
YC W15 emails are out - tjculbertson
Don&#x27;t give up!
======
yosho
My team and I got rejected in 2010. We're still working together and we're
generating mid 8 figure revenues now. So it's definitely not the end of the
world and the silicon valley network is so vast these days that no one should
let a YC rejection stop them from doing amazing things.

Keep on truckin!

~~~
sillysaurus3
Mid 8 figure revenues? Like, $50,000,000/yr? If you're still growing, it
sounds like YC missed out.

~~~
pptr1
YC will miss out on allot of companies. It not humanly possible for them to be
that good.

I rather have a business that has that type of growth than get into YC.

------
kamikazi
Got rejected. No big deal. Will continue as planned. Good luck to everyone who
got selected and double of that to fellow rejectees.

Launched a medical tourism startup-- prepre-alpha. Just nothing to show on url
really (OTOH I also wonder if radical honesty would be the path to take?)

If huge or uncertain costs, or the fear & uncertainty of fighting your
insurance/Dr/hospital over surprise billings post-hospitalisation is holding
you back from any, and I mean ANY, elective treatments - let's talk.

In most cases, for a fraction of cost of copay+deductibles, apples-to-apples
less than 10% what it would cost you in USA, you can get yourself treated &
pampered at top-class facilities in India. Including return airfares. We have
docs/hospitals/nurses with solid repute.

Here to help you navigate and arrive at right choices.

Happy to answer any queries or concerns that a potential patient has. My email
is in my profile. Can chat/Skype/Hangout whatever. No time-limit, no-
obligation, no fake-guilt selling. Will keep answering queries as much as I
can. At the end of it if you decide against it that's perfectly ok.

So yeah, email me?

------
rgbrgb
One positive data point here. We got invited for an interview [1]!

It's at least the 4th time I've applied, 2nd time with this company, and the
1st time I've been invited for an interview.

Good luck to everyone, and as I always tell myself: YC is not the goal, making
something people want is not the goal, making something good that people want
is the goal.

[1]: [https://www.openlistings.co/](https://www.openlistings.co/)

~~~
retrogradeMT
Your site looks great. As an objective 3rd party with experience in the real
estate sector, I think you are on to something great. (Which is obvious since
you got in!)

------
pptr1
I think the mindset to have here is that YC is so popular and the number of YC
partners are so small, that you have a very small chance to get in the first
place.

I wouldn't burn too many candles hoping to get in or trying to figure out a
reason why you did not. There is a benefit to applying in that it makes your
commitment to your startup even stronger.

Focus on what is important and that is your business. I truly believe building
something sustainable is better for YOU, than trying to make the next Dropbox,
Facebook etc. But if you already gaining Facebook like traction I am sure YC
will already have heard of you.

Worry about your startup and just focus on making it sustainable. Becoming
popular with customers and maintaining that relationship. has more benefits
for more people than getting into YC. Focus on what is important.

~~~
tjculbertson
This is an interesting point on the timeline for YC in that their apps
increased 40%!

PG says they now have 3 silos, like 3 mini YC's reviewing. But if you have
1400 alums reviewing apps, by definition you are going to have scoring that is
biased against finding black swans, regardless of how many silos you create.

As you say, the problem is too many apps and not enough time for a smaller
amount of alums to review the apps.

One answer might be going to a rolling application process to avoid the
washout that happens with a wave 40% bigger than you anticipated. And/or
opening other offices, which is most likely in the works.

~~~
ajju
"PG says they now have 3 silos, like 3 mini YC's reviewing."

Can you point me to where PG said this?

"But if you have 1400 alums reviewing apps, by definition you are going to
have scoring that is biased against finding black swans, regardless of how
many silos you create."

Why do you think the scoring is biased against black swans?

~~~
tjculbertson
I think it was in this video with Jcal
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMqgiXLjvRs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMqgiXLjvRs)
. Not sure at what point in the video, but PG definitely gives up lots of
great success tips, so worth watching it all.

As far as the black swans, I could be wrong on this, but my understanding is
that YC has maybe 10 partners all giving a grade on the apps coming in
(apparently started this after they missed SendGrid). Im not sure if the 1400
alums initially flag or what, but even with the 10 partners grading, their
odds of finding black swans get worse because black swans don't look like
winners to most people - they are essentially counter intuitive, crazy ideas
that don't appeal to the majority in the beginning (or maybe the founders are
not Stanford drop outs or ex Googlers, which further sways the majority to
give higher grade to what is more obvious. Thus pushing down more potential
black swans below the interview cut off line.

So the more partners you have grading a particular startup, the more partners
you have trying to cover their asses and not fuck up. So the safer choices
will get more interviews - and safe choices don't usually result in black
swans.

Not sure if I'm making sense here, but maybe the proof is in the pudding in
that some of their biggest wins are Dropbox, Reddit, and Airbnb...all
relatively early in YC batches when there were fewer partners making choices.

------
mck-
Getting into YC is not the goal of a startup. The goal is to make something
people want. YC certainly helps you achieve that goal, but it is by no means
the only way!

------
dmvaldman
If you got rejected, mind sharing what you're working on? Reply below!

~~~
onuryavuz
[http://cubic.fm](http://cubic.fm) connects different music sources in a
single player and helps users build a globally accessible online music
library. Launched the public beta a week ago.

we want users to be able to

-Create an online music library, independent of the source providing the content. -Build it further by collecting any track discovered anywhere on the web. -Access and interact with other users' libraries, no matter which service they use or subscribe to.

~~~
scottbruin
Hey, I tried this out. There are some solid playlists in there.

A couple things I found confusing:

\- I don't have flash installed in Safari (comes packaged in Chrome) and there
was no explanation as to why music didn't play back when I was in Safari

\- initially Rdio playback was limited to 30s samples even though I had my
Rdio account linked. I _think_ I fixed this by logging into Rdio in the same
browser session, but not certain

~~~
onuryavuz
Thank you for your feedback! This is unexpected, I'm checking it right now.
I'll let you know when it is solved.

------
mck-
Here's a curious data point: we were invited for an interview last time, but
we didn't get in. We had no paying customers yet. The feedback was that we
should get 10 customers and apply again. So we did. But no interview this time
:/

~~~
ajju
Hey, you have an interesting product. Curious why you priced it per vehicle. I
am a potential user, but the per vehicle pricing makes it incredibly expensive
for us to even consider it. What kind of customers do you have right now?

~~~
mck-
We have customers delivering moving boxes, picking up laundry, lawn care,
compost bins, etc...

What is your use-case? We can talk alternative pricing models if you find it
valuable -- email me at marc@routific.com

------
usernamepc
As expected. Single non-coding founder. Why do i bother? For a few weeks after
the rejection I find myself very highly motivated.

~~~
erbecke
Learn how to code. It's not impossible. You need to understand how to code if
you want to run a IT company. Regards!

~~~
usernamepc
I'm sure I could learn but I'll never be at a level to be really productive,
so I find it better to use my time on doing customer development, product
management (which I can do), sales and finding ways to make money to pay the
rent and the contractors I hire to design and code. This model, while often
considered 'bad' by the experts, works for me- so just running with it. In
case you are curious we're live at
[http://www.oncontracting.com](http://www.oncontracting.com). A website that
makes it easy to find onsite contract jobs at Fortune 1000 companies.

------
akshatpradhan
\o/ for rejection!

Launched a turbo tax, but for PCI Compliance.

Managing PCI Compliance is an unsolved real (big) problem, even bigger than
HIPAA. There's been headline breaches in the news (e.g. Target, Kmart,
Staples) and companies fear PCI because of its vague language and cost. With
my relevant domain expertise in the security field, I'm bringing new tech to
an old-school market.

[http://www.ComplianceChimp.com](http://www.ComplianceChimp.com)

Instead of completing a PCI Requirement that looks like this:
[http://i.imgur.com/ZW0PzBd.png](http://i.imgur.com/ZW0PzBd.png)

You can complete one that looks like this:
[http://i.imgur.com/XdkrG4o.png](http://i.imgur.com/XdkrG4o.png)

------
raphael_motta
Got rejected, but we will keep working hard!

Our Startup is Cronus Audio Technology.

The main purpose of Cronus is to enable the musicians to extract the most from
their performance, simple, elegant and versatile way, offering innovative
tools that cover expressive artistic interactions, excellence in audio effects
and social connectivity.

Our first product will be the Cronus-Z, an innovative proposal for equipment
that mixes the functionality of a multi-effect pedal with the power and
versatility of an audio workstation, in a compact and portable format. The
Cronus-Z will have numerous resources, to effectively meet the demands of
various user profiles.

More information can be found at: [http://www.cronus-
audio.com](http://www.cronus-audio.com)

------
stevenjohns
Rejected. Sucks. The idea was very solid and the team was solid (between the 3
of us we have 2 artists, 2 computer science degrees, 2 computer engineering
degrees, and an established viral content marketer). The only two issues were
that

a) We are planning to build a hardware product and are at the mock-
ups/renderings stage so we do not have a prototype, and b) One of the team
members hasn't physically met the other two (although we've worked on projects
before and have a ~4 year friendship).

I had some correspondence with some of the partners about the second point--
PG told me it would be a problem, but Garry Tan said its not really a deal
breaker. So I'll put it off to the lack of prototype which is what killed us.

~~~
sillysaurus3
If the idea is solid, why are you letting YC's rejection get in the way of
pursuing it?

Determination matters most.

~~~
stevenjohns
We're not. It slows us down considerably, but we're still pursuing it.

~~~
MarkyPc3
Don't let it slow you down. Think about things practically. If you didn't get
accepted now, that only means you won't receive money from them for now. You
can still always get in touch and ask questions and hopefully get answers. The
most important part of YC is that you have an intense drive to get work done
without being distracted. You have a [petrifying] sense of accountability and
a demo day to get ready for. If you can set these up for yourself, then it
could be just as good. The only thing missing would be to get in touch with
partners who'd otherwise have more time to speak with you and meet you in
person. Email your questions. You may get answers and you may even build
meaningful relationships eventually.

------
JASchilz
Rejected.

Now my startup is gonna succeed...just a little more slowly.

------
lkedem
Got rejected. Will continue as planned. Getting into YC is not the goal, it is
what it is - an accelerator. I am sure if I had gotten in, I would be able to
take my company further faster, but with the slim chance of 3% interview
invitation rate this definitely wasn't something to count on. I did have an
extra glimpse of hope when I saw my founder introduction video had a view on
ycombinator.com on oct-26th (amazing how google tell you these things). The
company: infiniRoom - Never run out of storage space on your smartphone. sign
up for beta [http://www.infiniroom.com](http://www.infiniroom.com)

------
uncoder0
Yep... Just got ours. Time to get back to work.

------
ChrisNorstrom
Just remember: "YC is an option. Not a barrier."

Real entrepreneurs might WANT to get into YC, but do not NEED to get into YC.

If you really "need" YC then I think you're doing it wrong. Usually the types
of people who are devastated by their YC rejection (like me my first time) are
the kind that have everything riding on YC. As if it's the only way to get
anything built or started. It's a terrible mindset to have. Once I opened up
my options and had a plan B, C, D, etc... my business improved, my startup
ideas changed and got better, I built more things and got more experience.

------
abhi1304
Got rejected. We are working on an Answering (Analytics) system that works
with Natural Language and voice. [http://numahub.com](http://numahub.com). Our
product is cool and we are very positively moving ahead. YC acceptance would
have been great but not being accepted motivates us to push harder.

------
e7chun
Wow...there are some amazing companies out there. Kudos to those who got the
interview, but for those who didn't, don't give up!

My team (www.stempaks.com) was really fortunate enough to get an interview.
But like rgbrgb said, our goal isn't to get into YC; it's to create a good
product that people will want.

------
johntheoak
Also rejected but that's fine, our project is quite new
([http://stackeo.me](http://stackeo.me) \- A Product Hunt for developers) so
we have a lot to go.

Good luck for those who got an interview!

------
cliffkang
Back to work :)

------
yuprejected
Can you share how many applications there were for this batch?

Might make some of us feel like all these years grinding on startups isn't for
nothing and is just a simple matter of volume.

~~~
yousifa
They had said they were expecting close to 5k

~~~
michaelchisari
They said they were averaging 3 applications a minute on the last day, so
that's around ~4300 applications right there.

------
lettergram
Maybe third time is the charm... and a successful kickstarter

------
ameister14
Didn't get in, no worries though. Good team, great product moving forward. It
would have removed some obstacles, that's all.

Good luck to everyone, and keep at it; we are.

------
nyddle
Rejected. Working on a time tracking solution for google platform:
[https://whathaveidone.today](https://whathaveidone.today).

~~~
aliakhtar
I really wish I could see what it does without having to open a demo video.

------
suneel0101
Also got rejected, but just applying was a valuable experience because of the
sort of questions it forced us to tackle.

getpartake.com - Expense Sharing for Couples

------
DwayneSamuels
Btw, I haven't gotten a rejection email. I just know they sent out to they
guys they accepted. I guess our application really sucked lol.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
I think they're sent out in chunks. I sometimes get mine several hours later
than what others report.

------
henreman
Our team got rejected.

[http://doshh.com](http://doshh.com)

We were creating a mobile payment system to be used in Myanmar.

~~~
kamikazi
Sounds interesting. Few more details? - email in my profile. And all the best.
We got rejected too.

~~~
henreman
Hi Kamikazi, what project you guys working on? For me, I will still continue
with the project but without financial backing it will just be slower.

~~~
kamikazi
Me too. In my case YC deadline just happened to coincide my decision to
startup. More than the financial backing my startup would've benefited more by
being in YC ecosystem and my feet on the ground presence in signing up those
early customers. Might try in next batch. Good luck!

Can't see your email anywhere. Email me?

------
pulkitpulkit
Is there an argument for applying late (taking note of ~5k applications on
last day or so)?

------
chuhnk
Interesting that there's no feedback. If there's a process of online
application, review and automated email with a standard response then surely
some simple stock answer fitting to the application wouldn't be much effort. I
guess if a certain number are just rejected because of sheer volume then I can
understand.

~~~
uncoder0
If you read [http://ycombinator.com/whynot/](http://ycombinator.com/whynot/)
it says that sheer volume is the issue.

~~~
chuhnk
Bit of luck necessary then eh.

~~~
DwayneSamuels
The earlier you apply the better.

------
jdkanani
Rejected. Will launch soon.

------
abraren
Any nonprofit applicants out there? We'd love to hear about you!

~~~
gault8121
I received an interview for Quill.org. The third time was the charm.

The only thing that really matters is your users. Other people, such as the
judges who assess your app, the influential people whom you'd like to get
their support - these are not necessarily your users, and they won't
necessarily understand the problems you're solving.

Stay true to your users, and if they love what you are doing everything else
will follow.

~~~
abraren
Good advice, Quill & cool service! At Instrumentl we're stopping at nothing to
support our researchers, bottom line. Best of luck in interviews!

------
bozoUser
Dint make it. But appreciate feedback on www.snapkaro.com

------
DwayneSamuels
Won't give up. Feels like losing 10m.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Most people accepted into YC end up with nowhere near $10M. Not even $1M.

~~~
DwayneSamuels
The network of people there matters. If they were investing 10k in my company
I'd comply. Your network is your net worth.

~~~
sillysaurus3
The network is freely available. You could email sama with an honest question
as a startup founder and you'll probably get a reply. He genuinely loves
helping people.

I don't know what "Your network is your net worth" means, but it sounds like a
worldview in which the people you know matter more than what you can do.
That's sometimes true, but none of the major startups started off by
networking. It didn't matter who the Google founders knew. It didn't matter
who Zuck knew. What mattered was what they were doing.

The only reason investors might be interested in you is if you're starting the
next Google or Facebook, because their entire business model depends on it.
But there's an optimistic way to phrase that: If you're starting the next
Google or Facebook, then who you know doesn't really matter.

~~~
erbecke
It's depends where are you. We are in Latin America (invited), we are so far
away to have any chance to create a great network from here, and moving to SF
(or any place in USA) first without a network is almost impossible and very
expensive for us.

------
bozoUser
do the co-founders also get the email?

~~~
mjdude
Nope

