

Ask YC: what could be done better - next time - xenoterracide

Sorry for yet another summer 2008 thread here's a quote from my rejection email.<p>We realize this process is fraught with error. It's 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
telling us about it; we want to learn from our mistakes.<p>what do you think could be done better?<p>I'm not sure if this is too much to ask but to be able to review our applications, and perhaps have a spot for yc to have left comments. I'd like to know if it was something other than the obvious solo founder black mark.<p>Also and additional comments box in the application would be nice. I had a few things to say that didn't really fit in anywhere else.
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mattjung
I wonder if it would be possible to get some basic quantitative feedback from
YC to get a clearer idea about the strong and the weak points of an
application, e.g. a rating from 1 to 5 for criteria like quality and potential
of idea, fittingness of the founders, progress of the project, potential and
risk of business model, etc. you name it. Risk for YC would be that people try
to optimize their application against the criteria and distort somehow the
competition.

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xenoterracide
I should also note that I'm looking for more review because as I said in the
other thread. I believe in self improvement, I of course wonder if it was just
the solo founder thing, or if there was maybe something else. If there were
other things I'd like to know so I don't repeat my mistakes, I can only avoid
mistakes in the future if I know what they were.

Hindsight is only 20/20 if you have enough data.

In this case I am guessing it is my late application, and the fact that I am a
solo founder. Having a demo would help too.

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hendler
Maybe they are getting too busy, too successful? Not a bad problem for them to
have - but difficult for us vagabonds.

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keating
Previous rejection letters had a bit more detail; hope this helps:

    
    
        We're sorry to say we couldn't accept your proposal for funding.
        Please don't take it personally, because most of the proposals we
        rejected, we rejected for reasons having nothing to do with the
        quality of the applicants.  For example, we were very reluctant to
        accept proposals with only one founder, because we think starting
        a startup is too much work for one person.  We also had a higher
        threshold for applicants who were still in school, groups where one
        or more members planned to keep their current jobs, and groups that
        couldn't all move to California.  We rejected a lot of proposals simply
        because we couldn't understand them, or 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.  Sometimes we even
        rejected good ideas, because another group proposed the same idea
        and seemed further along.

~~~
xenoterracide
"because another group proposed the same idea and seemed further along."

That'd be nice to know. Especially since one might want to join that group ;).

~~~
SwellJoe
This time around pg set up conversations between some of the prior founders
and some of the applicants--to get a better feel for the teams, and to give
them a chance to ask any questions about YC they had (including what to expect
in the interview and how to best present their case--and maybe even who to
pitch to, since sometimes pg is not going to like your idea, but rtm or tlb
might if you pitch it right, and pg takes their advice seriously).

I was amused to find that one of the groups (one of the best we talked to,
actually) was planning to work on the same area as our new product from a
slightly different angle--I don't think they were entirely aware of how
closely the functionality of their proposed product matched what we're about
to launch until I told them). It's not at all unlikely that we'll contact them
in a few months when we begin hiring (because them having written no code, and
us having functional code in private beta with real paying customers, we do
seem further along--but they did seem like a smart team, and if YC doesn't
accept them, we might have a good place for them on ours).

I thought it was interesting, anyway. And since I've frequently stated that
the single best thing about Y Combinator is spending a lot of time with the
other teams, anything that provides more connectivity between founders is a
win for everyone.

~~~
keating
> _because them having written no code_

I'm curious as to how it was determined they were one of the best when they
hadn't written anything yet. It seems a lot of proposals with code and demos
got declined (not even looked at in some cases) but in this case a proposal
with no code, which has essentially already been funded and done by your
group... gets an invite?

~~~
SwellJoe
Prior work, though admittedly in unrelated fields.

I don't know if they got an invite--we talked to them before any decision was
made. But if they don't have a demo before the interview, I strongly suspect
they won't get in--our pitch was not well-received by pg, and only the
strength of our demo brought rtm and tlb around to an appreciation of the
difficulty of the problems we're solving. And, we have yet to prove that this
is a lucrative market--we know it is, but YC can't be blamed for not knowing
it yet, since we've had no exit and growth is steady rather than explosive.

But, YC will fund groups that are working on the same problem domain, but not
usually in the same round. Since we're a year in the past, I'm sure they
wouldn't turn a team down based on where we are.

