
Rejection letter from summer 05 - dhouston
"We're sorry to say that we can't accept your proposal for the Summer
Founders Program.  We were surprised by the high quality of the
applications, and wanted to accept more.  But since this is the
first year, we decided we'd better force ourselves to keep the
program small enough to manage.<p>A lot of the proposals we rejected for reasons having nothing to
do with the quality of the applicants.  For example, we were very
reluctant to accept any proposals with only one founder, or only
one who could come to Cambridge, because we think starting a startup
is too much work for one person.  We also rejected a lot of proposals
simply because we didn't understand the problem domain well enough
to judge them, or because the project seemed too big to start on
only three months of funding.<p>It's quite likely, in fact, practically certain, that groups we
rejected will go on to create successful startups.  If you do, we'd
appreciate it if you'd send us an email making fun of us; we want
to learn from our mistakes.<p>If this summer works out, we're probably going to fund more startups.
(Check our site for announcements.)  If we do, we encourage you to
re-apply in the future.<p>Thanks<p>Y Combinator"<p>today might be a rough day for some. but if it's any encouragement, i was rejected in summer 05 and two years later (summer 07) applied with a different idea and more experience and was accepted. yc turned out to be mostly right about the problems with my first idea, and i learned a lot in the intervening two years.<p>so don't think it's the end -- hang in there!
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ryanspahn
Is there a YCombinator for single inventors in their 30s or for senior
citizens?

One of my concepts I submitted am I told by those whom I show it to, that it
is an industry changing concept!

Though it maybe ahead of it's time & mobile Internet technology/sector need to
be more robust - what I show only is only the basic concept. What do you
think?

I use my site everyday driving to and fro work. I used to have satellite
radio, but no longer have the need!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq_lkSRDFck>

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Please take this as constructive, because I'm speaking from the voice of
experience here.

"I told by those whom I show it to, that it is an industry changing concept!"
-- this phrase is a red flag for me. (Another big red flag phrase is "if we
only capture x% of the market...") I've had applications like that too. I
would just be careful that you base how cool your idea is on one thing: number
of active users. People can say all kinds of great and wonderful things about
you and your app; and they will. But it all boils down to users. If you got
'em, doesn't matter what people say one way or another.

~~~
ryanspahn
Thanks :)

Why is my phrase a red flag to you? I was just conveying words from those who
have seen the YouTube video. Sorry if it sounded I was implying this is the
best concept over anything, not my intent!

As for users that is a future milestone for YCombinator companies. Y assesses
the applications to find the best of the bunch! This concept did not meet Y
standards and that's great, I look forward to seeing the startups chosen and
wish them good luck!

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I had a guy once that spent 15 minutes telling me how great my invention was.
Then I asked him to pay for it.

The room got very quiet after that.

Talk is cheap, that's all I'm saying. I would never judge a quality of a
business model, good or bad, simply because of what somebody says about it.
I'm sure you have a great application. I look forward to hearing how it goes!

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adrianwaj
1 person startups would've ruled out Plentyoffish.com (Markus Frind) and
Napster (Shawn Fanning).

~~~
henning
I suspect they would have strongly disliked Markus Frind because he can't
write using proper grammar and punctuation. And, even worse, his site is total
Microsoft fanboy stuff. Windows, SQL Server, ASP.NET, scaling to tens of
millions of users and more money per month than all YC acquisition sums.

~~~
mattmaroon
Markus Frind is a moron who was in the right place at the right time. If you
funded 1,000 of him, you'd lose on 999.

As we say in poker, even the blind squirrel finds an acorn some times. Markus
Frind is a prime example.

~~~
henning
I definitely wasn't defending him, I just think it bears repeating that you
should build your stuff with whatever you're most comfortable with.

"What do you know about servers that Yahoo and Google don't?" Well, you'll
probably never be Yahoo or Google and you don't have their same requirements,
so if you get down with SharePoint 2007 Enterprise Solution Architect Server
Plus Pro Home Business, go for it.

~~~
adrianwaj
Markus says: "My short description leaves a lot out, but basically I spent
every waking minute when I wasn't at my day job reading, studying, and
learning. I picked out "enemies" and did everything I could to defeat them
which ment being bigger then them. I refused to accept defeat of any kind, and
I constantly forced myself to test new things. I never tried to perfect
anything it didn't matter if things didn't work 100% as long as it was good
enough I would move onto the next thing. In 2003 the dating market was growing
80% a year unlike the -10% in 2006 so growth was a LOT easier. When 2004
rolled around and word of mouth REALLY kicked in and as they say the rest is
history."

[http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/14/how-i-
started-a...](http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/06/14/how-i-started-an-
empire/)

------
brlewis
I'm curious what motivated the change from "send us an email making fun of us"
in 2005 to "send us an email telling us about it" in 2007.

~~~
rms
It sounded somewhat arrogant in the original version. It wasn't arrogant, of
course, it was serious, but it could certainly be perceived as arrogant or
smug.

------
pepeto
You make it sound like this is the only way to go in life. "If you have
failed, you still can live..."

