

Y Combinator Interview: Our Experience - shaolin69
http://www.yogatrail.com/blog/yogatrail-at-y-combinator/
Our recent experience being invited to a Y Combinator interview. Some insights about our application and our trip to the valley. Have fun :-)
======
roberthahn
A lot of commenters here saying the tone of the OP is bitter. I say the tone
is _human_.

This team has every good reason to succeed: they spent 2 years of their life
working together building something that's now getting significant traction -
and making them money.

Every fundamental metric indicating whether the business will work or not were
established facts. That should put them head and shoulders over anyone else.

Given all that, it's hard NOT to feel emotionally invested after 2 years. And
it's hard not to want to spend time processing the experience the way they
did.

At this point, it doesn't matter why they didn't get in. It would be great to
know, and yes, it's awesome that they got some actionable feedback -

Actually, I want to say something about that too. Even if the feedback isn't
what you wanted, shaolin69, it's all the more valuable because it's coming
from someone who _isn 't_ like you. I agree with your priorities - especially
your viral loop tricks (way to go on that, by the way). But I hope you'll tuck
it away somewhere for the day you scratch your head and wonder "ok, what can I
do now to boost traffic?"

But. As I was saying, it doesn't matter why you didn't get in. You still know
you have the makings of a successful business. YC's rejection doesn't
invalidate your track record. So be encouraged! I'm glad to see you took
advantage of your time stateside to look at other accelerators and got some
interest. Best of luck, looking forward to hearing your success stories!

~~~
robg
Moreover, the author is exactly right. With ten minutes all they can do is
evaluate the lead person and the team. Sadly the takeaway is closer to "we
didn't like you (enough)" and the "feedback" is a best guess as to why.

The assessment is thin slicing straight out of _Blink_ by Gladwell and that
approach has been shown to be very influenced by a whole host of pre-existing
biases by the judges. Even very smart people are subject to those biases and
experts are especially prone.

~~~
shaolin69
Wow, thanks for the encouraging words :)

~~~
boomzilla
I'd like to offer an analogy: fast food chain franchise vs boutique
restaurants. It seems to me that your startup is a boutique restaurant and so
is not a good fit for a McDonalds-style franchise contract. However, at the
end of the day, running a boutique restaurant is a lot more satisfying, at
least in my opinion, and most of the time, more financially rewarding too. On
the other hand, you do need authenticity to be a successful boutique
restaurant owner, not the attitude "we are disrupting XXX", "we are changing
YYY, one ZZZ at a time".

~~~
001sky
What to make of Chipotle? They basically took the SF burrito joint from a
boutique/local food dive to a viable biz franchise. Hugely successful at
scale...

------
edanm
Interesting.

On the plus side, I'm very happy to see that YCombinator decides to send, not
just a rejection, but actionable feedback that they think the company should
follow. I think that's a good thing, and so far samples of these have seemed
to usually hit the mark.

On the other hand, the reason they always tell you never to explain why you
gave a candidate a "no" is, that it will give them grounds to think you are
wrong and discriminated against you. That might (might!) be the case here -
the Author seems to give serious weight to the possibility of discrmination,
which is of course completely possible. Had YC kept their mouth shut and _not_
offered their valuable advice, maybe there would've been less thoughts of
discrimination? I'd just hate to discourage YC from offering advice.

~~~
omegaham
Someone with more legal experience can weigh in, but I wasn't under the
impression that people applying for investment were given the same protections
as people applying for employment. Disclaimer: I have no legal experience and
am talking out of my ass.

With employment, companies have learned to shut up. "Sorry, we're not hiring.
Best of luck." As you've said, this is due to applicants getting a lot of
protections based on race, gender, color, creed, etc. If the employer admits
to rejecting a candidate for being in a protected class, (or even anything
that can allude to their status) they're opening themselves up to a lawsuit.

In contrast, I don't think that investing any of this. If you choose only to
invest in black-owned companies, it's your money. If you choose only to invest
in male-owned companies, it's your money. Sure, you'll be crucified by the
press, but I don't think that there's a lawsuit in that.

As a result, investment companies can be a little bit more frank with their
rejected candidates.

Now, one thing that complicates things in this case is that YC isn't just
investing in companies; they're providing guidance and mentoring. Would this
mentoring process (teaching someone how to build a business and then taking a
share of the profits) be considered hiring?

I'd hate for YC to be sued for this by some asshole who's just looking for a
quick payout and then completely stop giving advice to rejected candidates.

~~~
edanm
Legally, you're right.

In terms of public opinion, I'd like to think that the backlash YC/pg
sometimes get doesn't bother them, but I'm sure it does to at least some
degree.

I'm really not trying to argue against the author or make them feel bad, btw -
I just want to point out that I think this specific interperatation of what
happened is probably wrong, and to point out that we as a community need to
make sure we don't rush to attack anyone, lest we deter YC from providing this
service.

------
bshimmin
I agree with the poster that shelling out $1500 for a 10 minute interview, and
then basing a significant investment decision on that interview, does seem
curious - but, as the poster said, they see hundreds of teams, and have done
for a number of years now, so you'd think they would know almost instantly
what they're looking for.

I've done a lot of technical interviews myself over the years, and, assuming
I'm not pairing with a fellow interviewer who wants to spend 20 minutes
outlining the history of the company and describing the role before actually
asking any questions, I can usually tell within five minutes, and after really
only a couple of carefully chosen questions pertinent to the problem domain,
whether the person is likely to be someone I'd want to hire. (And, just like
YC, I get it wrong sometimes. That's life.)

The tone of this piece sort of read to me as "I want to make it clear that I'm
not complaining about the process, but I'm going to complain now anyway" \- it
seems like their observations were quite fair, adding a space to your
product's name hardly seems important, and they were courteous and did
actually give you feedback, which is probably more than you can hope for from
many companies.

~~~
shaolin69
True - I hope I didn't come across as bitter, overall this was an awesome
experience and the people at YC are amazing. I actually do think that they can
probably tell if a startup is a good one or not in a matter of minutes.

~~~
kenkam
| so you'd think they would know almost instantly what they're looking for.

What they are looking for is probably a subset of good startups, ie. your
startup can be good but it's not what they are looking for.

To some extent it must be a statistics game for them. The investment they make
flying founders out must have a good return for them in terms of potential
investments. Since they have been doing it for a while now the numbers must be
close to optimal.

------
shiloa
I sympathize because I went through almost exactly the same experience with YC
- we applied to W14, flew to the interview and did not get in.

Myself and 3 co-founders are all in our early to mid 30's, and have put in
about the same amount of time and effort into our startup as OP et al, working
on it full time for almost the same period before applying. All of us live
half-way around the world from SV (Israel), and got on the plane on mostly our
dime to show that we're taking the program, application and interview
seriously.

I remember walking into the waiting area and seeing all those fresh-out-of-
college-with-a-great-idea founders (not being cynical here), and I immediately
felt out of place; very similar to what the OP describes. Not intimidated or
phased in any way, just that we were the odd man out. Most of my co-founders
and myself are married, have kids, and are in a different place in life than
what I'd speculate is the average YC applicant profile. Or perhaps I'm just
stereotyping, I don't know - it sure seemed like it from gazing around that
room. No offense intended to past/present/future applicants.

The interview was very ordinary and I didn't feel like it went great or
terrible. At one point it was mentioned that we're doing something very
similar to a recent YC graduate, and that they weren't doing that great [0]. I
imagine both were factors in our dismissal. I couldn't say exactly what it was
that didn't get us past the interview phase.

Overall I'm not sorry we went - it was an interesting experience, and we
managed to arrange other meetings in the valley while there. I'm also not
overly upset we didn't qualify - it probably would have helped us move
forward, but it's not the only way to succeed and definitely not the end of
the world. Take it with a grain of salt and move on.

[0] Don't know if that's true or if I misunderstood the speaker.

------
pptr1
Being accepted to Ycombinator is not a signal that your business will be
successful in the long term. It might help in the short run being accepted as
your instantly validated and have a higher chance of getting VC funding.

Entrepreneurs you shouldn't let getting rejected from Y combinator or any
other accelerator bother you. You should consider the feedback they give and
try to validate it and if what they are saying is true, try to correct what is
wrong.

Consider one other point, while Y combinator partners are successful they are
really not that successful. They haven't achieved as much as Elon Musk, Bill
Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page,Jack Ma etc. If Y combinator partners were
really successful they would be running multi billion dollar companies, but
they are using their skills to filter out applicants to Y combinator. So don't
take their rejection as the law.

~~~
mkolodny
> Being accepted to Ycombinator is not a signal that your business will be
> successful in the long term. It might help in the short run being accepted
> as your instantly validated and have a higher chance of getting VC funding.

If you mean that getting accepted to YC doesn't guarantee that your business
will be successful long-term, then I agree completely. Getting into YC is
definitely a signal that it will be successful, however. That's why you have a
higher chance of getting VC funding.

> Entrepreneurs you shouldn't let getting rejected from Y combinator or any
> other accelerator bother you. You should consider the feedback they give and
> try to validate it and if what they are saying is true, try to correct what
> is wrong.

There's nothing wrong with letting rejection bother you. It's what you do
after you get rejected that matters. I think your suggestion to consider any
feedback you get, and adjust what you're doing based on that feedback is
awesome advice.

> Consider one other point, while Y combinator partners are successful they
> are really not that successful. They haven't achieved as much as Elon Musk,
> Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page,Jack Ma etc. If Y combinator
> partners were really successful they would be running multi billion dollar
> companies, but they are using their skills to filter out applicants to Y
> combinator. So don't take their rejection as the law.

As we saw in YogaTrail's rejection letter, even YC knows that their rejection
isn't the law - "we are often wrong in our decisions". On the other hand,
while the YC partners may not be as "successful" as Elon Musk and Bill Gates,
YC is a billion dollar company[1]. So, the YC partners are technically running
a billion dollar company.

[1]
[http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/25/y-combinator-13-7b-valuatio...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/25/y-combinator-13-7b-valuation/).
~7% of ~$14B is ~$1B.

~~~
boomzilla
7% of first round investment is definitely not 7% of current valuation. Also a
lot of that 1B is paper money: the later rounds often get preferred shares and
preferences in exiting events. YC got common shares as the employees, and if
you are around long enough, you'll know how those common shares are worth in
most cases.

~~~
mkolodny
Great point. So maybe not a billion dollar company, but pretty close.

------
impendia
I am a potential user of your site. I live (a bit reluctantly) in Columbia,
SC, and my yoga studio cut back its advanced 90-minute classes and replaced
most of them with hour-long, easier classes. Moreover, the head teacher mostly
blew me off when I complained about this -- apparently there is increased
competition, and times are rough.

Increased competition, indeed. It is presumably a good time to find out if any
yoga studio has taken up the niche that my old studio has mostly abandoned --
and your site claims to offer this information.

So I checked out your site. I'm afraid I didn't find what I was looking for.
You got the names and addresses of some local studios, and I'll trust that you
found out accurately whether or not they offer free mats or sell bottled
water.

But what I really want to know:

(1) Which studios offer the most advanced classes? You list "beginner",
"intermediate", and "advanced" on your website, but these seemed a bit
arbitrary. I didn't really trust them.

(2) More to the point, I like training that is a little bit more "sink or
swim" than is the norm in this town -- not in any bad way, but where the
teacher wants to get you to Reverse Bird of Paradise Pose, and if you're not
getting there today, that's okay! -- but the teacher is focusing on those who
will.

I want to know _that_ from browsing your site. That is more ambiguous, and I
think a lot harder to get right... but that kind of information (presented
_reliably_ ) is what would drive me to return to your site.

Best of luck to you.

~~~
impendia
p.s. Along the lines of (2), I would recommend trying to get yoga teachers to
answer a short multiple choice quiz. For example:

> Although both of these are important, which is the following is the biggest
> priority in your yoga teaching?

> (a) Making sure everyone achieves their full potential

> (b) Ensuring that everyone in the class feels comfortable, and no one feels
> left out

Etc. Find out from your users which questions best differentiate between
studios. But make it multiple choice, so that teachers can't hedge their bets.

~~~
shaolin69
Hi impendia, we're working on a number of things that will make YT better for
yogis and yoga pro's alike - stay tuned :)

------
t1m
I recently went through the instant interview/rejection process at an up-and-
comming SV start-up, and can relate to the OP's confusion. I am also in my 40s
and at first wondered how the obviously flawed process could produce
reasonable results. The number of false negatives must be staggering. I think
the key for them is that incoming volume more than compensates for missed
opportunities. This is the luxury of the hyper-successful. I think that for a
business owner (or very busy engineer in my case) applying into these types of
organizations, you need to expend a lot more effort on applying, researching
and preparing for the actual interview than on the specifics of your skills
and/or business.

~~~
localhost
They're really trying to minimize false positives. Those tend to be very
expensive opportunity cost mistakes. This is true for both hiring employees
and business partnerships. Especially business partnerships.

------
_sentient
A number of comments seem to be wondering why YC doesn't provide detailed
feedback to each rejected party. Some are assuming it's due to fear of
discrimination claims, but I doubt that's the case. I would guess YC doesn't
provide detailed feedback for three primary reasons:

1) They interview over 300 companies in a batch, and detailed feedback for
each rejection would simply be time prohibitive.

2) They admit to being wrong occasionally, and will often fund companies on
subsequent applications. Providing a laundry list of "things they dislike
about you" would diminish that probability.

3) In most cases, it's probably less about your deficiencies, and more about
the companies ahead of you. There may not be anything inherently wrong with
the founders or company, you just got beat out by seemingly better
alternatives (see point #2).

In any case, hustle on.

~~~
colmvp
They provided pretty detailed feedback to us one year and quite frankly they
were right.

~~~
twelvedigits
We interviewed during this recent S14 cycle. We were not funded, but I was
very satisfied with the rejection email that we received. It contained
personalized feedback and showed that the partner in question gave our team
and business a lot of meaningful thought. I thought it was very professional.

------
alain94040
If you are getting tired of reading all the "our YC interview" stories on HN,
this is the only one you'll want to read. It's different from all the others.
Bitter? Maybe. But way more interesting and thought-provoking than the average
"teenager just met their idol" version.

~~~
rhizome
I'm curious what these review posts say about the market. They only really
recently started appearing. A bubble signal that ambition is outpacing
quality?

~~~
lastres0rt
I think it's a bit of the opposite -- as the economy gets better (or in some
cases, "better"), there's more people willing to take the risk rather than
keep their heads down, which is going to produce a lot more hopefuls that
aren't quite as good vs. those who would rather polish things and wait for the
better bet (whether that be an improved economy or a better pitch).

~~~
rhizome
_hopefuls that aren 't quite as good_

This is the same thing as "ambition outpacing quality." :)

------
oskarth
YC: _Unfortunately, we were unable to get to believing that you had a strategy
for supplanting Yelp as the top Google search results — having worked on SEO
extensively in the past a better product often times isn’t enough. // You
clearly have a product that is better than what else is out there. I encourage
you to spend more time on figuring out customer acquisition (possibly through
non-search channels). In any case, we are often wrong in our decisions, and I
hope that you continue to build your business and wish you the best in doing
so._

YT: _The feedback about beating Yelp in Google Search results and looking for
ways to get customers other than search channels – pretty solid indicators
that they hadn’t understood what we had told them._

To me this seems like a pretty solid indicator that they (YT) hadn't
understand the feedback they were getting, or knew what to do with it. This is
a shame since it makes YC less likely to give feedback in the future.

Embrace feedback, don't explain it away. Especially if you are a fragile
upstart.

------
darkrabbi
nice writeup

"I seemed alien to them somehow, with a weird background that was just too
different from their own… so they didn’t know what to make of me on a purely
emotional level."

Not saying this was the case here, but I feel like this effect, even if it
occurs subliminally, plays such a staggering role in business relationships
and decisions that it can be discouraging for anyone outside of the "main"
group. Aaron Swartz talked about this in some of his blog posts but it wasn't
until I was thrown into the corporate workforce that I saw it for myself first
hand.

I don't think it's a conscious malicious effort to keep minorities/non-
americans out of executive positions, just a consequence of the reality that
people are more comfortable dealing with others that share a similar cultural
background. This becomes doubly true when dealing with extremely high value
contract negotiations and business decisions - you want to know exactly where
the other person is mentally and emotionally - and that's much easier to
decipher if you share a culture/race with that person.

------
blauwbilgorgel
Sorry to hear you did not get in. Must be very disappointing. I'd have a
deeper look at the feedback though, and assume good faith in the rejection.
From the rejection:

 _Unfortunately, we were unable to get to believing that you had a strategy
for supplanting Yelp as the top Google search results — having worked on SEO
extensively in the past a better product often times isn’t enough._

I read this not bluntly as: You should be able to beat Yelp, else you will
fail, I hone in on: 'unable to get to believing that you had a strategy'. From
an outsider perspective this is unfortunately what happened: You did not have
a solid enough online marketing/acquisition strategy (social, search,
advertising, partners, email etc.), or failed to convey it during the
interview.

I don't think yCombinator failed to see the market potential, in my view they
are actively looking for potential (from SF-based sleeping bag site to world-
wide bed and breakfast replacement). I also do not think you were invited to
make them seem more outsider-friendly, only to have you be rejected for being
an outsider. It is about the online marketing strategy. In their (and my)
experience, just having a better site is not enough. For an online directory
company, SEO should be in the companies DNA. Preferably a founder has
knowledge on SEO and can weave marketing opportunities into the decision
making process.

If you think back to the interview part about online marketing, do you
remember there being confusion? Or not having a concrete answer at-the-ready?
Did your pitch include a slide on marketing strategy?

Also, the questions they asked like: How are you different from competitor X?
Were these questions unprovoked? If so, enhance your pitch by listing your
competitors, and their differences, pro's and con's compared to your company.
This preemptively clears away such doubts.

Take a look at Mint's pitch deck: [http://www.slideshare.net/hnshah/mintcom-
prelaunch-pitch-dec...](http://www.slideshare.net/hnshah/mintcom-prelaunch-
pitch-deck) They make you believe they've done their market research and have
a solid customer acquisition strategy from the get-go. Perhaps you can use it
to improve your pitch.

I'll have a deeper look at your website and perhaps will send you over some
on-page SEO issues to fix or ignore. But strategy/conversion/campaigns will
contribute a lot more.

Also, your site already looks great, you've told us you have decent numbers, a
nice community, a great team, so probably: you will get there, wherever
'there' is.

~~~
mkempe
Wouldn't the point of YC's investment and share have been to _help_ and
_teach_ them how to work out SEO (in addition to other things) so that they
could _beat_ Yelp? (if truly Yelp is a competitor)

Isn't the point of YC to pick and help startups that will elucidate a path to
rapid, lasting growth?

That reason for rejection doesn't make sense, unless one is to believe that
nobody can ever build a successful specialized directory because Yelp is
already and will always be king of the world. Did YC invite them because they
were somehow going to be the New Yelp?

~~~
blauwbilgorgel
If they got in YC, then sure: The network and possibly external SEO companies
and designers will help them.

I find this discussion somewhat tiring. It seems that people want to talk
about age discrimination, about like-ability, about luck, about SEO being a
dirty thing, about 10 minutes being too short for an interview, about
outsiders not making it in, about Yelp not being a competitor to online
service directories etc.

If they asked: where do you see yourself in 5 years? What is your long-term
strategy to entrench yourself in the rankings? And did not receive a
satisfying or believable answer, then no amount of help and teaching will
suffice. Else YC could better buy that company, outsource some SEO and design
and do it themselves. Then they don't have to do it by proxy with 2-year-old
founders.

Crude: It does not matter what the point of YC is. The people at YC decide
that, not us. What YC does with companies they accept has no bearing on what
YC does not do with companies they rejected.

The reason for rejection does not make sense to you (and probably to
Yogatrail, because they do not focus on the feedback). It probably made sense
to YC, else why take such a decision? Again crude: Why is it relevant that you
can not find reason in the rejection?

>unless one is to believe that nobody can ever build a successful specialized
directory because Yelp ...

This is not the reason. The reason was that the company was unable to make YC
believe that they had a solid marketing strategy and knew what they were
doing, now and in the future. Then it does not even matter if they have the
best strategies in the world, the take-away is that they failed to convey
these strategies. What is more likely: That YC failed to understand what it
takes to build a successful online business? Or that these founders kinda
flunked the interview?

You have to be aware of Yelp if you are doing this. You have to discuss where
you differ and what your plan is to take over their Yoga-services niche. After
the latest search engine updates, thin content directories suffer. You have to
be aware of this and make others believe you have the strategy to insert more
quality content into your sites, to save that channel, and to open up other
channels, so one channel can not break your entire business. Educate yourself,
especially if you are an online business. Like design, not everyone is
naturally good at it, but it helps to familiarize yourself.

>Did YC invite them because they were somehow going to be the New Yelp

At least a similar potential. If Yelp is totally unrelated, then you should be
able to convince them of this. But IMO Yelp is not unrelated to an online
services directory. Yelp has unique problems like Google taking their traffic
with their own rating system, and they adapted well. If Yogatrail will face
similar problems in the future, no one can tell, but if I were to invest money
into a company, I'd want to know they have a strategy ready for when this
happens, that they are aware that this can happen, that they know the
webmaster quality guidelines and don't make million dollar SEO blunders. You
can't really help and teach preparedness like this. Help and teach yourself:
convince YC you know your stuff. You can't change it if YC does not get it.
What you can change is your pitch: You did not get YC to get it.

------
iamsalman
I'm not sure what your alternative user acquisition strategy is but not able
to supplant Yelp in Google search results is a pretty valid observation. How
do you respond to this?

~~~
shaolin69
The bulk of our user growth is due to viral loops we've built into things -
we're pretty much getting each new user to successfully invite another at this
point. Unlike Yelp, we're very "yoga-centric", and while Yelp is all the rage
in San Francisco, that's not the case in the rest of the world... so we don't
think that Yelp will be the place people will use to find their yoga,
especially their yoga teachers. One persons 5 star is another's 1 star.

That's not to say we're neglecting SEO; we're working on strategies to get
more search traffic (and in many places we're doing very well with that) and
convert it into registered members. It's just not our main and only strategy.

But the real answer is: we're planning a feature (not there yet) that will
solve a big pain point for millions of people (getting the schedule of their
yoga teachers at a glance), and which will provide an even better viral loop
(yogis inviting their teachers, and teachers using our site for their online
presence).

~~~
ryanjshaw
In my opinion, you're building a niche product.

Personally I believe that niche products are the way of the future and that
general platforms (Facebook, Yelp, etc.) will not last in the long run. But
from what you described I don't think you made this (implicit) assumption
clear, and it's not clear whether that's the sort of business they want to
invest in (in the short term, the general platforms will be where the money is
made, and it will be the aggregate of the niche platforms - a much more
profitable investment than a niche product).

~~~
timr
His answers are convincing rebuttals to a superficial criticism. In
particular, I can tell you that if this startup can _measure_ that it has a
positive viral coefficient, it's already light years ahead of Yelp. And he's
right that Yelp has basically no market share outside of a few US cities --
that's why they had to buy a much smaller competitor (Qype) just to get a
foothold in Europe.

But to your point, I believe it was a YC partner (or three) who said that big
businesses tend to start in a niche where a small number of people love you.
If this guy really walked into a room and said _" we've got a small, revenue-
generating product with a positive viral coefficient and a growing user
base"_, the line _" fine, but you'll never beat Yelp"_ is not a compelling
counterargument -- it's a lot like telling early AirBnB that they'll never
beat Hilton.

I don't know if that's what actually happened -- there could be any number of
reasons why a startup gets rejected after a ten-minute interview that aren't
captured in a polite rejection email -- but in general, criticizing small
startups for being small is not a winning strategy.

~~~
shaolin69
Here's something we didn't share in the blog post. It's some of the print outs
we brought along with us to the interview. No reason not to share it I guess.
It shows some graphs illustrating virality, connection clusters (just one of
them) and revenue growth. [http://www.yogatrail.com/yogatrail-
stats.pdf](http://www.yogatrail.com/yogatrail-stats.pdf)

~~~
emmett
Hey, just a quick piece of feedback on this. You define virality as "the
percentage of users invited by other users". That's a very non-standard
definition.

Usually virality is measured as "the average number of new users invited by
any given user". I'd strongly suggest using that as your definition.

~~~
shaolin69
In that case, we're hitting it out of the park - over 4 invites sent per user,
but these invites convert at ~25%. There's also "k factor" (invites sent x
conversion rate), and the interval between user #1 bringing on user #2 is also
important... guess there are many ways to present virality :)

~~~
emmett
That kind of info (4 invites on average per user, 25% conversion rate) is THE
critical information. If you want to talk about virality at all, the fact it's
not in your presentation is a serious defect you should correct.

------
jqm
Has anyone over 40 ever been accepted to ycombinator? What is the percentage?

I'm not saying ageism. In my mind there might be valid reasons why not. I
notice the US army doesn't take older people and I assume there are valid
reasons. I don't see people crying ageism in that case... I'm just curious.

(For the record: over 40. Not a startup guy. Not interested in applying to
ycombinator.)

~~~
justin
Yes, founders over 40 have been accepted into YC.

~~~
Patrick_Devine
I'm guessing the median age skews a lot lower though. I don't think that's YCs
fault necessarily though; I'm sure the median applicant age is also a lot
lower than 40.

------
untilHellbanned
I appreciate the honesty and critical views expressed here. You don't see this
too often with people discussing the YC interviewing process.

------
whbk
From their website: "Not knowing the first thing about building a website, we
were lucky to meet Sven Ernst here in Chiang Mai, really by chance. Sven is
Managing Director of Buzzwoo!, a German digital agency that does web
development, strategy, as well as creative internet design work. After a few
short discussions, we all decided to form a partnership, and YogaTrail was
officially founded in early 2012."

Perhaps this is outdated. Is Sven full-time on YogaTrail now or still running
an agency/doing other work? The only technical team member being a part-timer
would be another red flag if that's the case.

~~~
shaolin69
... Sven here (sharing this acccount with Alex). I'm full-time on YogaTrail.
Besides me there are 2 full-time employees (Drupal Developers) on board, plus
we use lots of free development resources from BUZZWOO!, a digital agency I
co-founded. I consider this a huge advantage compared with other bootstraped
start-ups and it enabled us to actually produce lots of software. Other than
the main website YogaTrail has a very successful facebook app (we use for
content marketing), several mobile apps and a bunch of very cool tools we use
for marketing and growth hacking.

------
markbnj
YC is one potential path to success, and they have their criteria, which OP's
idea and current business did not meet. That doesn't mean the idea won't be
successful. Just keep at it, OP. Don't let rejection from any one investor
have an out-sized impact on your attitude. If you believe in the idea just put
your head back down and get back to work. Look at it this way: the further
along you are when you take on investors, the more you keep.

------
aregsar
"could it be that my interviewers have worked on SEO so much that it’s
difficult for them to conceive of non-SEO related strategies for growing a
user-base?" ...And from the rejection email "I encourage you to spend more
time on figuring out customer acquisition (possibly through non-search
channels)." So I don't think that "it’s difficult for them to conceive of non-
SEO related strategies" is the reason, since they actually suggest the non-SEO
strategy in their rejection email. I think that you need to view this from the
perspective of ycombinator. The only investments for them that makes sense is
a startup with high growth rate. (the very definition of a startup by PG).
When you are playing the David against the Goliath of "Yelp" you can not
compete on SEO. So you have to have an alternative DEFENSIBLE advantage to
allow you to dominate your market. Another thing from what I have read over
the years is that ycombinator looks for teams that are not married to their
initial idea. In fact they prefer the team to the idea. So if in the interview
you come off as very defensive about the validity of your idea that could be a
red flag.

------
Fede_V
Thanks for writing that. The first part was interesting, but the last part
probably comes across as more bitter than you intended.

About YC's interview policies - it would be very interesting to do some kind
of cutoff analysis
([http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2157932](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2157932))
and to see the difference between the companies that do make it in and those
that do not. The problem is that making it into YC gives companies that are
barely over the cutoff a huge boost (which is why you give them 7% of your
company, afterall) so it would be very tricky to take that into account
rigorously.

------
6thSigma
I'd imagine that if YC didn't think you and your co-founders would fit in due
to your background, they wouldn't have invited you for an interview.

------
NameNickHN
It seems to me that in order to get accepted you'll either present something
very, very new or unorthodox, where traction and beating competitors is less
important, or present a me-to kind of venture that already has very good
traction and is already beating competitors. From what I can gather you have
to be on either end of those opposite option in order to get funded.

------
aniketpant
I don't know if the OP will read this comment but coming from India, I can
very well understand the kind of circumstances you are in. When you talk about
the expenditure they make on you and how you can pay your rent for 10 months,
I can absolutely relate with it. Moreover, travelling across the globe and
then being given only 10 minutes to understand what you actually do. You may
actually have a better chance of getting funded in your own country without
all this travel and hassles.

Someday, I would also start my own business and I understand that getting
traction is of utmost importance. But, there is another aspect to it which is
the fact that some people actually start a business or just run a simple idea
for the sheer pleasure of solving a problem and to help others. I think you
are on those lines and I wish you all the best to continue working in this
direction.

I think your post was very well written and you have actually listed some of
the possible issues with their selection process.

~~~
ritchiea
I think both you and the OP are missing the context of the $1500. I suppose
it's "non-negligible" as he said, but it's barely enough to cover 2 founders
flying from New York, plus a hotel and rental car. In Thailand $1500 may cover
the cost of 10 months rent, but in SF or New York, it's closer to the cost of
one month's rent. It's not an insignificant amount of money over the 300 teams
they invite for interviews per batch, but it's certainly the cost of doing
business.

~~~
aniketpant
I can understand when you say that $1500 x 300+ is a great amount they are
investing at the cost of running their firm. While this is very important, we
should not overlook the way the entire process is conducted (at least this is
what I gather from the OP's post and personally believe too).

------
morgante
I'm sure you didn't intend this, but the post ends up sounding very whiny and
bitter. Instead of taking the opportunity to reflect on ways you could improve
your pitch, you criticize the YC process.

Also, during this critical time and considering the importance of YC partners,
10 minutes of partner time is likely worth _more_ than the $1500 to YC.

~~~
jader201
_> Also, during this critical time and considering the importance of YC
partners, 10 minutes of partner time is likely worth more than the $1500 to
YC._

Yeah, it may be worth more to the _interviewee_ , but I think the OP was
pointing out that it may be a waste of _YC 's_ time, considering they invest
$1500 in the process for only 10 minutes of time with the candidates.

~~~
morgante
I'm not sure if you agree with me? That's precisely my point: I bet YC values
its partners' time at more than $1500. Hence the _to YC_.

------
tpeng
If I understand correctly, YC will sometimes ask applicants to return soon
afterwards for a second, extended interview. So they don't always make a "yes"
decision in 10 minutes, but they can make a "no" decision in 10 minutes, which
is quite logical. Think of it as the professional equivalent of a coffee date.

------
SebMortelmans
Now you made me curious about the stats of different age groups accepted into
YC.

------
akassover
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'm sorry to hear it didn't go the way
you wanted. I'm going to tell my wife about your site - she actively practices
yoga and we're about to move, so I'm sure she'll be happy to know about a way
to find new yoga teachers.

I also wonder if what you're working on has the potential to ever be a billion
dollar company. In the 10 minutes they spent with you, they might have decided
that you are two years in on this idea already and married to it so might not
be a good fit for them no matter how talented your team is.

------
Jeff_29
I know your passion is Yoga, but it seems that your model would work with many
types of fitness and health professionals (pilates instructors, personal
trainers, massage therapists, etc.) and maybe even broader with other service
professionals.

It may be risky if you feel you have tapped into a very dedicated niche of
users, but increasing your scope (and ability to scale) may make you more
attractive to investors and other accelerators. Good Luck!

------
helloiamvu
Very interesting post! Our team also applied to YC. We didn't even get an
interview :/ although we have a user base, paying customers and a product that
got 20k sign-ups the first 48 hours. Read more here:
[https://medium.com/avocode-stories/ec1a87294204](https://medium.com/avocode-
stories/ec1a87294204)

------
elwell
> Then imagine restricting yourself to a 10 minute interview before deciding
> whether or not you’re going to hand someone $120,000 in cash and spend 3
> months coaching them on their business that you’ll get a 7% share of.

Well they asked a fair number of startups to participate in a second interview
(usually with a different group of interviewers).

------
planetjones
You state in the post that you're making some money at the moment - how ? Your
FAQ page says you'll soon be adding ads and adding premium content - but that
implies these strategies are not implemented yet.

~~~
shaolin69
Hi, "YT Premium" has been live for a few months and is the main source of
revenue (we've actually doubled revenue nearly every month since January). Ads
are there too, but they just started and are making only a small dent in our
budget :)

------
peteretep
You guys are clearly ฝรั่ง, how have you managed to overcome Thai immigration
laws based in Chiang Mai, or are you working there illegally? Did you get a
BOI permit, or?

~~~
shaolin69
We are a BOI company. You're welcome to stop by our office space anytime for a
cup of coffee :-)

~~~
peteretep
I'd love to; I'll be permanently in Bangkok from October, but happy to head
North for a little while. It'd be great to pick your brains about the BOI
process too...

~~~
shaolin69
sounds good. feel free to get in touch via our website.

------
elwell
> since YC only reimburses founders for travel expenses up to $1500

I thought it was $1100?

