailed dang.

------
jamiesonbecker
We didn't even make it to an YCF interview for
[https://Userify.com](https://Userify.com) (cloud and on-site user/sudo/SSH
key management), but we're now profitable with about 800 companies on six
continents. (SSH is used on nearly every Linux server in the world for remote
management, so it's a pretty huge market; our tool really comes into its own
in a more complex cloud environment, since until you get to a certain size you
can get along fairly well with just automating user accounts w/ chef or puppet
or by hand.)

We're just getting warmed up. We're increasing investment in our agent (for
example, we're developing a Windows Powershell version for when Microsoft
releases SSH for Windows later this year, so we'll be cross platform.) We're
also announcing our first six enterprise customers as soon as we get approval
from their legal departments. Some of our new innovations we're still in the
process of filing patents on, so can't discuss, but they're awesome :)

We've decided to not take any seed money at all and just self-fund. We've
reached 'ramen profitability', as YC recommends, and now we control our own
destiny (although we might pursue a growth round later.)

We were rejected in the very first stage (via email) with no reason given.
Even if you get rejected: if you believe in your idea, keep going! Success is
driven more by determination and persistence than anything else. Something the
size of YC is driven by numbers and just one small issue can tip the balance
away from you, so by definition they have to pass on a lot of good ideas. Just
go for it.

~~~
at-fates-hands
>> We've decided to not take any seed money at all and just self-fund.

Smartest thing you can do. You have no one to answer to and you can determine
your own success.

>> if you believe in your idea, keep going! Success is driven more by
determination and persistence than anything else.

This. A thousand times, this.

I've seen so many startups give up because they didn't get their VC money, or
get accepted to an accelerator program. I used to tell my partner that you
_want_ rejection, you _want_ people to say no to you. This is a numbers game.
The more people that tell you "no" means the closer you get to someone saying
"yes".

There is a famous story called, "3 feet from Gold" where a man had a mine and
worked for years and barely got by with a few gold nuggets here and there.
After 3 years, he finally gave up and sold the mine to another miner. The new
miner went in and did some geological tests and found out the man was only 3
feet from a huge gold vein. Within months, the new owner was rich beyond his
dreams.

The point is, being persistent and not giving up is important because you
never know how close you are to hitting that huge vein of gold.

~~~
fferen
I think the point there is to know how to do those geological tests :)

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ProfChronos
One very interesting example I know is Algolia. They first applied when they
were very early stage, in 2013 if I'm correct. They got rejected mainly
because of their poor ability to track user metrics. Then they re-applied in
2014 and got selected for the Winter batch. Last year they raised $18M after
an epic roadshow with all key VCs sending termsheets. My opinion is that YC
strongly values your ability to be focused, execute and track/analyze data
instead of technology and product/market fit - especially in early stages.

~~~
coulix
Plus one on that. Also because YC already had a similar bet in this area.

~~~
ProfChronos
Oh yeah I forgot about that, you're right

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nl
SendGrid and Buffer are the two biggest I have heard of.

Surely there must be more? Otherwise either their success picking good
companies is amazing or the program itself is a huge advantage?

~~~
DenisM
I'm sure there is a lot of King-making going on. There are many talented
engineers and getting funded without hassle is a huge boost that will increase
chances of success considerably.

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mtmail
Here's a list from a couple of years ago.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7122999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7122999)

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mrborgen
I actually asked this a few months ago. Here is the thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11229700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11229700)

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shawndrost
[http://hackreactor.com/](http://hackreactor.com/)

Now educating more software engineers than the UC system.

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siruva07
We also don't hear much about the people that YC rejects which is, in my
humble opinion, equally if not more indicative. Because often times founders
during YC's program change their idea (I think Ark.com was an example IIRC).

I was rejected by YC in Nov '12 on an idea. I actually applied as a result of
the application extension granted due to Hurricane Sandy. A week after
applying, I wish I applied with the idea of my current company, MakeSpace.com,
which Mark Suster from Upfront Ventures funded less than a week after I
received my rejection letter from YC.

I wouldn't change anything because I'm very happy where we are today. But
there is hope if you get rejected from YC. What other founders (same or
different idea) were rejected from YC but went on to start growing startups?

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trjordan
10Stories was rejected 3 times in the last year. We ended up joining
TrackMaven about a month ago and are building our product with them.

Strictly speaking, 10Stories isn't a going concern, but TrackMaven Attribution
certainly is. We didn't go forward on the acquisition because we ran out of
money. Quite the opposite: we had seen enough traction that the acquisition
offer from TrackMaven effectively got us through accelerator + seed round. So
we decided to skip the 6 months of dancing around and go right to the part
where we are hiring a team and getting early users from the TrackMaven
customer base.

We're only 1 month in, but this was clearly the faster path to market. Maybe
it could have gone as quickly with YC -- who knows?

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j45
A key rejection metric that's likely more important than YC is whether new
companies are getting new customers or not. It's convenient that YC also likes
this metric.

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ceejayoz
I suppose Pinboard counts. :-p

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yosho
My team and I were rejected back in the day for our first startup idea, which
ultimately didn't work but we eventually pivoted to a company now doing $100M+
in annual revenues. I don't really blame YC for the rejection as the original
idea probably wasn't very good, but just pointing it out there that you can
still be really successful without being in YC.

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j45
You have to define success. YC is a big accelerant for the right kind of
founder and ideas. It doesn't mean all other kinds of founders and ideas are
bad - they just have to be able to stand on their own legs to remain
sustainable (profitable) and meet their success criteria.

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josh_carterPDX
I guess it would be good to understand what you consider "successful." If it's
a company that was acquired or had a successful IPO, I would be really
interested to see that list as well. I don't know that having been rejected
and still being in business would classify as a success in my mind.

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endlessvoid94
[https://www.bloc.io](https://www.bloc.io)

We're now post-series-A and growing.

------
mathattack
Good founders use rejection for information and motivation. I'm pretty sure
the list will be large.

~~~
thecolorblue
This might not be the best place complain about this, but unless you get an
interview with YC, its not a great way to get information or motivation.

~~~
mathattack
Some people use any failure as a way to prove doubters wrong. If a weak
football team loses, it breaks them. If a strong one loses, they find
motivation to improve.

