
The boring truth about why groups don't get invited to interviews - pg
http://ycombinator.com/whynot.html
======
uuilly
If you really want to do a startup then get used to the rejection thing. Even
if you get into YC you will probably have to get funding afterwards. To do so
you'll need to make the case that you are building a company that will
eventually be valued at ~$100 Million. It's very rare that you'll be able to
do that on the first shot. Or even on the 5th shot. I know a company that got
rejected 45 times before getting funded. And many more get rejected 10 times.
So shake it off. It's not going to be the last time it happens. And some VC's
/ angels aren't as nice as PG. They will twist the knife after the fatal
wound.

------
kyro
If you think you were rejected unfairly and that your idea is a good one, then
build it. PG is telling you that many didn't get rejected for any defined
faults or voids in your app. There were good ideas and good applicants, and
some were just a rung above you. If anything, that's more encouragement to
pursue your idea.

So you got cut, big deal. It happened to me before, and it happens to hundreds
every year. Just move on and be productive. In my case, I realized I needed to
get more into coding, and get a better grasp of everything, which is what I'm
doing.

Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, YouTube, Digg, Revision3, Ustream.tv, Qik, Meebo,
Delicious, Twitter, Craigslist, HotorNot, etc. all are
successful/profitable/growing in popularity and all did it without YC.

If you're confident in your team and idea, stop asking for feedback, you
already got the best feedback you could get, that there's 'literally nothing
wrong' about your app.

Congrats to who made it, and congrats to who didn't, it's a kick in the ass
that should launch you forward.

~~~
coffeemug
The concept of "fair" doesn't really apply here. YC can use any [legal]
criteria they wish. We're just interested in learning what we could do to
improve the application, so we're asking for a little more information, if
possible. It's not a "tell us why not". It's an "if possible, give us some
info to help improve efficiency of the process".

~~~
kyro
You can't give suggestions on improvement if you can't pick out anything
that's lacking or needs to be improved. That's the point.

~~~
coffeemug
Ok. Didn't hurt to ask, though :)

------
jeroen
This seems to answer the recent questions about movements and competition for
YC. With 200-250 rejected applications that are "pretty good", there should be
more than enough material for XCombinator (where X!=Y) to work with.

~~~
wheels
I'd like to suggest that we network a bit to see what can be pulled together.
I just submitted a story with some of what I'd like to see happen:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160398>

------
kirubakaran
I thought pg once said that there is no limit on the number of groups they can
fund in a cycle. I'll post a reference link if I find one.

Update:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31153>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9066>

[ thanks to <http://www.searchyc.com> ]

~~~
pg
There's no limit on the percentage of groups we interview that we can accept,
but there is a limit on the number we can interview.

~~~
ntoshev
So this is the first scalability bottleneck you have hit?

~~~
pg
It's the current one. There have been others we hit and overcame. We used to
review applications printed out on paper, for example; now we have software
for it.

We also have software for keeping track of all the startups, for communicating
with them, and for generating all the documents for startups we fund. We'd
have ground to a halt by now without these apps.

~~~
ntoshev
Any thoughts on how to overcome this one?

Perhaps try to achieve better ranking before interviews? You might do
psychological profiles or tests to estimate technical ability.

------
coffeemug
Would it be possible to see an example of a stellar application? You'd only
have to put it up once, and it would help all of us understand what we're up
against.

~~~
craig-faber
I think we can just look at who's been accepted in the past.

~~~
coffeemug
Sure, but that only gives you information about the people and ideas you're
competing with. It doesn't give you information on how to present yourself on
the application, which really is the bottleneck when conveying information to
YC.

~~~
craig-faber
Good point. I think I did a pretty poor job on mine.

------
aschobel
_So why don't we tell people why we didn't invite them to interview? Because,
paradoxical as it sounds, there often is no reason._

Maybe I'm trying to read tea leaves, but did the "You are the only founder"
boolean play a bigger part this time around since you received so many
qualified applicants?

Working full time as a solo founder for the last four months (and 13k LOC of
Java later), I understand why you would be hesitant to give the nod to a solo
found. The work is overwhelming, but some folks can pull it off if they have
the right support network and determination.

~~~
pchristensen
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=145749>

"The odds of being accepted are much greater (roughly 4x) with a cofounder,
but it's not impossible to get funded as a single founder." - pg

~~~
aschobel
My prodding was more along the lines that since there was an order of
magnitude more applicants this round and they only had a week to look over the
applicants, was it nearly impossible to get in being a solo founder?

I'm a bit annoyed with myself since I didn't apply to the previous rounds. I
first read Hackers & Painters over two years ago, ah well!

~~~
pchristensen
I think that figure was based on evidence from the previous 6 (?) rounds. I
would guess the 4x more likely for co-founders figure holds. pg usually won't
throw out a number unless he really means it.

~~~
aschobel
_I would guess the 4x more likely for co-founders figure holds._

Right, my guess is also the same.

My question was so pg could chime in with data since YC has gotten much more
popular.

------
mattjung
What about a simple traffic light feedback: green for the accepted ones,
yellow for the pretty good rejected ones, red for the rest. At least it would
help to see if someone is on the right track...

~~~
pg
It wouldn't work in practice. There are no sharp lines between these
categories, and we'd be misleading people, one way or the other, if we
insisted on drawing them. It already bothers me that circumstances force us to
draw a line between green and yellow, because we're probably discouraging some
people who should instead be encouraged. It would be even worse if we tried to
draw a line between yellow and red.

~~~
raghus
What might be useful are comments overall like "we received several
applications for online invitation services but nothing seemed innovative or
compelling enough to us" or "we received a handful of applications for doing x
but, in our opinion, the mobile space is where we think that market is
headed". I think you once mentioned that you get a ton of hotel/food review
website ideas. You've also indicated that you think the email overload
management is an area of YC's interest.

Doing this might help at least some of the applicants get some idea. Not
everyone is covered by these comments and no one is forced to take your
opinion for it but it just helps to get broad feedback.

~~~
davidw
PG seems like a nice guy and is doing something really cool with YC, but it's
not his job to give people advice, beyond the people he picks for YC. Part of
'not giving people advice' probably includes statistics on what sorts of
applications are 'hot' in a given time period, which might actually be fairly
valuable information that they want to keep to themselves.

If you want advice on your app, post an 'Ask YC' thing here and usually,
people will give you some pretty good feedback.

~~~
jfornear
Wouldn't it be a bad move to do this if you are still in "stealth mode"? I
have been thinking a lot about this especially after having not been accepted
into YC. Half of me wants to know what people in the business think about my
idea, and the other half wants to wait longer until closer to launch?

------
Mistone
recent tweet from venturehacks: You don't need permission to start a company.
From investors, co-founders, or anyone else. (including PG, Jessica, and
Trevor)

------
raghus
Summary: The number of good/compelling ideas+team >> Available spots

~~~
dgabriel
Exactly. Thousands of Valedictorians don't get into Harvard every year.

------
astine
I think that the reason people want to know is not that they are looking to be
graded, (they already have,) but that they would like to know how to do
better. They want to improve their chances of getting in next round or
succeeding while going solo. It seems to me that a "why I wasn't excepted"
would be the first piece of advice I'd get from YC.

------
trey
"Probably the reason people expect feedback about why they were rejected is
that they implicitly think of this as like a grade in a class. But a test
where only a fixed number of applicants can pass regardless of the average
quality is not a grade in that sense."

Actually, I disagree with the premise of this statement. I don't want feedback
on why I was rejected, I want feedback on my product. Yes, I can see that it
is very nuanced and difficult for you to say which idea/product is better than
another, and you have your own business reasons for making those decisions. I
don't think anyone really expects you to disclose those reasons, and even if
you did it would be completely subjective and would just lead to arguments.
However, given that, you're only addressing why you don't comment on the
relative strengths of the applications and not why you don't give feedback on
any individual product/idea.

------
antirez
Sorry but there is no logic in this article. If the top 50-60 "stellar"
applications will put the other 250 down, this 250 applications are missing
something compared to the top 50-60 or they are not very strong in some point,
so you can at least reply with an hint, like: The idea could work but you did
too little things in the past compared to the best applicants, or for example,
the way the application expose the idea give us the feeling you are not
addressing the problem in a way we like.

In brief once you are able to see a difference between the stellar and the
non-stellar ones you know why the rest is non-stellar and an hint can be a
nice feedback for a people that spent some time writing the application.

------
mynameishere
One day, you'll have a manuscript to push and you'll _really_ know what
rejection is...

------
adityakothadiya
PG, I have one suggestion - for many people, YC funding amount is not as
important as the advice and networking they will get there.

Can you think of a mechanism where the next 10 promising or so YC applicants
who didn't get funding in this cycle atleast get other benefits in return of
some equity for YC?

For e.g., YC members can advice those 10 startups for weekly or bi-weekly
basis. Also, these startups may get chance to attend those weekly dinner
meetings or so. Of-course, this would take YC's extra energy, but they will be
rewarded with some reasonable amount of equity as well.

What says? Does this make sense?

~~~
pg
The problem is, the "other benefits" are what's in short supply, not money.

------
samwise
Interesting, the main thing i take away from what pg said is there's a need
for more YC clones. Clones that can handle the talent that YC can not
accommodate

------
ubudesign
only a suggestion but since there are many aplicants, the selection proccess
could be done in more stages.

~~~
Alex3917
This seems like a good idea on the surface, but in practice I don't see how it
would work. There are only two real categories of information being collected,
the information about the idea and the information about the team. And it
doesn't really make sense to separate the evaluation into two different phases
since the variables are multiplicative; that is, if the value of one is zero
then the value of the whole equation is zero.

~~~
ubudesign
true, but what i was thinking is that way you would know which one failed.
your idea, your team, etc...

------
keating
Next: To get into that YC clone in India. You know, the one with armed guards
that make sure you don't leave your cubicle before midnight. (Shamelessly
copied from the real YC.)

