

Ask PG: Do you every track down successful YC rejects to improve selection? - malandrew

Over the past few years, YC has rejected thousands of teams. Statistically most will end up failing or having mediocre success, but a few may end up being successful. When you learn of a successful YC reject do you go back and review their application to learn if there is a way to improve the selection process?<p>Conversely, do you re-review the applications of those team you did accept but turn out to be disappointing to learn to pick up on warning signs that were in the application, but you guys didn't notice the first time around?
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pg
Yes. Whenever we discover that we missed a good startup, we go back and try to
figure out why. We've changed the selection process several times because of
such mistakes.

We're not so systematic about looking at the applications of groups we fund
that don't do well. Partly because when we mistakenly accept a startup, the
mistake is at the interview stage, and partly because we don't worry nearly as
much about mistakes in that direction.

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malandrew
Interesting. Are there any lessons you learned upon going back that are
particularly memorable?

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pg
Don't panic if we're funding a lot of groups on the first day of interviews;
have someone take a second look at the applications Rtm gives Cs to; pay more
attention to the founders than the idea.

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zbruhnke
"have someone take a second look at the applications Rtm gives Cs"

lol I am sure that can become quite a chore

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sandroyong
Would be interesting to see what success YC would have if more emphasis was
placed on the idea and less so on the founders...as an experiment. I agree
that founders are important. But has there been an instance where the idea
sounded great but YC was really not comfortable with the founders - resulting
in a missed opportunity. History has shown us that you can go from a non-
entrepreneur/tech to a great CEO suggesting that the idea is a not a real
factor. Yet, YC admits to choosing 'lemons'. Thus, the criteria for
emphasizing on the founders is certainly not without its faults and, thus,
could use a revamp.

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tryitnow
It makes sense to focus on founders over ideas because the idea frequently
changes as MVP's a launched and lessons are learned. The people stay the same.
YC is not stuck with the business plans that are pitched, they are stuck with
the founders they accept.

Plans can change, people rarely do.

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sandroyong
I agree with your points. But what if the idea is sound on paper? The fact
that people change is a variable in itself and that is my argument. No one can
truly predict that this person or that will turn out to be a good
entrepreneur. The 'lemons' that are picked may well be correlated not to the
idea but the founders. A weighted balance on both parts (idea and
entrepreneur) is required. Or is that too rare or difficult to achieve?

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geuis
pg answered a question similar to this a couple weeks ago during Startup
School. In general, his answer was that there have been some applicants that
have slipped through over the years. He went on to say that since there's now
a number of similar organizations like YC, a lot of the good ones that YC
passes on end up getting picked up by other funds. YC is able to use that as a
metric to measure their own processes and modify them over time.

