
I've been rejected from Y Combinator 3 times. Here's why - SurfScore
http://jon.surfscore.com/?p=40
======
pg
I wish people wouldn't treat us like an oracle that can predict startups'
success. If only. The fact is we read applications fast and make plenty of
mistakes.

One thing YC has taught me is that this must be true of practically every
application process. For some reason, both the people who are accepted and
rejected in any application process tend to read too much into it. (Is there a
name for this phenomenon?)

~~~
RKoutnik
Yes, it's known as the "Spotlight Effect."

\- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotlight_effect>

\- [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-big-
questions/201111...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-big-
questions/201111/the-spotlight-effect)

We humans tend to assume that everyone sees something about us, when a much
smaller amount actually notice (and an even smaller amount actually care).
This has rejected startups thinking "What did _I_ do" when it really has
nothing to do with them at all (just that someone else was better).

~~~
TrevorJ
Not even necessarily that someone was better - people who read applications
are human too, they have things that resonate with them, they have opinions,
fallible memories, biases and gut feelings. At the end of the day, this comes
in to play too, as well it should. Getting rejected doesn't mean you were
empirically worse than any given candidate, it may just mean the two parties
involved in the possible relationship don't have the chemistry that would make
the endeavor the best it could be. At the end of the day, there's a limit to
what you can infer about the relative merits of your idea from a rejection
letter.

------
ldh
This highlights part of the HN/YC culture that just doesn't resonate with me
at all. I like coming up with creative ideas and working on fun stuff, but it
seems totally backwards to me to repeatedly try to conjure a startup out of
thin air in the hopes of getting funded. One of the parts that gave me pause
was the idea of somebody furiously learning programming to facilitate building
an app to teach others to program.

I guess it's a different mentality, and some people get the same thrill out of
the entrepreneurial game that I do from writing code. Anyway, looks like some
interesting conclusions came from the story, thanks for sharing.

~~~
tteerraann
I have always been a bit confused by this also. I think I am most likely
missing something here, but I've thought about this a lot and can't figure it
out. Overall, I think YC and friends provide a net gain to society,
encouraging entrepreneurial ideals and bringing a few really great ideas to
fruition. But for the rest... I don't know.

This is certainly not universal, but it seems like a bunch of YC funded
startups exist solely to attempt being acquired. I understand that 'exiting'
is a marker of some form of success, but doesn't this notion sort of
contradict some of the hacker mentality and startup culture that created it in
the first place? I mean, you just poured your heart and soul into a company
for the past several months, if not years, and you're just going to let some
mega corporation purchase it and grow even larger? And yet the vast majority
of these companies just sit there and eat through their funding... what's the
point?

It really feels like the web bubble all over again, but like I said, maybe I'm
just missing something.

~~~
mehrzad
Disclaimer: I'm just a stupid teenager.

We seem to have this discussion too much. Startup culture is business culture.
Hacker culture (making and breaking) to me almost seems diametrically opposed
to startup culture (making and selling). Startups don't want to reinvent the
wheel so much that they rely on the big guns (Apple, Google) to do the
foundation work (e.g., making an OS). Twenty to thirty years from now, who
will know how to make an operating system. College students online lament that
there are no challenging programming jobs anymore so they can't use the deep
knowledge from their CS degree. It seems to me that the most challenging stuff
that you can make a lot of money from today is a Mac application. My dream is
to see a resurgence of MIT and Unix hacker culture.

I know my writing style is disjointed and awkward, so sorry about that :P

~~~
ldh
No need to apologize, you're just fine.

------
DaniFong
In case it saves anyone some headaches, I was rejected from YC 3 times (though
with useful feedback and connections arise from the experience each time).

Our startup (LightSail Energy) is currently among the best poised to change
how the world gets its energy. Investors agree; our startup is currently
valued above $100MM, with Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, and Khosla Ventures among
those who have invested. So things are going well.

Paul's essays, advice, and YC really did help me get started. But people
should remember that the road doesn't stop there. Success is self-determined.

~~~
rdl
Wow, it sucks that LightSail isn't in YC. Is that what you applied with?
There's probably a bias toward "team" vs. "idea" in evaluating apps, but idea
is still important, and it's one of the best ways to understand a team, I
think.

~~~
DaniFong
We were in a related field but not there yet. We were still honing in.

Also, we were pre-prototype, and I'm not even sure if we had revealed our
secret sauce yet (important, because we had to patent it).

At the time, it was a compressed air powered scooter that was to be the
product.

Note: I applied _three times_. I think YC was right to reject the first two,
as suboptimal ideas, further sub-optimally suited to still further sub-
optimally configured teams (Paul rightly surmised that I was grabbing whatever
resources at hand to complete some kind of made dash across the Antarctic).

The last application was for a proto-LightSail Energy. We didn't have much and
it was an even bigger project than the first two, which, it should be said,
never went anywhere notable. If I were YC judging DaniFong circa 2008 applying
with LightSail, I'd wonder if she'd ever make it happen, and gently encourage
narrowing the scope of the problem. Which they did.

PG and Trevor Blackwell wisely suggested that we consider industrial
applications, which turned out to be half right -- nobody really _needed_ to
replace industrial air compressor, but many places needed energy storage (e.g.
islands reliant on expensive liquid fuels for power, renewable energy
developers held up by transmission infrastructure or volatility saturation).

The size of this market -- literally in the billions, somehow eluded us in the
early phase because it just wasn't visible -- we seldom think of how we get
electricity, it seems like a practically natural resource for us hackers.

Vinod Khosla and his partner Ford Tamer finally got through to us. Ford
dutifully sat through the first presentation, but kept coming back to (at
every slide!) how this might be useful for the grid. Steve says he made the
most important decision in his career, said "we'll get back to you," and we
made the decision to rewrite the whole business plan on the drive back. Two
weeks later, we engaged with Vinod and Ford together, and after a lengthy
period of due diligence we raised capital.

The basic reasoning -- that it was unnecessarily difficult to try to make a
compelling mass produced vehicle _and_ invent a new power train technology,
took time to dawn on us. We were somewhat blinded by the sexiness of many of
the electric car startups of the time, and had the impression that, with the
money for YC to hack together a slick and basically functional scooter
prototype, that money would flow.

The advice -- and acting on it -- spared us. The disasters that were at that
very time befalling Tesla Motors and its now clearly less fortunate ilk were
evidently well known on Sand Hill Road, but not to us. Focusing on stationary
applications was incredibly important for us at that time, and I'm glad we had
a chance to switch.

Still, the dream of an air powered vehicle floats above us.

\---

I should also say, over and over again YC supported me (and thus us as a
team.) They connected me with a cadre of super fantastic entrepreneurs (one of
which I consulted for, providing the necessary funds to keep going), hosted
the amazing and free startup school, hosted this amazing community, and
provided the essay example I needed to start my own site, which really
launched my professional identity. I posted my essays on HN, where, read by a
few fellow entrepreneurs, I both found housing (provided in exchange for my
cooking dumplings!) and through a couple more links, my cofounders Steve and
Ed.

I have zero sour grapes; YC has been awesome to me.

My only interest is in mollifying the sting of rejection. The YC process is by
nature and necessity fallible.

Of course PG himself mentions this in his own writings, describing AirBnB as a
strange kind of bad seeming idea, Dropbox as another one of those iDrives that
never took off, and describes how people shouldn't read too much into things:

<http://paulgraham.com/randomness.html>
<http://www.paulgraham.com/judgement.html>

However! I still felt rejection strongly and painfully, at least the first two
times. So if folks were reading this, have heart.

\---

I dearly hope that this won't be taken the wrong way. The YC application
process launched me, and countless others. Nothing's perfect. But for every
one person they dissuade or distract, 99 must have been launched, just like
me.

~~~
rdl
Heh, the first time I saw LightSail, my immediate thought was "replace the
crappy battery powered UPSes and diesel generators at datacenters", and then
"add redundancy to industrial facilities which could benefit from it (mills,
processing plants, etc.) which don't have UPSes because they're too
inefficient/expensive in the multi-megawatt industrial scale, and then grid-
leveling. I never would have thought of vehicles.

The closest I'd get to vehicles would be something like a supercharger station
-- absorb power from the grid at night (or from solar panels), lightsail it,
and then dump 480v into a Li-Ion Tesla in an hour.

------
dvt
Most of the comments have (thus far) had quite a snotty attitude regarding the
OP's very directed attempt to try and _get into_ YC. I have a different
opinion.

I don't buy the "do whatever your passion is" bullshit. I just don't. I think
that people that win are people that WANT to win. Of course, some times you
see some guy who's passion was building boats all his life (or something) and
he happens to get on CNN and get some major coverage and his business booms
(when he's like 60); my argument is that those are largely exceptions.

If you want to win, you need to focus on winning (like the OP is/was doing).
Winning in the start-up world is largely contingent on two things: VC and
media coverage. YC can bring both home. I see absolutely nothing wrong with
OP's attempt to enhance his application (heck even "leveraging" a woman co-
founder is fair game).

Here's a (somewhat poor) analogy: I have a large number of friends that go to
law schools (or have already graduated). In many cases, the most ambitious
ones will not even consider a sub-T14 school. If they don't get into a top law
school, what's the point of paying for a degree and practicing law at some
sub-par firm?

Of course, the romantics in us don't really appreciate this cold-hearted
realism (if you really really like law, you can succeed! see Erin Brokovich!)
But real life doesn't work like that. YC is, in many ways, prime real-estate
for new start-ups. I see no reason why you WOULDN'T cater your application and
idea to trying to get in. Heck, that's exactly what people to do when trying
to get Fullbright scholarships, Ivy league acceptances, etc.

~~~
itafroma
The question I have is "Win _what_?" There's no doubt getting into YC is a
feather in one's cap. But for what purpose? What's the plan here? That's what
struck me as surprising in this story. "I want to be a YC startup to say I was
a YC startup and I'll do anything to get it" doesn't make a lot of sense. If
you aren't, to use your terminology, leveraging that for something bigger that
you already had your heart set on, why go through all the effort?

~~~
tunesmith
There's something to be said for having a clear goal, but there's also
something to be said for establishing the conditions such that when you do
identify your goal, you're in a better position to be able to meet it. Years
ago, people weren't doing MBAs at Harvard because they already had a business
plan. It was because it made it more likely they'd succeed later one when they
had their plan.

~~~
itafroma
I think you've clarified it better, thanks for that. But take the MBA: the
narrative typically goes something like, "I want power/money, being a
corporate executive is one of the best means of achieving that, getting an MBA
at Harvard makes that much easier, therefore I'll do whatever it takes to get
into Harvard."

The narrative here is "I want to succeed/win, getting into YC is going to help
me, therefore I must get into YC and I'll do whatever it takes even though
every time I've tried so far I've failed." The seemingly obvious question here
is: what are you trying to succeed/win at? It obviously wasn't a product
you're passionate about (although going into the fourth try, it sounds like
the latest pivot is growing on you). Fame, power, money, personal validation?
2.3 kids and a white picket fence? YC isn't the only way to get it, and it's
probably one of the harder ways to do it.

If it's common to treat YC as a Harvard MBA—something like "if I have it,
everything in life will almost magically work out for me"—that's pretty
interesting and surprising to me. I always thought it was more about speeding
up getting a specific vision or idea to market, or at the very least iterating
on an idea until it grows into something huge.

------
itafroma
The first five paragraphs—particularly the multiple pivots, bringing on a
woman co-founder in hopes that it might look good, and spending an inordinate
amount of time researching everything about getting into YC—really surprised
me. I would think you'd want to get into YC because you have a (hopefully)
marketable vision and YC is simply a means to an end in getting that vision
shipped.

It looks like the OP finally realized that towards the end, but is the first
part a common way to approach YC, where it's an end in and of itself? If so,
is the central idea that "well, now that I've been a part of YC, everything
will just fall into place"?

~~~
SurfScore
Just to clarify, we initially decided to work together because she's an
excellent designer and I can't design for shit. I just thought it might help
our case.

~~~
itafroma
Ah, thanks for clarifying: I read the last sentence in paragraph 3 as you had
brought her on to improve your YC application.

~~~
geekymartian
"I thought having a female co-founder might help, but alas, YC isn’t like
college admissions, and demographics don’t help your application" <\-- that
doesn't came out very good actually. I don't see any explanation about the
skills of your co-founder. Seems like an strategic addition, which doesn't
look good either.

------
rdl
Just some comments as a YC alum:

1) The "threaten to show up on YC's porch until you get an answer" thing is
seriously a bad idea. I probably wouldn't have let alone know about that even
jokingly. I mean, "football player waiting outside your door until you give
him an answer" is inherently threatening. You probably didn't mean it this
way, but I can see people being concerned.

2) Why do you want to try to sell to schools? From what I see of the product,
it looks like something a programmer-parent would be more likely to buy for
his kids, which is a quick $20 sale with no hassle, vs. the long and drawn out
sales process to a school district. I hate kids, but if I had them, I'd
definitely be looking for applications like this to get them thinking
logically and like a programmer from as early an age as possible. Yes, a
school would be a lot of units at once, but much more hassle.

The good thing about selling to parents is that once you sell one product, the
kid will continue to grow, and the parents are likely to buy additional
products from the same company (if you keep moving up in age along with the
kids). Sell things to 3-5y to start, then move to 5-7, then 7-11. This is
largely what made J.K. Rowling rich -- her first books were perfect for one
cohort, and kept moving up with them in sequels. Kids can start at the
appropriate stage later on.

The YC company "tutorspree" has some interesting stories about parents who
_really_ care about their kids, and spend substantial money on their education
-- as do any tutoring programs. (I know people who spend $120k/yr for a
Mandarin-speaking nanny for their kids in California.)

3) From the public info here and your iPad app, it's not bad. I don't know
about 70th percentile. If you figure YC gets 3k apps/yr, and interviews 150
(5%), and accepts 50 (1.5%), then 70th percentile is not ideal. But there's
probably both a huge amount of variance how things are evaluated by different
people, and maybe some variance year to year (like, if there's a super-
successful Bitcoin company, a lot of investors will go for a Bitcoin company
again which they might not have before; not sure how YC is about that.)

------
PAULHANNA84
Also on a serious note: I'm not sure this post is going to help you get in.
You might be thinking so but I might say that it could set you back a bit. PG
can't deposit your passion in the bank. He's out to find great scalable ideas
that can be turned into profitable businesses being run by efficient and smart
people.

YC is not some kind of beauty pageant and it's not a make or break situation
for your business. Posting up the rejection letter in your office? Don't be
obsessed with Ycom. If you make it, that's great, you can get a lot of good
resources and you've essentially got the seal of approval from angel
investors. If Not? No big deal! Build the product, bring it to market, get
active users and make sure that it's a profitable business that can stay
profitable even at a scaling point. If you do this much, you'll get good
attention and will find yourself raising seed money.

------
sfrechtling
Getting into Y Combinator for the sake of getting into Y Combinator seems to
be quite common; I wasn't too surprised at that. Could there be scope in the
application for a question along the lines of "What do you want to achieve by
being a part of Y Combinator?"?

~~~
jamesmcbennett
No doubt that YC has a fast growing fan club, I know IDEO have to
differenciate between the suitable employee vs. the fan club of which YC is
likely to be the same. I have applied to YC this round, but I am confident we
can build a business and take on the world with or without YC. The tone of
your blogpost suggests success is dependent upon getting in to YC which isn't
overly attractive.

------
b1daly
I really like this post. It had a ring of truth, admission of failure and its
associated feelings, with a positive narrative arc.

It doesn't seem surprising that someone with an entrepreneurial drive but only
an embrionic vision would want to join the cool kids club. I mean, you gotta
do something with your life even if you don't have a grand vision.

------
neoveller
I'm surprised nobody in the comments or even in the OP has mentioned the
prevalence of "How to get into YC", "How to hack your way into YC", etc.
submissions that pop up on HN every cycle. There really have been a lot of
those and they usually try to spell out a concise set of rules or patterns for
each question/step. Even when PG gets interviewed and asked the question "What
kind of companies do you accept?" I wonder if he realizes that this is bait
for prospective applicants and blog post fodder instead of a genuine
opportunity to endorse the quality of startups accepted into YC (to make these
companies look good).

Has there ever been a write-up on "how to get into YC" by someone who followed
such a guide and got in?

\- Someone who was rejected 4+ times, and doesn't believe in that kind of
stuff anymore

~~~
rdl
A fair number of YC founders/alums have written about the application process
and how to optimize for it.

I'm thinking about doing something like that, but it would be about helping
people avoid false negatives (which make YC's decision-making harder, by
obscuring/defacing otherwise great applications), rather than helping bad
people or even marginal people get into YC when they otherwise wouldn't.

There are a lot of things you can do to make it _less_ likely you'll get into
YC. Not doing those things is the first step. It's the "do this and you'll get
into YC" is much more concerning, because if there were exploits to the
process, they would harm the set of YC companies, and if they were widely
used, they'd rapidly be "patched".

------
bherms
This all seems so misguided. "I'm going to come up with something so I can get
into this club and I'm going to sit in protest until they let me in! And if
that doesn't work, I'll just keep trying." Reminds me of Rudy... Instead of
working on an idea in hopes of getting into YC, focus on an idea/market you
care about and don't give a shit whether you get into a special "cool kids"
club. That will get you a hell of a lot further.

~~~
wallflower
> Reminds me of Rudy...

In case you did not get the reference, the story of Rudy is a famous,
sensationalized true story of the power of perseverance.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Ruettiger>

~~~
bherms
I often take for granted that most other people in the world didn't grow up in
Indiana

------
lucisferre
> I think that this in and of itself was the reason we were rejected. We
> hadn’t done a whole lot of customer discovery, didn’t have a fleshed out
> business model, and were banking on the idea that once we got into YC we
> would take care of all that. We were counting on YC to create our business,
> not just accelerate it. I believe this showed in our application, and is
> ultimately what hurt us the most.

I'm learning this now. We've been working this idea over for months so _we_
think we know it. And sure we've talked to customers, but we have not focused
on rigorous customer development.

All I can say know is if you are getting started on an idea start with
customer development, do it early, do a lot of it and actually learn to get
good at it. It's everything when you're talking to investors or customers. It
helps define all the fuzzy details of your product and business model. It
helps determine distribution, positioning, marketing and yes features.

Do not underestimate this part.

~~~
sherm8n
Customer development is really good. You gain a deep understanding of the
problem you're trying to solve. You know what's even better though? Convincing
those customers to pay you immediately. Now your bar is set high. You need to
deliver a quality product or service. I find that when doing customer
development for customers who aren't paying they tend to care less about what
you're doing.

------
PAULHANNA84
I read your post and it reminds me of how I was at the age of 18 when I
started my first business. At 18 I had grossed over $100k on eBay within a
single year but at the time they were hypersensitive to any wrong doings and I
ended up getting kicked off the site for a few months. I wanted to handcuff
myself to their front entrance door until they reinstated my account. hahaha!
Ahhh wreckless passion...the good ol days! :)

------
gesman
Instead of trying to sell yourself in the orange room, build something and
make them come to you. Set the rules of the game. You can do that.

------
sherm8n
One way to look at getting into YC is like a marketing channel. They help you
shape your startup into something that looks fundable. The press will get you
eyeballs. But it's still up to you to successfully convert those eyeballs into
paying customers. Your startup won't just magically become successful.

------
mvkel
“At the end of the day YOU have to be the one to make your own destiny. If we
want Kodable to be used in every elementary school in the country, YC isn’t
going to do that. We are.”

...so get to it. The past 3 seasons you spent trying to get into Y Combinator
you could have spent building a base of customers.

------
yesimahuman
I wouldn't take it so seriously. In the grand scheme of things it's a minor
detail unless you let it be a major one. (I've been rejected several times but
my company is profitable and growing at a nice rate and I'm having the time of
my life).

------
Glyptodon
Am I the only one who thinks the poster sounds like an oblivious narcissistic
bro jock?

~~~
IEatShortPeople
Do I love the guy, no. But, he is doing something. I've "completed" quite a
few side projects (video game, chat server, etc) but I've never got anyone to
actually use them. To do all three sides of the coin, technical product
development, artistic design, and marketing, earns you respect in my book.

------
programminggeek
You know, the one thing that I think even PG would agree with is that the best
way to figure out some of this stuff is to ship product, talk to customers,
fix stuff, and repeat the cycle of shipping, talking, and fixing.

The OP is lucky they finally figured this out and shipped regardless of YC.

Getting VC or getting in YC can be great, but plenty of great businesses are
built by people just putting their head down and building stuff.

------
Mc_Big_G
Only 3? ppfffffttttt

------
001sky
This is an interesting essay on the _politics_ of education. Wherein the
filtering mechanism drives, in a somewhat murky way, "real-world" behaviour.
That being said, the quote _you can never step in the same river twice_ comes
to mind, and its interesting to see the experience from another perspective.

